The teacher I interviewed teaches at
Princeton Charter School in Princeton, NJ (Mercer County). She
acknowledged the differences between public schools and charter
schools, particularly how her school teaches one grade level ahead.
For example if you teach first grade you are actually teaching your
students second grade material. The teacher I interviewed was not at
all familiar with the NET-S/NETS-T but her school has just recently
looked into them in more detail. She did say that there will
probably be an upcoming professional development day dedicated to
familiarizing NETS-S/NETS-T with the teachers. Technology is used
for enrichment purposes. Since the school has a difficult curriculum
there needs to be a lot of reinforcement for the students, and the
teacher I interviewed says that technology plays an important part in
the day-to-day classwork for students. She also says that since the
school attracts a lot of gifted and special needs students they have
to be on top of technologies used in schools in order to stay
“attractive” and relevant in current school trends. She said
that the school provides basic computer classes – learning to
navigate the internet, type, using Microsoft applications to do
projects and other various computer literacy skills. They use
internet clips for current events and to reinforce lessons with
visual aids. I was a bit surprised that the teacher I interviewed
was not at all familiar with NETS-S/NETS-T. I had figured with the
progressiveness of the school like the one in which she teaches would
be already implementing them. I had initially thought that the NETS
would be very well known to teachers. As a future educator I would
discuss NETS-S and NETS-T and their necessity to be implemented. The
world in which students are living today is a very global and
technological world. Students need to be kept in the know because if
they are left behind my fear is they will be swept up and forgotten.
Technological advances affect our schools sharply and our students
need to be aware of them in order to thrive in the current school
system.
I was reading a bit further about the NETS-S/NETS-T and I came across this article. I feel that it is an interesting point of view and while I do not necessarily agree with all of the articles main points, it does offer different ways of thinking. Here is the article - what do you think about it?
ReplyDeletehttp://thejournal.com/articles/2010/04/08/21st-century-skills-evidence-relevance-and-effectiveness.aspx
It's really interesting that almost all the Interactivity 5 posts I've looked at, none of the teachers knew what NETS were. It's pretty obvious this is the point of Interactivity 5. I find the spread of NETS pretty startling, considering how easily I could integrate them into my lesson analysis from Interactivity 4. None of them seem to be that untranslatable, and they seem to encompass a lot of existing areas of the classroom. They seem usable even if you're not consciously using them.
DeleteShelby,
ReplyDeleteYour interview was enlightening. I agree with Greg on many points. This lesson has effectively taught me how important technology is to student success, how easy it can be integrated to lessons to transform learning, and how important it is for the future of education. It is interesting that your interviewee said that they would be incorporating the NETS into a professional development day. I think that this would be the most effective way to influence seasoned teachers to use technology when possible because it provides so much more than a monotonous view of education spewing from someone's mouth. This also gives all the teachers an overview of how to use this technology and help brainstorm new inventive ideas. I also agree that they are so easily intertwined in lessons that it becomes almost unconscious that they are being integrated. I wish that their importance had become prevalent when I was in school. I would have enjoyed how interactive NETS make lessons and transform learning because I am amused with how they change learning now and would have been fascinated by its creativity being spawned then.
Girard & Greg,
ReplyDeleteYou both bring up points that I agree with completely. The NETS are easy enough to integrate without there needing to be a lot of special training already and yes it seems to me that the NETS are already being integrated into the classroom even without the teacher realizing it.
The NETS seem to be easy enough to understand/implement that even seasoned teachers will have little to no problem with these practices. This is a relief since technology seems to be a thorn in some teachers' sides.