2017 ISTE Standards for Educators: From Teaching With Technology to Using Technology to Empower Learners

In 2008, the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)

published a set of forward-thinking standards for teachers that focused on using technology to support student learning and creative thinking, design digital age activities and assessments, model digital work, promote and model digital citizenship, and engage in professional growth and leadership. While these standards are still relevant today, technology has changed immensely during the past decade. In 2008, teaching with technology often meant using a computer to show PowerPoint slides or taking students to a computer lab to do Internet research. Since then, smartphones, tablets, low-cost computers (e.g., Chromebooks), three-dimensional (3D) printers, microcontrollers, virtual reality devices, and other new technologies have entered the market and changed the way people think and learn. Social media sites, like YouTube and Facebook, which were just gaining traction in the mid 2000s, are now visited by millions of people on a daily basis. The number of digital resources, websites, videos, and tools (e.g., G Suite, Kahoot, Buncee, Adobe Spark) available to teachers and students has grown exponentially. These new tools and technologies foster unlimited potential for learning.

Given the advances in technology and growing access to the Internet in and outside of school, ISTE sought to redesign its standards to mirror these changes and shift from a focus on teaching with technology to using technology to learn, collaborate, lead, and empower students (Smith, 2017). During the 2016–2017 school year, ISTE solicited input from more than 2,000 educators and administrators and used these data to redesign the standards around seven themes: Learner, Leader, Citizen, Collaborator, Designer, Facilitator, and Analyst. These 2017 ISTE Standards for Educators incorporate many of the previous standards, while also adding a focus on collaboration, advocacy, digital literacy, media literacy, computational thinking, privacy and student data, student empowerment, data-based decision making, feedback, and teaching colleagues.

With the potential for these standards to shape teaching and learning for the next decade, the ISTE Teacher Education Network leadership team has selected the ISTE Standards for Educators as our 2017–2018 theme. Each month, we will host a Twitter Chat and send out a newsletter filled with resources, ideas, and information for one of the standards. Then we will host a playground at the 2018 ISTE conference to showcase best practices and ideas for incorporating these standards into teacher preparation programs and teacher professional development activities.

For the Learner standard, we will explore professional learning networks (PLNs), Connected Educator month, Twitter Chats, Voxer groups, and other technology-enhanced learning activities. These are examples of informal, teacher-driven learning opportunities that can positively impact teacher learning and practice (Carpenter & Green, 2017; Trust, Krutka, & Carpenter, 2016).

For the Leader standard, we hope to encourage and support teachers in becoming advocates for the use of technology to bridge the digital divide and empower all students as learners. The digital divide is not just about access to technology; it's about the social and educational inequalities that impact how technology is used in schools and at home (Warschauer, 2007). When teachers become leaders and advocates for student equity and access to technology, they can help shrink the impact of the digital divide.

For the Citizen standard, we will focus on how teachers and students can become digital citizens who use technology to positively contribute to society. For example, after Hurricane Harvey, educators from across the country adopted classrooms, started virtual reading clubs, hosted book drives, and bought materials and supplies for those affected by the hurricane (Randles, 2017). As we explore digital citizenship, we'll also gather resources and ideas around key influential topics, such as fake news, media literacy, privacy, and student data.

For the Collaborator standard, we will identify and use digital tools that support social learning, such as the G Suite, Padlet, Diigo, and Symbaloo. We'll discuss ways to use virtual conferencing tools and social media sites to break down the walls of the classroom and foster innovative new learning experiences for students, such as the Exploring by the Seat of Your Pants Google Hangouts, Mystery Skype, and Musical Ambassadors for Peace.

For the Designer and Facilitator standards, we will solicit and share ideas, best practices, and research related to technology-empowered learning, since according to the U.S. Department of Education Office of Educational Technology (2016), “Across the board, teacher preparation and professional development programs fail to prepare teachers to use technology in effective ways” (p. 5). We, as the Teacher Education Network, need to collectively work toward improving how teachers learn to design technology-enriched activities that facilitate learning for all students.

For the Analyst standard, we will explore how students can use technology to showcase their knowledge and skills in a variety of ways. Providing students with “multiple means of action and expression” is a critical component of the Universal Design for Learning principles (CAST, Inc., 2017). We'll also explore how to use technology to collect pre-lesson, formative, and summative assessment data that can be used to inform teaching and learning.

This year, we have a large group of amazing leaders for the Teacher Education Network: Randy Hansen (Past President), Rachelle Dene Poth (President-Elect), Chip Cash (Communications Chair), Jana Craig Hare and Brandie Shatto (Professional Development team), Jennifer Courduff and Pena Bedesem (Special Education team), Dennis McElroy (Newsletter Editor), Kara Rosenblatt (Gifted Education), Mia Kim Williams and Anne Leftwich (Strategic Initiatives), Jean Kiekel (Innovation and Resources Chair), and Peter Hessling, Shelly Vohra, Janet Yin-Chan Liao, Samantha Fecich, Jennifer Fox, Tonya Ellis, Susan Poyo, Julie Delello, and Nicol R. Howard (Social Media Coordinators). Yet even with our mighty team of leaders, we need your help! I encourage you to share your best practices, conduct research and submit a manuscript to the Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education, join our Twitter Chats and engage in conversations, and post in the ISTE Commons. Together we can make a positive impact on how the ISTE Standards for Educators shape teaching and learning!

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Torrey Trust

Please address correspondence regarding this article to Torrey Trust, Teacher Education & Curriculum Studies, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 813 North Pleasant St., Amherst, MA 01003, USA. E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]. Twitter: @torreytrust