Technology+Facilitator+Standard+VI+Reflections


 * Reflections on Technology Facilitator Standard VI **

=
Technology Facilitator Standard VI challenges educational technology facilitators to understand the social, ethical, legal, and human issues surrounding the use of technology in P-12 schools and assist teachers in applying the understanding in their practice. The Texas Long-Range Plan for technology asserts that “the access and use of technology levels the playing field for all students” (TEA, 2006, p. 18). Although low-socioeconomic schools still fall behind suburban schools in terms of access to technology, quantity of computers and quality of teacher training, the gap is closing (Redish & Williamson, 2009). I feel privileged work and raise my children in a suburban district that utilizes all that educational technology has to offer, from Smart Boards, to I Pads and laptop carts. Unfortunately, some of my master’s programs colleagues are not so lucky. Many spoke with frustration about the lack of technology resources on their campuses and in several whole Instructional Technology programs are being dismantled due to the State removing the high school technology credit requirement. ======

=
While the use of technology to allow students to become “content providers rather than content receivers” (Mills, 2007, p. 4) has done great things for student instruction, allowing students to have access to social networking, email, blogs and other interactive forms of technology is not without its challenges. The Family Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) of 1974 set strict guidelines for the protection of the identities of students. I have dealt with this issue first hand during my internship project where I designed a virtual class. Students were required to make their own wikis to store their work for grading and peer evaluations. During this program, I learned a lot about FERPA and how to train students on proper netiquette and incorporated this into my course. Before any online work was done students we carefully discussed internet safety, posting procedures, copyright and piracy. In addition, after researching the topic I found that parental consent was necessary and had parent’s give consent for all activities. ======

=
Piracy and copyright are extremely difficult subjects to train others on, students and faculty. Piracy and copyright infringements are so commonplace that it was difficult to convince them that they were doing something wrong. Teachers interpret Fair Use as “I can take anything I want, reproduce, add to it or whatever I like because I’m an educator; it’s Fair Use”. I had to explain countless times that you cannot watch the latest Disney movie the day before break as a student reward because that is not covered under Fair Use. Students can be equally stubborn when attempting to have a discussion about piracy. In a middle school class, I had a student who believed that if you rented a movie from Blockbuster you could make as many copies as you wanted, all for the $3.99 rental price. He said that his father did it all the time. I’ve found success in personalizing the issue with students. I have them do a web quest where they put themselves in the shoes of their favorite band and they see for themselves the potential toll that piracy has on recording artists. This is an area where I am disappointed at the lack of progress and refusal to recognize that it is a crime. Unfortunately, because they won’t face prosecution for it students feel that it’s okay. ======

=
As an educational institution, we must do a better job to prepare our students to be appropriate citizens and students. As a graduate student, scholarly writing is greatly stressed. And although I consider myself a “digital native” (Prensky, 2005, p. 1), I learned to write reports and conduct research without the internet so I learned how to filter the thoughts of others and come up with my own ideas based on the things I read. Unfortunately, the availability of information has yielded a generation of “copy and pasters”. I have had to counsel countless students on what “in your own words” means because often they just steal a series of quotes from online sources, put their name and a title on it and call it a paper. I even had one student keep the underlined hyperlinks that were a tell-tale sign of plagiarism! Copyright and netiquette must become a recurring part of all courses, teachers cannot wait for technology teachers or the librarian to train students on how to appropriate conduct research. If we are to properly prepare students for a digital age, they must be able to filter information and use the internet responsibly. ======

=
Mills, L. B. (2007). The next wave now: Web 2.0. //The Education Digest //, //73 //(4), 4-5. ======

=
Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants: Part 1. //On the Horizon //, //9 //(5), 1-6. ======

=
Redish, T. & Williamson, J., (2009). //ISTE's Technology Facilitation and Leadership Standards: What Every K-12 Leaders Should Know and Be Able to Do. Eugene: International Society for Technology in Education.// Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education ======

=
Texas Long Range Plan for Technology. (2006). //Texas Education Agency//. Retrieved from http://www.tea.state.tx.us/WorkArea/linkit.aspx?LinkIdentifier=id&ItemID= 2147494561&libID=2147494558 ======