How relevant are the NETs for Teachers and Administrators to being a "Good Educator" today?
The NETs for Teachers is as general as the NETS for students, in that if you removed the technology piece, those standards could come from an Ed Psych textbook from a teacher prep program. Insert the word digital or technology and you have NETs for Teachers. Few people would argue with their validity.
Who could imagine being a Good Educator without facilitating learning or inspiring creativity? The same is true for authentic learning experiences; modeling the use of a tool or a skill; citizenship or responsibility; and professional growth. This list comes directly from the NETs for Teachers.
As in the NETs for Students, technology is a cross-curricular vehicle for these qualities of a good educator.
I haven't read any literature on educational administration, but once again, the list of NETs for Administrators reads like a commonly-accepted list of qualities of good administrators: vision, a culture of learning, professional learning, school improvement, and citizenship. Just insert technology and you have good DIGITAL qualities of administrators. Would anybody argue with those?
Honestly, NETs almost seem too simple to be Earth shattering. Technology has always been a tool/means for humans to meet objectives. I don't believe NETs is proposing anything new in that respect. ISTE seems to be steering clear from the fact that educational technology is an end in itself. It's just the most current means to achieve the ends that education deems appropriate. Am I missing something here?
You are not. However, too often these ideas are not articulated and subject teachers are left in a position to believe that they are solely responsible to teach their subject. "That's what they pay me for." Without articulated learning that we value and without explicit expectations of teachers, inevitably it becomes acceptable to feel responsible only for the learning of your students and of your subject, rather than the learning of ALL students and of larger learning outcomes.
ReplyDeleteThat's my take anyway...and I take to heart that if I am going to convince others of this, I will need many of the attributes of the effective administrator!