ISTE 2
Standard 2 reads as follows:
Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments
Teachers design, develop, and evaluate authentic learning experiences and assessment incorporating contemporary tools and resources to maximize content learning in context and to develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes identified in the standards.
a. design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity.
b. develop technology-enriched learning environments that enable all students to pursue their individual curiosities and become active participants in setting their own educational goals, managing their own learning, and assessing their own progress.
c. customize and personalize learning activities to address students' diverse learning styles, working strategies, and abilities using digital tools and resources.
d. provide students with multiple and varied formative and summative assessments aligned with content and technology standards and use resulting data to inform learning and teaching.
The mentioning of authentic and relevant learning experiences invokes what was said in an article about simulations and their real-world learning implications. The article posits that "Use of simulations in education have been purported as beneficial for a number of reasons: economy...exposure to different experiences that can accelerate learning...and...highly interactive experience" (Wood, Beckmann & Birney, p. 492). Essentially, technology can simulate a variety of experiences that may not have been possible for students to experience, for a variety of reasons. These experiences should simulate real-world applications of skills, particularly applications in different professional fields. Since many contemporary professional fields employ use of technology, the experience being simulated should give students a chance to interact with technology, as well. For instance, real world applications of Common Core skills in a language arts class can be found in film. Major motion pictures, for example, often reflect the values of civilizations within given time periods or civilizations of contemporary society. One of the Common Core skills is to analyze how a particular cultural perspective or point of view is reflected in a work of literature. Through use of technology, students can take this a step further and create digital stories, which take place in specific time periods, which are indicative of the perspectives and experiences of various groups of people who lived then. Though it is not a major motion picture, a digital story is an authentic task, as it simulates the creation of a motion picture. I had my students engage in such an activity to wrap up the unit on mythology, in which they analyzed how the myths reflected the Ancient Greeks' point of view on women in society, knowledge vs. physical strength and loyalty. They then had to create their own myth, as a digital story, which reflected a similar point of view. An example along with the student's written analysis as to how his movie reflect the Greeks' perspective, regarding the aforementioned topics is included below.
studentsampledigitalstory.docx
Cited
Wood, R. E., Beckmann, J.F. & Birney, D. P. (2009). Simulations, learning and real world capabilities. Education+Training, 1(5/6), 492-510.