Learning & Leading Through Technology

When ISTE began developing educa- tional technology standards for PK– 12 students in the early 1990s, it was ahead of its time. The organization saw the need to prepare students for the future, and it invested in standards as a way to give schools a clear path to staying relevant. The future that ISTE foresaw has definitely arrived, but it’s not standing still.

To ensure that the standards remain useful for students and educators around the world, ISTE has submitted them to a rigorous updating and revision process.

Standards are also helpful in research, as they provide a frame of reference to explain, predict, and understand phenomena. Imagine that you have been asked to provide a report on the appropriate use of technology in your classroom. From your teaching experience, you may be able to describe a number of things you do that could be considered appropriate use of technology. However, if you were able to use the ISTE Standards ( formerly the NETS) to guide your thinking, wouldn’t that task become much easier because you’d have specific things to look for? Also, the evidence you gathered would not be based on your experience alone, but on the collective experiences and knowledge of many educators and experts in the field who developed the standards.

The ISTE Standards ( iste.org/standards) are designed to connect with different roles and responsibilities in an educational environment. For instance, if you wanted to observe the principal of your school, you would use the ISTE Standards for Administrators (ISTE Standards•A), and if you wanted to investigate how the stu-

Helen Crompton is an assistant professor of instructional technology at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, USA. As an ISTE faculty member, she has worked with district leaders, principals, technology coaches, teachers, and parents across the United States.

Helen Crompton

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dents in your class are using technology, the ISTE Standards for Students (ISTE Standards•S) would be appropriate. Researchers can use the ISTE Standards in this same way. The other sets of standards include the ISTE Standards for Teachers (ISTE Standards•T), Coaches (ISTE Standards•C), and Computer Science Educators (ISTE Standards•CSE).

I searched the literature to get an idea of how researchers are using the ISTE Standards in recent years. I collated all of the studies I found and organized them into groups depending on which of the ISTE Standards they discussed.

Next, I grouped them depending on the role the standards played in the context of each study.

(See the table on the next page.)

What initially stood out is that the ISTE Standards have definitely gone international, as researchers across the globe are using them.

Researchers in Turkey and China, in particular, appear to be regular users of the standards, as numerous studies originated in these two countries.

In the collection of research I found, the most frequently used set of standards was the ISTE Standards•T, followed by the ISTE Standards•S. Many of the ISTE Standards•T studies focused on preparing the future teaching workforce.

Researchers have often found that new teachers are not adequately prepared to use technology, so many have turned their attention to thinking about how preservice teacher courses are aligned to the ISTE Standards.