ReflectionsOnStandard4

In chapter four of //ISTE's Technology Facilitation and Leadership Standards: What Every K-12 Leader Should Know and Be Able to Do//, Williamson and Redish discuss Technology Standard Four. From this reading, I feel much more comfortable with standard four, and what it involves. For me to learn, I must break information down into a simple form. So to simplify, Standard Four deals with taking using technology as a way to test and measure how well your students understand what has been learned. The textbook mentions several strategies that could be used for this task. One that stuck out to me was the computer-based testing, or CBT. "CBT permits educators to quickly and efficiently identify and map student content areas to be assessed on tests, to create multiple forms of tests, to grade tests, and to analyze results" (Williamson, 2009, p. 78). This stuck out to me because I use it on a daily basis. As a teacher at an Alernative Education Program, we use a self-paced computer-based program to help students earn their high school diploma. As the network administrator on my campus, I am in charge of this program, so I use Standard Four on a daily basis.

During my internship, my approach to implementing this standard really started by filling out my internship plan at the very beginning. By planning ahead it this way, I was forced to think of possiblities for each and every indicator and standard, and then just found a way to implement them. As a learner, I learn by doing. Therefore, by doing this internship, and putting this all into practice, I feel that I am very ready to take on any job put before me in this field. Personally, I have always been one to do things alone so that at the end I could show everyone what I have accomplished. What I learned from doing group projects int this program is that a much better product comes about by working with other people.

Future learning in this area, I believe, will be based on how effective these technologies are, and how we can better the technology. "In the age of accountablility, Williamson and Reddish write, "technology facilitators must constantly evaluate technology for educational efficacy..." (Williamson, 2009, p. 89). Working with other students and colleagues have really helped me in implementing these standards and indicators. Being able to discuss with other teachers what they have been able to do and share what I have done has really helped us as a group become better. As a life-long learner I would like to research more in the future something our text mentions about overtesting (Williamson, 2009, pg. 87). I believe that today students are in fact overtested; and as one who never was a good test taker, I can identify with those students who have test anxiety, and those students who constantly second guess themselves on a test. So to me, a good question to research is to see if CBT gives this same type of anxieties, or if there is a way to create a test that can reduce this type of stress.

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