Aspirational ISTE Student Standards

The first draft of the new ISTE Standards for Students was released last month. There are seven proposed standards (up one from the current 2007 standards) and 28 performance indicators (up 4 from 2007). Just a note that the standards I've re-written below make more sense if you read the performance indicators that go with them.

1. Empowered learner. Students take an active role in choosing and pursuing their learning goals, leveraging technology to plan, convey, and achieve them.
2. Knowledge constructor. Students construct knowledge and make meaning for themselves and others by using digital tools to curate data and information.
3. Innovative designer/maker. Students use computing or digital tools within the design process to solve problems or create new, useful, or imaginative designs or products.
4. Computational thinker. Students identify and explore authentic problems using algorithmic thinking to propose or automate solutions.
5. Creative communicator/Creative learner/Creator and communicator. Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the tools, styles, formats, and digital media appropriate to their goals.
6. Global collaborator. Students use digital tools to learn from others and effectively work in teams.
7. Digital citizen. Students operate in a manner that demonstrates their understanding of the opportunities, responsibilities, risks, and foundational skills required to live, learn, and work in an increasingly digital world.

I have some questions/comments about these new standards.

• These are, of course, very broad. Any "pet" unit or software or topic could be shoehorned somewhere into these standards. Can or will these be used to design a more specific, more concrete set of standards that define basic digital literacy? Not sure the metrics that will go with most of the "performance indicators" under each standard.
• How different are these "new standards" from those written in 2007. Yes, computational thinker (to satisfy the coder advocates) has been added - and "Technology Operations and Concepts" has been dropped.
• While "Empowered Learner" is a lovely aspirational standard, I wonder how readily educators, parents, and society will advance self-determination for students. And some pretty fancy language in this standard - "Students use digital tools during reflection and to bring transparency to their metacognative processes." Is this like showing your work?

Anyway, in general I like the new standards. Just not sure they are sufficiently concrete or realistic to be of great value as schools write their own digital literacy standards. Couldn't we have both aspirational and pragmatic?

Oh, AASL, are you updating your 2007 Standards for the 21st Century Learner?

Comments

[Nathan Mielke]

Operations and Concepts should be near and dear to all ed tech leader's hearts...but it looks like other standards ate up the spirit of that one. You can find pieces of that language in Knowledge Constructor and Digital Citizen. I think "troubleshooting" has been replaced by some form of the term "problem solver." I guess that's a difference without a distinction.

I look at the standards this way - they allow for easy adoption by districts who can apply them how they best see fit. Even though ISTE is a non-governmental agency, I think leaving lots of room for "local control" will help adoption.

[Floyd Pentlin]

Doug, AASL has an editorial board in place for the revision of the AASL standards as well as an implementation committee which is operating at the same time. The new standards will be unveiled at the AASL conference in 2017 taking place in Phoenix, AZ.

Here is a link discussing the project and answering some basic questions. http://www.ala.org/aasl/standards-guidelines/revision

My question is -- just how many different sets of standards can we realistically chew and digest?

floyd

[Sarah Stoeckl]

Thanks for the thoughts, Doug and all! Draft 2 is going to be released this week and I look forward to hearing your perspective on that as well.

[Doug Johnson]

Hi Nathan,

The "looseness" of standards giving more local control being a positive is the same conclusion I came to when thinking about having two sets of standards that might apply to info lit - ISTE's and AASL's. While I initially grumped about having both, having the ability to pick and combine is powerful.

Doug

Thanks, Floyd. I was guessing there was an update in process at AASL! I look forward to seeing the work.

Doug​

Thanks, Sarah. When I get the link, I will use the blog to direct folks to Draft 2.

Doug