EDTC 6433 – Module 3 – ISTE Standard 3 –
How can I collaborate with students, peers, parents, and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation without making them feel insecure or giving up? My demonstrations have sometimes not gone over the way I would have like them to and so how do I make them easier and helpful for the widest audience?
A subset of ISTE Standard 3 states that we should collaborate with students, peers, parents, and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation. This idea is something that certainly pertains to my work life and something I have wanted to look into. The two resources I found to correlate well with the complex topic of teachers’ wanting more technology in their classroom but in contrast, they are so apprehensive to use the technology. Now, as Christian Briggs describes in Digital Fluency, there is a big difference between being digitally literate and being digitally fluent and until you are fluent how can a teacher be expected to teach students on a software or piece of technology that they do not feel comfortable using. “Literacy and fluency have to do with our ability to use a technology to achieve a desired outcome in a situation using the technologies that are available to us. This applies to our ability to use a hammer, nails and wood to build the house that we intend to build” (Briggs, 2012).
For example, last year I did three different tech sessions on the possibilities of Turnitin.com. I am a big supporter and user of this product which not only helps with originality and plagiarism for students, but it also has a new ETS grammar checker. These tools and the fact that I now grade even my 7th graders paper on this system has changed the game. I do not have to lug around 90 student papers back and forth from school each night. There are also fewer late papers because the deadline closes and the students have to email directly their papers if they are late. Needless To say, I think this piece of tech is awesome and helps my teaching practice. It saves me time and provides the students with an experience of a tool they will probably encounter in high school and college. And as Tessier describes tips for integrating and implementing digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation to teachers without losing them in the process. I wish I would have read this before giving my tech support sessions. 
Although I know the teachers I showed the materials to were excited about the tech, they did not end up using it. Most of them left even in a gruff because they thought I was showing off or flaunting my skill, but as I am digitally fluent in the basics, I feel much more comfortable making mistakes with technology than they do. When Briggs explains that “a digitally literate person is perfectly capable of using the tools. They know how to use them and what to do with them, but the outcome is less likely to match their intention. It is not until that person reaches a level of fluency, however, that they are comfortable with when to use the tools to achieve the desired outcome, and even why the tools they are using are likely to have the outcome you want at all.” This is precisely the case when it comes to showing new tech to some of my colleagues. It takes time and practice to infiltrate their day-to-day routine, and unless it is forced upon them to change or it performs miracles some will still not change their ways. So how do I come off as less condescending with my tech information and allow my colleagues time and space to learn the new school without feeling like they are too far behind to pick up a new school or piece of tech?
Briggs, Christian, and Kevin Makice. “Digital Fluency.” SpringerReference (2011): n. pag. Social Lens, 2012. Web. 09 Feb. 2016. <http://www.socialens.com/blog/2011/02/05/the-difference-between-digital-literacy-and-digital-fluency/>.
Tessier, Dutch. “Tips on Technology Integration for Apprehensive Educators.” SmartBlogs. SmartBrief, 2014. Web. 09 Feb. 2016. <http://smartblogs.com/education/2014/02/05/tips-on-technology-integration-for-apprehensive-educators/>.
