I interviewed a middle school math
teacher from the Clifton school
district in Clifton, New Jersey. He teaches Algebra to eighth graders. I conducted an email interview for accessibility. I know this teacher personally and I know how
busy he is with the curriculum as well as tutoring students. Sending
an email made it easier for him to respond and it also recorded the responses
in an email. When I brought up the NETS
to this teacher he had no idea what I was talking about. He had never heard of them. He actually stated that his school district hasn’t
implemented them, nor does he believe the state of New
Jersey has either.
I highly doubt NJ is not implementing these standards. I asked the teacher what he thought of these
standards. He said, “I think with proper
funding and access to technology tools, these could be helpful to our students.
I do, however, think these are very vague standards and may not
properly address the growing need for people going into the workforce to be more
than just technologically proficient. These are great ideas and can be
implemented, but I think students would need proper access to computers and
tablets. At this point in time, I don't think a computer lab or a handful
of computers in each classroom is going to do the trick. Unfortunately,
budget cuts and politics get in the way sometimes.”
This
teacher stated that they have a different set of standards that incorporate
technology across the curriculum. I have
talked to this teacher before and the standards he has to incorporate are the
Common Core Standards. Surprisingly I was
not thrown off by any of the responses this teacher gave. He articulated that to really implement these
standards, the district would need to provide more technology for the students
and staff to use. He also stated that
the staff would need to receive education on the new technologies they would
have to implement into the classroom.
With budget cuts, school districts are going to have a hard time to
write technology into the budget. I
would tend to agree with this teacher.
The budget is where technology is going to be cut, until these standards
are put into action.
As a future
teacher I would bring up the NETS-S or the NETS-T during any conversation that
involves the integrating of technology into the classroom. If these are the standards that teachers are
going to have to live by in regards to technology, teachers have to learn about
them. I would agree with this teacher
about them being a little vague. They are
going to be a great tool for us to regulate the use of technology in the
classroom, but they are a bit vague on what the different standards actually
mean. Obviously, when speaking to
another educator, we would have to discuss the different standards and what
they mean and how to incorporate them into our classrooms.
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