There are many things that influence teachers and students to use technology in the classroom. In this day in age technology is unavoidable. It’s everywhere around us and is constantly evolving. As technology is evolving and students are using it more, teachers want to use it in their classrooms too. I think teachers want to use technology because students are using it so often and using technology in their classroom can help to maintain students attention. It can make the lecture and material more appealing to students and can influence active learning in the classroom.

After reading the ISTE Standards for Educators, the standard that I found to be most meaningful to me is the leader standard. As a student that’s acquired several leadership roles in high school and college, I’ve seen firsthand how leadership roles can build confidence in students abilities and empower them to make a difference. Additionally, I’ve seen through my observation hours for the Education minor how students love to have even small roles, such as being the line leader in class, an how crucial it is as an educator to provide them with those opportunities. One standard that seems outside of my current skill set is the designer. The only learner-driven activities that I think of that involve technology in the classroom is play jeopardy and digitally doing that before an exam review, as well as using the smart board when teaching and having students come up to it when I ask questions. Besides those two methods, I’m unsure of what other learner-driven activities I could create or do as an educator. 

Being a digital native is an individual who has grown up with technology. A digital immigrant is a person who did not learn about technology until a later age and eventually learned how to use it. I have seen differences between my teachers, digital immigrants, and myself, a digital native. Growing up I remember in the classroom teachers having students help put the morning announcements on from their computer, as well as with other tasks that teachers couldn’t figure out. I also noticed how the older teachers were not as willing to accommodate to technology. In one of my classes, my professor refused to use any technology. Every article review assignment had to be done on paper and printed out, as well as any lab reports. I found the teachers that accommodated to technology prepared me for college more and the job world. I also was able to look back at past work that I’ve done in the class if it was saved to my computer, whereas the teachers that did not accommodate to technology and required paper work I have never been able to go back and look at the material to refresh my memory when I wanted to. I anticipate with my future students that as technology is continuing to evolve, I’ll try to learn it. However, in a sense I will most likely become a “digital immigrant” as new technology emerges that I’m unaware about how to use. 

I commented on Edda's blog post and Alina's blog post. I thought their blogs were extremely insightful and similar to my thoughts as well. I thought it was interesting to see people's different thoughts on the ISTE standards.