Tech for Teachers
Media specialists can help teachers use technology
Staff -- School Library Journal, 9/1/2000
Technology might be great for helping students learn, but few teachers know how to use it well. In fact, a 1999 study by the U.S. Department of Education found that only 24 percent of teachers felt "very well prepared" to use technology in the curriculum. To counter the problem, the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) recently released a new set of technology standards for teachers. The National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) are aimed at classroom teachers. But media specialists can be instrumental in helping teachers meet them, says NETS Project Director Lajeane Thomas of Louisiana Tech University. Thomas hopes school librarians will familiarize themselves with the NETS standards, because they play a key role in sharing technology in their schools. "Often, new teachers go to the librarian first, and the librarians are often the ones with the knowledge of technology," Thomas says. The standards (available at cnets.iste.org/index3.html) are divided into six topics, including "Technology Operations and Concepts" and "Social, Ethical, Legal, and Human Issues." Many involve principles of information literacy similar to those in the American Association of School Librarians' Information Power document (ALA, 1999). That's no accident, explains Thomas; AASL members were part of the teams that developed the standards and the projects that support them. Besides AASL, other partners in the project include the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association.--Walter Minkel
