While reading the NETS for teacher standards I found that they include six main categories. Each category has a general explanation and then are with are broken down further with performance indicators.  These performance indicators are detailed clarification of what the teacher can do to accomplish the standard.  These standards prepare the teacher with the knowledge of technology and cater to enhancing their technology skills so they and incorporate it into their preparation, teaching, assessment of students and also guide their students to become knowledgeable to use technology to benefit their learning.

            A category I think is vital for myself, as a future teacher, to be able to demonstrate competency in is standard one, “Technology Operations and Concepts.”  This is important because this category shows that the teacher holds solid information in the operations and concepts that technology has to offer.  This means that the teacher knows how to use programs within a computer, how to operate technology and realizes the importance that it brings to the classroom.  Teachers are also responsible in continuing to grow in their knowledge of technology as technology advances.  It’s important that a teacher is familiar with how technology is operated and the concepts within technology so they can pass on what they have learned and accomplished to their students more efficiently.

            One example of what I, as a teacher, could do to demonstrate this is to display and use credible websites on a pull down screen in the classroom to introduce new topics or to display the news or articles.  There will be images present and a greater amount of information we can obtain using the internet.  This will be able to grab the children’s attention and keep their focus longer if the information.  Another example of what I could do to demonstrate “Technology Operations and Concepts,” as a teacher, would be teaching my students the skills to use Microsoft Word Document, to help with papers, Excel, where they could learn to use graphs, tables and charts if they need to present data visually, and Power Point, to display their research in an organized presentation that allows images to help demonstrate their research.  All these programs are very beneficial to a student and it is important that their teacher has the knowledge of the skills and concepts involved to teach explain.

            As I read the NETS standards for students I realized that these standards serve just as an important role as the NET standards do for teachers.  There are six standards, each broken down into performance indicators which demonstrate ways in which each standard can be met.

            A category I believe to be important for a student to demonstrate competency in is “Technology Productive Tools.”  This standard can aid the student in providing resources that they can use for assignments, projects, research papers or simple to find information for their own personal knowledge.   Learning technology productivity tools can also give the children an opportunity to expand their understanding and be able to organize and display their work more effectively.

One activity that I, as a future educator, could develop to help my students demonstrate competency in is “Technology Productive Tools.”  Productivity tools is creating their researching credible websites on the internet on a topic and having them display their research findings along with sources and images on a Power Point.  They will then present their Power Point to the class to share what they have found.  Another activity could be having the students form groups and present a webquest, like we have recently done for our Science class.  The students can pick a biome, define and research a problem in that biome.  Then find out resolutions to the problem and together the students will create their own website displaying their research.  Then other classmates can view their website and learn about different biomes, problems that occur and how these problems can be solved.

After reading the NETS standards I feel I have become more knowledgeable in the goals in technology for teachers and students.  I have realized that I can demonstrate my competency within many of the standards but there are also some I could work on in becoming a future educator.  Also, I understand the goals that I will need to teach my students to achieve to benefit their learning and widen their technology skills.

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