Photo: Mine 🙂
Last weekend, I participated in a 2-day training towards becoming an ISTE Certified Educator. I wanted to do this because I was reaching a point in my professional practice where I needed to rethink how I approached my work with teachers, reflect on my teaching practices and strategize how our entire school could engage with and reflect on best teaching practices which include technology. I also am very much looking forward to experiences which will help me prepare for future leadership opportunities.
The wonderful thing about this certification is that it totally is not about technology. Does it include technology? Of course it does, but the focus is on sound pedagogy, sound instructional choices and sound delivery and engagement practices. The ISTE Certification program engages educators in the habits of strategically using technology for teaching and learning.
One of the things I liked most about it was meeting my “tribe”. I decided to pursue this certification with Eduscape, who offers professional learning opportunities both nationally and internationally. My “tribe” members were from various parts of the US and beyond. The Phillippines was in the house, along with Peru and Brazil! My facilitators @mrsmhebert and @mikeW1016 were terrific, engaging, approachable, and smart! They were able to keep a group of about 40 educators engaged and energized over two eight hour days! Often, I find it challenging to connect with my online learning community when the community is initiated online, not that those are not effective. Meeting my cohort in person first however, provided a meaningful context for the relationships I know I will build and maintain going forward. Another thing I liked is that the certification process is not only device and tool agnostic, but vendor neutral. There was no one attempting to sell another product, tool, or service to our group.
Photo: Marcia Hebert
I am confident the program will assist me in rethinking and redesigning much of my existing teaching and assist me with recreating learning activities with technology to engage my students in learning that is meaningful, relevant and authentic to their lives.
Oh! And I even won a free-registration for the 2020 ISTE Conference held in Anaheim, next year! If you’re interested in learning more, check out ISTE’s Certification page or Eduscape. Hit me up if you’d like to chat more about the experience! 🙂
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