Sketchnoting to Unpack the ISTE Standards for Educators & Students

When working with preservice and in-service teachers who are striving for intentional and purposeful use of technology in their classrooms, I find it really helpful to begin our work by unpacking the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Standards for Educators and Students. Just like teachers can use content area frameworks to guide curriculum development in the classes they teach, they can use the ISTE Standards to guide their instructional decision-making when it comes to technology. However, this first means we need to unpack the ISTE Standards and talk about what they mean in practical terms. In one of the classes I teach for preservice teachers (Integrating Technology and Teaching), we do this through the creation of sketchnotes and infographics.

Here’s an example of a sketchnote that was created to unpack ISTE for Educators Standard 3: Citizen.

Early in the semester, every preservice teacher is assigned one of the seven ISTE Standards for Educators. We visit the ISTE website (https://www.iste.org/standards/iste-standards-for-teachers) and discuss how to read each of the indicators within the standards. Then, everyone gets creative! We share these sketchnotes to a Padlet page, so everyone can learn from one another’s work and see a variety of visual representations for each of the standards. I share a variety of apps that students can use from Keynote and Notes to tools like Sketches School.

Later on in the semester, after we have moved through several more modules in the course, we revisit the ISTE Standards for Educators and take our discussion one step further by comparing these standards to the ISTE Standards for Students (https://www.iste.org/standards/iste-standards-for-students). This time, preservice teachers in the course create anything they choose to represent their thinking about the standards. Many students create sketchnotes and infographics like the examples below, but some preservice teachers choose to record audio or create videos with Clips.

   Beginning our professional learning with, and then consistently revisiting, the ISTE Standards can help teachers maintain their focus on using technology with purpose and intentionality in ways that drive meaningful learning experiences. Using simple activities like sketchnoting and creating infographics makes space for teachers to be creative in how they represent their thinking without drawing focus away from the critical thinking and analysis that comes with unpacking standards. Discussion about how different teachers visualize the same standards can cultivate powerful conversations about how we are practically applying the big ideas shared in the ISTE Standards.