WASHINGTON, D.C.— Nov. 30, 2017 — Earlier this month, the Vermont State Board of Education unanimously adopted the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Standards for Students. The adoption of this framework is aligned with the state’s Education Quality Standards.

The ISTE Standards are a framework for rethinking education and empowering learners. ISTE updated the ISTE Standards for Students and released them in the summer of 2016. These standards are a road map for educators worldwide to navigate decisions about curriculum, instruction and professional learning that are focused on the learner-driven application of technology. Vermont has long been committed to providing its students with the most current innovations in technology and practices regarding classroom and school level technology use.

With the adoption of the newest Student Standards, educators in Vermont will help empower their students’ voices and ensure that learning is a student-driven process. The Student Standards focus on areas that will help prepare today’s learners for the evolving technological landscape including becoming a responsible digital citizen, understanding how to be a computational thinker and using digital tools to collaborate with others locally and globally.

Schools across the state understand how the broader concepts around the ISTE Student Standards can be taught in the classroom and the real-world implications that help prepare students. In light of the recent natural disasters and the refugee crisis, Brattleboro Area Middle School students worked with a local architecture and engineering firm on a project that challenged students to consider how they would design safe and sustainable shelters for displaced families to live. Students used the design thinking process to imagine, plan and create their projects to address issues such as flooding, access to safe drinking water, excessive heat and safety. In completing this project these students were mastering one of ISTE Standards called “Innovative Designer,” which focuses on using a variety of technologies within a design process to identify and solve problems by creating new, useful or imaginative solutions.

“Our schools have been working hard to ensure all our students have access not just to technology, but to how technology is used in careers and post-secondary education. Success in the 21st century will require our students to negotiate not just the physical world, but a digital world. The ISTE Standards provide a road map our educators can use to prepare our children for that world,” said Vermont Secretary of Education Rebecca Holcombe. “This is particularly important in some of our more rural areas, where the future of our communities may depend on digital access to support economic development.”

“We are so pleased to see Vermont leading the way by adopting the ISTE Student Standards,” said ISTE Senior Director Carolyn Sykora. “More and more we are understanding how to embrace technology as a vehicle to transform learning and teaching and accelerate innovation. At their core, the ISTE Standards are about pedagogy, not tools. We look forward to seeing students in Vermont supported as they become future-focused and adaptable.”

Vermont is one of several states and school districts to formalize use of the ISTE Standards including the states of Connecticut and Texas, and Los Angeles Unified School District. Many others are currently working on adoption and are expected to endorse or adopt the ISTE Standards in the coming months.

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About ISTE

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) is a nonprofit organization that works with the global education community to accelerate the use of technology to solve tough problems and inspire innovation. Our worldwide network believes in the potential technology holds to transform teaching and learning.

ISTE sets a bold vision for education transformation through the ISTE Standards, a framework for students, educators, administrators, coaches and computer science educators to rethink education and create innovative learning environments. ISTE hosts the annual ISTE Conference & Expo, one of the world’s most influential edtech events. The organization’s professional learning offerings include online courses, professional networks, year-round academies, peer-reviewed journals and other publications. ISTE is also the leading publisher of books focused on technology in education. For more information or to become an ISTE member, visit iste.org. Subscribe to ISTE’s YouTube channel and connect with ISTE on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.