Blog Post #1 AASL and ISTE Standards

    As I learned about the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) standards this week and in my class last semester, I will admit to being overwhelmed by the number of them and the high expectations set for school librarians and even the youngest learners. The library experience has come a long way from the simple story time and book checkout I have seen in most of my twenty years as a public school kindergarten teacher. However, this shift must occur as our information world has become so much more complex with technology and the sheer amount of accessible information. 

     The AASL and the International Society for Technology (ISTE) support this shift toward empowered learners, inquiry, engagement, collaboration, and digital citizenship. Both sets of standards are meant to broaden students' educational experiences in a modern world that requires them to be competent in information and digital literacies. The AASL standards emphasize information skills and the school librarian's role in teaching these (AASL, 2018). The ISTE standards focus on integrating technology into education (ISTE, 2024). The National School Library Standards Crosswalk with ISTE Standards for Students and Educators can help school librarians and other educators see the similarities and differences in these two sets of standards and help them understand how they can complement and support each other. 

     The main similarities are they both: Emphasize critical thinking, problem-solving, locating, evaluating, and using information effectively Digital citizenship Collaboration Lifelong learning Students taking ownership of learning. The differences in the AASL and the ISTE are that the AASL are focused  on information literacy, are for librarians, some emphasis on incorporating technology  The ISTE standards are focused on integrating technology, are  for all education stakeholders and have a strong emphasis on technology. 

    After learning about these standards, I was still unclear about how this would look for the young children I work with. Therefore, it was exciting and enlightening to read about Mary Lou Caron O’Connor’s (2019) implementation of the AALS standards in her article Now Serving: An Appealing Menu of Digital Literacy Tools & Resources. She explained how she provides students with a menu of learning paths to support them in developing competencies from the standards. 

    This article also gives a great picture of how to mesh the AALS standards with the ISTE standards. In O’Connor’s examples, she uses the Think Domain of Inquire, as she has children use web tools such as Epic! and Pebble Go to formulate and explore questions about a topic. This aligns with the ISTE standard that expects students to curate information from digital resources using various tools and methods (AASL, 2018). O’Connor uses the Create Domain of Engage when she has children. She uses Book Creator, Google Slides, and iMovie so that students can practice the ethical use of information as they create presentations to display their learning. This aligns with the ISTE standard that requires students to understand and respect the rights and obligations of using and sharing intellectual property (AASL, 2018). Throughout the process, she teaches students the expectations for them “to be digitally safe, kind, responsible, and savvy” through digital citizenship and safety lessons (O’Connor, 2019, p. 22). After this week, I have a clearer picture of the AASL standards and how they can be integrated with the ISTE standards. While this is still a working knowledge, I hope to continue this growth through the next five weeks and throughout my career. 


References 

American Association of School Librarians (AASL). (2018). National School Library Standards crosswalk with ISTE standards for students and educators. Retrieved June 19, 2024, from https://standards.aasl.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/180828-aasl-standards-crosswalk-iste.pdf 

International Society for Technology in 
Education (ISTE). (2024). ISTE standards: For students. Retrieved June 19, 2024, from https://iste.org/standards/students 

O'Connor, M.L.C. (May/June 2019). Now serving: An appealing menu of digital literacy tools & resources. Knowledge Quest 47(5). pp. 17-21.

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