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Wisconsin Standards for Information and Technology Literacy (2017)

What is Information and Technology Literacy Education?

Wisconsin defines Information and Technology Literacy as “the ability of an individual, working independently or with others, to use tools, resources, processes, and systems responsible to access and evaluate information in any medium, and to use that information to solve problems, communicate clearly, make informed decisions, and construct new knowledge, products, or systems.” The Wisconsin Academic standards for Information and Technology Literacy are an important foundation to prepare students to be college and career ready.

A Vision for Information and Technology Literacy

Today’s society is witnessing an unprecedented explosion of information and use of digital resources. In an environment where information is doubling at an incredible rate and digital resources are becoming an increased component of the classroom and the workplace, students face both difficult challenges and increased opportunities. The successful students, workers, and citizens of tomorrow will be self-directed agents of their own learning.

wdlpThe State Superintendent's Wisconsin Digital Learning Plan (2016) identified updating the current Information and Technology Literacy Standards as a priority for DPI in collaboration with our local school districts and professional partners. The Plan's vision for student learning called for equitable, personalized, applied, and engaged digital learning for all students. The skillful and equitable use of technology can transform the way teaching and learning happen in classrooms across Wisconsin. Digital tools can enhance student learning as they connect efforts to identify what students should know and be able to do as well as help students and educators assess progress toward achieving academic goals. To meet the needs of today's students and to ensure they are college and career ready, schools are encouraged to be innovative in providing student learning experiences, adopting technologies and instruction in ways which meaningfully engage the digital generation.

wdlp itl

Wisconsin’s Academic Standards for Information and Technology Literacy identifies and defines the knowledge and skills essential for all Wisconsin students to access, evaluate, and use information and technology to engage in and take ownership of their learning. These standards connect and interrelate current perspectives in information literacy, media literacy, and technology literacy into a unified conceptual framework. The standards also demonstrate processes for rethinking education, adapting to a constantly changing technological landscape and preparing students to enter an increasingly global economy.

As educators, we are preparing students for a future that we cannot yet imagine. Empowering students to become lifelong learners and providing them with the skills to face future challenges resourcefully and creatively is critical. Empowering students is not about using digital tools to support outdated education strategies and models: it is about tapping into technology’s potential to amplify human capacity for collaboration, creativity, and communication. The Information and Technology Literacy Standards are about leveling the playing field and providing young people worldwide with equitable access to powerful learning opportunities.

Information and Technology Literacy (ITL) Education in Wisconsin

The purpose of these standards is to identify information and technology content and performance standards for all students throughout the kindergarten through grade twelve (K-12) curriculum. We must ensure that all children have equal access to high-quality education programs. Clear statements about what students must know and be able to do are essential in making sure our schools offer opportunities to get the knowledge and skills necessary for success beyond the classroom. The standards are designed to be integrated into the various content and skill areas of the school curriculum. The focus is on learning with information and technology rather than learning about information and technology. This integration will be varied and diverse based on the curricula of individual schools and school systems. The reflective dialogue will occur in school districts among administrators, curriculum directors, library media specialists, technology coordinators, educators, instructional coaches, parents, students, and community members as each district adopts or modifies these standards and integrates them into the local instructional program for students.

The focus is on a sequential and broad set of information and technology content and performance standards necessary for full development of skills for “learning how to learn” addressed in the core areas of the K-12 curriculum. Some of these ITL standards are included in other academic standards areas, and this inclusion underscores the importance of information and technology literacy standards by providing entry points for integrating them into a variety of curricular areas. Also, elective programs or advanced courses not a part of the curriculum required for all students may require additional or very specific technology skills beyond those listed in these standards.

Finally, accomplishing many of the performance standards listed here will require access to technology by individual students or student workgroups. These standards will be achieved with a strong district commitment to a technological infrastructure including sufficient equipment and access, materials and staffing, appropriate technical support; and a comprehensive, ongoing program of teacher training and staff development.

Wisconsin’s Approach to Standards for Information and Technology Literacy

With the release of the Wisconsin Standards for Information and Technology Literacy, educators have access to the foundational knowledge and skills needed to prepare students to be college and career ready. The learning priorities and performance indicators contained within each set of ITL standards consist of knowledge and skills specific to each of the seven strands. This working definition of Information and Technology Literacy draws upon these seven cross-cutting concepts from the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) student learning framework which the working group adapted in addition to Wisconsin-specific learning priorities and performance indicators:

itl

  • Empowered Learner (EL)
  • Digital Citizen (DC)
  • Knowledge Constructor (KC)
  • Innovative Designer (ID)
  • Computational Thinker (CT)
  • Creative Communicator (CC)
  • Global Collaborator (GC)

These standards are, of course, critical as the identified skills intersect with all content areas. In addition, there are many knowledge areas, skills, and dispositions common to the pursuit of careers and postsecondary education in many fields. The vision for the new Wisconsin Information and Technology Literacy standards outlines the importance of integrating these standards across all content areas. Students are expected to demonstrate a higher level of application of inquiry, critical thinking, integration of technology tools and appropriate actions when using technology. The ITL standards support a higher level of student agency when leveraging critical thinking skills, collaboration, creativity, and communication. These standards connect and interrelate current perspectives in information literacy, media literacy, and technology literacy into a unified conceptual framework to integrate into other content areas.

As with all the standards, the Wisconsin Standards for Information and Technology Literacy may be taught and integrated into a variety of classes and experiences. Each district, school, and program area should determine the means by which students meet these standards. Through the collaboration of multiple stakeholders, these foundational standards will set the stage for high-quality, successful, contemporary information and technology programming throughout Wisconsin’s K-12 systems.

WI Standards for ITL - Documents (including downloadable Google documents), Glossary, Digital Bloom's Taxonomy, and downloadable graphics

instruction

Information and Technology Literacy (ITL) Education in Wisconsin

The purpose of these standards is to identify information and technology content and performance standards for all students throughout the kindergarten through grade twelve (K-12) curriculum. We must ensure that all children have equal access to high-quality education programs. Clear statements about what students must know and be able to do are essential in making sure our schools offer opportunities to get the knowledge and skills necessary for success beyond the classroom. The standards are designed to be integrated into the various content and skill areas of the school curriculum. The focus is on learning with information and technology rather than learning about information and technology. This integration will be varied and diverse based on the curricula of individual schools and school systems. The reflective dialogue will occur in school districts among administrators, curriculum directors, library media specialists, technology coordinators, educators, instructional coaches, parents, students, and community members as each district adopts or modifies these standards and integrates them into the local instructional program for students. Refer to DPI's guide on how to create your ITL Standard Implementation Team and Communication Network.

Instructional Guides

Wisconsin Digital Learning Plan

The WI Standards for Information and Technology Literacy (ITL)

Complete WI Standards for ITL Downloadable Document 

How to Read the WI Standards for ITL  (content strand, discipline, learning priority, performance indicators, standard coding)

  • How to the read the WI Standards for ITL one-pager handout (Google Doc) or (PDF)

WI Standards for ITL - downloadable spreadsheets of the standards right to your Drive or PDFs-  formatted for easy cut and paste into lesson plans, online instructional planning tools, and collaborative planning documents:

WI Standards for ITL Glossary

The WI Standards for ITL Glossary provides definitions and contextual elaborations for vocabulary terms used in the ITL content strands, standards, learning priorities and performance indicators. Glossary terms appear by the coded alignment to the ITL content strand, standards, earning priority and performance indicator. The glossary resource allows educators and leaders to create a common language around information, media and digital literacies across the grade band learning progression. The Wisconsin Digital Learning Plan Glossary is another resource to also assist educators and leaders in framing a common understanding of current terminology. The ITL glossary was adapted to the formatting of the WI ITL with the permission from the International Society for Technology Education (ISTE) to use their contextual definitions from their 2017 framework.

Digital Bloom's Taxonomy

Bloom's Digital Taxonomy is an updated version of Bloom's Taxonomy (done by Andrew Churches) to represent the inclusion of technology.  Bloom's Digital Taxonomy infographic depicts verbs that pertain to each level of the original Bloom's Taxonomy and progress from LOTS (lower order thinking skills) to HOTS (higher order thinking skills).  The verbs in the document below (from Global Digital Citizenship Foundation) were referenced while writing the Information Technology Literacy Standards to ensure progressive language through the grade band levels in each category. 

Downloadable ITL graphics!

WI Standards for ITL - District Adoption and Implementation Plan

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2017-2018 School Year Learning About and Implementation Plan

DPI will be continually updating the resources on this to support districts in learning about and implementing the new ITL Standards. Throughout the year, DPI staff will be presenting an overview of the new ITL standards and the implementation toolkit. DPI is proudly partnering with our Cooperative Education Services Agencies (CESAs) to support district implementation as our goal is to curate additional resources and district exemplars of locally created content to add to the state educator resource repository, WISELearn.

The content and skills addressed in the Wisconsin Standards for Information and Technology Literacy can be integrated across the curriculum by local districts.  Districts are encouraged to leverage the recommended local Learning About and Implementation plan so support educators to effectively integrate technology into their content areas and foster learning experiences that develop knowledge and skills that promote information, media, and technological literacy. The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction supports a three-year implementation for districts to ensure appropriate time to fully implement the ITL Standards into the curriculum, instruction, and assessment. 

3 year plan

Three Year DPI and District Implementation Plan Guides

Note:  districts are highly encouraged to review leverage the DPI resources for their communities of practice to complete district planning needs through the 2017-2018 school year with a goal of targeting summer curriculum, instruction, and assessment work in the summer of 2018. 

WI Standards for ITL- Curriculum 101: Unpack/Repack

Overview

This resource presents a process for examining a cluster or group of standards to plan, implement, and reflect on standards-based instruction and assessment that ensures equity by eliminating barriers to learning. The process is designed to be used several times, internalized, and applied to future planning.

Standards vs. Curriculum

The standards set clear and specific goals for teaching and learning, but they are not meant to serve as curriculum. Instead, they should help school districts to develop curriculum units that focus on leveraging technology and information across all content areas, explore technology career pathways, and create new knowledge in the information age.

Outcomes of engaging in this process include:

  • Deeper Understanding of Content Standards
  • Designing a Plan for Instruction and Assessment
  • Rethinking and Redesigning Learning Activities
  • Selection of Materials to Meet or Exceed Standards
  • Local control
  • Adapt to local technology infrastructure inclusive of tools, hardware, resources, and information, programming
  • Identifying Areas for Professional Learning and Growth
  • This Process is Best Completed in a Collaborative Team.

Exemplary process:  ELA Standards

Unpack-Repack Tools

Other Supporting Documents

WI Standards for ITL - Content Area Integration/Sample Curriculum (***NEW Resources***)

WI Standards for ITL Content Areas and Integration-single page overview documents (not standard to standard matched crosswalks)

With the adoption of the Wisconsin Standards for ITL, there is an opportunity to ensure integration of the content, skills, and technology-rich learning experiences into existing Wisconsin content standards. Educators can integrate hardware and software into their practices as students work to meet Wisconsin content standards. The core principles of information, media, and technology literacy are important as part of all content areas to allow students to create, communicate, collaborate and leverage critical thinking skills. The ITL standards are relevant to the real world and reflect the knowledge and skills students need to achieve their goals.

  • ITL Connection to WI Standards for Social Studies
  • ITL Connection to Social and Emotional Learning Competencies
  • ITL Connection to both Social and Emotional Learning and Institute for Personalized Learning
  • ITL Connection to Universal Design for Learning (UDL)
  • ITL Connection to WI Academic English Language Arts Standards
  • ITL Connection to WI Academic Mathematics Standards
  • ITL Connection to WI Academic Computer Science Standards
  • Math Connections to Computer Science
  • ITL Connection to WI Academic Business and Information Technology Standards
  • ITL Connection to WI Academic Technology and Engineering Standards
  • ITL Connection to WI Academic Science Standards
  • ITL Connection to WI Academic Music Standards

Sample Curriculum

Note: as Wisconsin continues to update our existing Wisconsin Academic Standards additional content integration resources will be created.

Wisconsin Disciplinary Literacy

Wisconsin's Definition of Disciplinary Literacy

In Wisconsin, disciplinary literacy is defined as the confluence of content knowledge, experiences, and skills merged with the ability to read, write, listen, speak, think critically and perform in a way that is meaningful within the context of a given field. For more information on the standards, please review the document on Literacy in all Subjects  or the DPI Literacy in all Subjects webpage.

 

Implementation Support

The DPI Digital Learning team will be continually updating the resources on this page to support districts in learning about and implementing the ITL standards. DPI is proudly partnering with our Cooperative Education Services Agencies (CESAs) to support district implementation as our goal is to curate additional resources and district exemplars of locally created content to add to the state educator resource repository, WISELearn.