The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) is the premier membership association for educators and education leaders engaged in improving learning and teaching by advancing the effective use of technology in PK–12 and teacher education.

ISTE has more than 100,000 members in education leaders and emerging leaders from all around the world and it also updates its members about didactic topics of national and international constraint.

The members of ISTE come from all kind of sources, including:  18,500 members from more than 80 countries worldwide, 80 affiliate organizations, 6 affiliate regions worldwide, 60 global corporations.

The International Society for Technology in Education is a membership is a influential and significant method for educationalists to unite with peers, to get together in a forum to share their experiences, to gather in a variety of forums to share the tasks, challenges and enjoyment of instruction, and here they are part of a great community to help change education.

The ISTE has been an organization responsible for the guidelines in education technology standards. They have diagrams based on these standards in teachers’ own work, such as the one below.

The ISTE website is an excellent source of materials, learning experiences, and more, but you need to become a member to have access to a lot of resources ($92 for standard educators membership, $59 for retired educators). Among other things, membership offers:

• Webinars from many of today’s top Ed Tech professionals
• A Career Center (find or post jobs)
• Access to Special Interest Groups
• Discounted Publications – Books, Periodicals, and more.
• Discounted attendance at their Annual Conference (the 2010 conference is June 27-30 in Denver).

The ISTE has yearly conferences, this is a way to be face-to-face and learn, exchange and communicate in the education technology field.  The next conference will take place in San Antonio, Texas on June 23-26, 2013.

At this time, the International Society for Technology in Education is leading a petition drive that it hopes will convince Congress to devote some sort of support toward educational technology professional development across all teachers.  The petition, which has public endorsement from U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.), and U.S. Representatives Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.), Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), and George Miller (D-Calif.), aims to help PD programs that have struggled to survive since the Enhancing Education Through Technology federal program, or EETT, was defunded in April of 2011.  In the meantime, professional development remains a high profile issue within the ed-tech community.