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AASL Standards vs. ISTE Standards

Hey, Readers!

I am so glad you are here!

Today, we will be looking at the AASL Standards and the ISTE standards.  More specifically, how these standards are similar, different, and how they could possibly be used together to improve student learning. First, let’s look at what both of these standards provide to educators.   AASL Standards are standards that “provide direction and guidance in lesson planning, library program development, curriculum-based unit creation, educator collaboration, pre-service library education design, self-assessment, evaluation, and advocacy of the school librarian” (National School, 2018, p. 42).  The ISTE Standards are standards that “provide the competencies for learning, teaching and leading in the digital age, providing a comprehensive roadmap for the effective use of technology in schools worldwide” (International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), 2023, para. 1).  By reading the definition of both of these standards, one can see that these standards can greatly impact student learning.

Now, since we know what these standards are used for, we can now look at how they are similar. To truly find out how these sets of standards are similar, it is important to look at the standards side by side. Fortunately, AASL has provided a document called National School Library Standards crosswalk with ISTE Standards for Students and Educators. Overall, being new to looking at these standards side by side, I see that the biggest similarity between these two standards is technology. It seems that technology is a major objective of each set of these organizations.  Both of these sets of standards provide the expectation that educators should be teaching technology.  Each set of standards also stress that students should be learning how to use many different forms of technology to collect information and collaborate or share what they have learned. (American Association of School Librarians, 2018)

However, the National School Library Standards Crosswalk with ISTE Standards for Students and Educators reveals some differences between these standards, as well.  The biggest differences I see, as a current educator, is the depth of the AASL Standards as opposed to the ISTE Standards.  What I mean by that is that the AASL Standards give much more information about what the students or school librarians should be doing in order to use technology to gather information or collaborate and the ISTE Standards seem to explain in much broader terms what students and educators should be able to do when following these standards. (American Association of School Librarians, 2018)

Do I feel that these standards could work together to provide school librarians and their students more enhanced instruction? Yes! By looking at the document National School Library Standards Crosswalk with ISTE Standards for Students and Educators and the Knowledge Quest article called “Now Serving… An Appealing Menu of Digital Literacy Tools & Resources,” it is easy to see that that both of these standards can work well together to help provide a structure for school librarians to follow which will provide well-rounded instruction to students. In the article from Knowledge Quest, “Now Serving… An Appealing Menu of Digital Literacy Tools & Resources,” the author of this article, Mary Lou Caron O’Connor, explains how there can be menus that can be created for students to use based on AASL and ISTE standards (O'Connor, 2019). This article shows how librarians can use both sets of standards to help develop a “menu” for students to be successful information seekers and technology users (O'Connor, 2019). Using a menu incorporating these standards can bring children to the perfect plate of dinner or product (O'Connor, 2019).

              Being able to look at the AASL Standards and the ISTE standards has allowed me to see how they are similar, different, and how they could be used together. My hope is that you will have a better understanding of these standards by the time you get to the end of this blog post.

Thank you for stopping by!

-Courtland Smith

References

American Association of School Librarians. (2018). National School Library
     Standards crosswalk with ISTE Standards for Students and Educators.
     American Association of School Librarians. Retrieved January 21, 2023, from
     https://standards.aasl.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/
     180828-aasl-standards-crosswalk-iste.pdf

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). (2023). The ISTE
     standards. ISTE. Retrieved January 21, 2023, from https://www.iste.org/
     iste-standards

National school library standards for learners, school librarians, and school
     libraries. (2018). ALA Editions, an imprint of the American Library
     Association.

O'Connor, M. L. O. C. (2019, May). Now serving...An appealing menu of digital
     literacy tools & resources. Knowledge Quest, 47(5).