Digital Literacy

Here's a link to a recent article on digital literacy:

http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Quarterly/ConnectingtheDigitalDotsL/39969?time=1222449389

Changing Literacy?

Is digital literacy really a new kind of literacy -- or is it simply a retooling of skills and knowledge that have always been used?

I found the video on the DISCOVER organizer for digital literacy quite interesting, but I'm not sure how much of what is mentioned within the video is new information. Most of the DISCOVER process are steps that teachers have been using with students for ages. The one step that has become much more important in the digital age is Verify. It's vitally important that we teach students the need to verify all information that they obtain online. They cannot simply trust what they find on any old Web site without taking the time to do a little research on the author and any possible bias he/she may have.

I'm not so sure, however, that we need to teach students how to "discover digital literacy" beyond stressing the need to verify and reflect. Most of them are light years ahead of their teachers in terms of using the Web as a tool. Reviewing steps for students in order to guide them to greater digital literacy, though, would be useful, as many students might not know about various educational and research sites.

Before we can do anything of this, we need to make sure our teachers are digitally literate. I know of many teachers who are still not taking advantage of the Internet as completely as they could be. Schools should institute mandatory training programs for teachers, so that they can they present information accurately to students -- and so that they (the teachers) have a greater understanding of things their students may already know.

Del-icio-us is a Delight!

Making my technological life easier - one small step at a time!

Part of last week's homework was to join Del-icio-us, and I have to say I'm completely in love with the site! Having the ability to save links to cyberspace is very convenient. I am constantly amazed by the things we're learning to do in Teaching with Technology. Without someone prompting me to learn, I probably would never have found and used half of these sites and tools.

I actually switched to gmail about a year and a half ago so I would have access to e-mail from whereever I was working. Because I do a lot of freelance work, this technology just makes my life easier. I look forward to learning more tools in the near future.

Citizens of the World

Digital Citizenship was one of the topics we covered in this week's readings for Teaching with Technology. The topic covers using digital technology appropriately, developing ethical direction when it comes to electronic sources, fair use of electronic materials posted online, and technology etiquette.

One of the phrases that struck me as being particularly pertinent was the one that said we are living in a "lawless digital society." Our group discussed what this really means, and we pondered whether or not appropriate technology-related behavior is something that should be taught at home - or if schools must come up with their own rules to police students' behavior. In the end, we decided that it's got to be a little of both. Parents should teach their kids common courtesy -- and hopefully that will extend to the digital world -- but schools also need to come up with their own rules for how technology can be used in school buildings and on school grounds.

In terms of developing ethical direction, students need to learn what is and is not acceptable to download and use from the Web. I particularly liked the five-step program for how educators can begin teaching students to use technology appropriately that was mentioned in one article.

As we become more technologically able, problems will only get worse if we don't take steps to control inappropriate behaviors now.

Information Overload

Just use information from any old Web site? No way!

Learning to evaluate Web sites is an incredibly important tool for both students and teachers to acquire. Although I have evaluated Web sites I planned to use for research on my own in the past, using Kathy Schrock's critical evaluation surveys gave me a better idea of what to look for on the sites I chose to evaluate.

Schrock's tools made it much easier to focus my observations on things that really mattered to my thoughts of the site's usefulness as well as the integrity of a site's author, the legitimacy of the information, and the attractiveness of the design. Overall, the evaluation surveys provided me with more tools I could use to determine whether or not a site was a good one.

For example, in the past I would probably only have considered the number of links that provided information on a site rather than thinking about the design of the site or the appeal of the links and whether or not they worked in a plain text format.

Students need to learn how to effectively evaluate Web sites because our world is so technologically-dependent now that they will continue to have to use the Web for research for their entire academic careers and beyond. If they use information from sites they have not evaluated, then they run the risk of using incorrect information in their school work or believing misinformation. In learning to recognize the legitimacy of a site like Albany University's Center on English Learning & Achievement (www.albany.edu/cela/), they learn to identify the things that are wrong with another site, such as the lack of well-developed lesson plans on Teachers.net. Additionally, students can learn that many sites are legitimate and useful even when not backed by a college, university, or other organization. For example, I found Vocabulary.com to be an incredibly useful site in spite of the fact that it was developed by a former teacher rather than a college or university.

Overall, I found the Web site evaluation exercise to be very useful. It gave me additional ideas for what to focus on when deciding whether or not a Web site will prove to be legitimate and practical. It also made me think about things I had not considered in the past, such as appeal.

Me as an educator

To be honest, I'm not really sure yet who I am as an educator - at least of high school students. I've been teaching college writing courses for quite awhile now, but most of the classes I teach are remedial, so I don't have a lot of opportunity to experiment.

I guess I would say that I'm a pretty casual teacher in the sense that I'm kind of laid back and not very strict. I also would never even consider lecturing for an entire class period. I always have a brief lecture (15-20 minutes) and then some kind of hands-on activity for the students to practice. Then we usually talk about the activity before moving on to something else. I also try to make myself as available as possible to my students in case they need help with anything.

I do use some technology in my classes in the sense that I occasionally use PowerPoint for a lecture. I also have the student go online to do research for a paper they must write and to find information on MLA citation rules. They can also use the computers in the classroom (when I'm in a smart room) to write their papers when they choose. Those are really the only technologies available to me in a basic writing class.

Blogs

I thought the podcast we listened to for class was pretty interesting. It's amazing to me how many people are now using blogs to get their messages across.

One thing that worries me when it comes to all of the information we post online is that students will think that much of what they read may be used as legitimate research sources. I see it with my own students in a writing course I teach. My students have little or no idea how to differentiate between legitimate sites and sites put out there by people with no credentials. Blogging gives voice to people who want to be heard - on any topic at all - and that's a great thing, but I do believe we have to find a way to distinguish. I also believe blogs can be very valuable tools for educational purposes.

One other thing mentioned very briefly in the podcast we listened to worried me as well. The host of the podcast mentioned that the NSA gave tons of funding to harvest the information from people's Web pages to develop profiles on people. I find it very scary that we're putting so much information about ourselves out there for anyone to see.