19 Jul, 2010
Monday Morning Roundup (7/19/2010)
After a long break away from the blog, I’m back with a new installment of the Monday Morning Roundup. Here are a few of the educational and educational technology articles I’ve been reading:
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Information Literacy
In my opinion, information literacy is one of the most important skills we should be teaching our students. There are many (similar) definitions of information literacy, but put simply information literacy is the ability to effectively use information resources, regardless of format. In other words – how to do an effective Google search, how to differentiate good information sources from poor sources, etc. Information literacy will help students while they are in school, and will be necessary in life beyond school no matter what they choose to do. In this article, Andrew Marcinek asks:
How many times have you encountered this response: I typed it into Google, and really couldn’t find anything.
WHAT!
How is this possible?
The ability to quickly and effectively search for information on the Internet, and narrow down the results to find the best information, is a crucial skill – one that should be taught early and often, beginning in elementary school. Andrew uses Google Timeline as an example of filtering search results to a particular time period.
This filter allowed my students to trace a specific time period – Soviet occupation of Afghanistan – and filter down credible news articles during this particular period (1979-1989). Students could filter even further and find weekly and daily news articles from various news outlets during this time period. Once students had their articles in hand they could begin reading them or even print them out. Students were now engaged with a historical time period and able to take credible news and information that relates directly to their research question and compare it directly to the reading.
As often happens with good blog posts, the discussion continued in the comments section. Here’s one such comment:
I have found that teachers and adults in general assume that students/kids are born with “computer skills”, but this is not so. They have to learn the skills just as adults do…
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We Need More Tech Skeptics
Tim Stahmer wrote a short piece about teaching tech “skepticism” instead of “literacy”. It’s an interesting idea.
I’ve never liked the whole “digital native/digital immigrant” meme, and an administrator at the University of Kansas seems to agree we need to look at how people understand “technology” in new ways.
She says that many of those digital natives we call students, in both K12 schools and colleges, are actually technologically illiterate, at least under what she says should be an updated definition of “tech literacy”.
I agree with both Tim and the University of Kansas administrator – we need to stop assuming all kids are computer literate (“digital natives”) and automatically know how to properly use the available technology.
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Technologically Illiterate Students
This is the article referenced by Tim Stahmer in the previous article, and it makes some excellent points about digital literacy.
The new technological landscape — particularly the trappings of Web 2.0 — demands that a new line of distinction be drawn, Zvacek told the audience; a line between computer users who can handle only basic programs such as word processors and search engines, and those who understand the structures and concepts that underlie modern technology, and how to think critically within them.
Understanding the structures and concepts that underline modern technology, and how to think critically within them, is key to being technologically literate and should be required of students and teachers alike.
“The digital divide used to be about the hardware haves and have-nots,” she said. “What we’re seeing now is that it’s less about who has hardware, but who has access to information; who has those problem-solving skills. And that’s going to be the digital divide that we’re going to see in the future … the ability to deal with information.”
Critical thinking and problem solving are key to not only tech literacy, but to life.
“It is our job to equip students with the critical thinking skills that enable them to use various technologies wisely … because people who know ‘what’ and ‘how’ will always work for people who know ‘why.’ ”
“I want my students to be the ones people are working for,” added Zvacek.
I agree completely. When I do technology professional development sessions, I don’t give handouts or “step-by-steps”. I want my students (who are teachers) to learn “why”, not simply how to follow a set of step-by-step instructions.