Jul
10
2008
I am happy with this first phase of the Wikibook project. Each student in the online Information Literacy course participated by researching, writing, ultimately conveying this new found information in an interactive and visual manner. Not to mention, each student learned how to work with wikibooks itself, within a relatively short period of time. This activity provided good experience on many levels but definitely it highlighted information literacy skills in our digital age. Future classes will work on this book by adding to it and ensuring that the content is relevant, accurate, and timely.
What a good and interesting experience.
Jul
03
2008
Lately, I have been juggling classes, writing a book, finishing a grant, and trying to have just a bit of a summer. I am not sure I have achieved my last task - a bit of a summer - but, I am hanging on in the hopes that I will get one soon. I have, though, had a terrific summer as classes go. My students in my instructional technologies course are producing interesting, creative, and engaging activities and products that can be easily transferred to their present or future classrooms. Most of my students are trying new tools and doing so by combining personal interests. How terrific is that. In this way, students will begin to learn something new and foreign to them and then, when comfortable, apply these lessons learned into their classroom.
For example, a student created a flickr photostory of a process - making brownies.
My information literacy course is beginning to combine their hard work and effort into their wikibook. They as a class are learning a lot about wikibooks - style, formatting, coding, etc. - as well as, working as a team to create an interactive book. This is a difficult task but one that each student is accomplishing very well.
All in all, this is a very interesting semester.
Jun
25
2008
I was reading a post by Gardner Cambell this morning and I am glad that I did. Gardner introduced me to a Web 2.0 tool called Wordle - I must say, Wow. Wordle is a thought provoking tool that provides anyone who views it a visual representation of words. Hmm. It wraps around what we call tags (keywords) and creates an image around them.
Below is a visual representation (word cloud) of my delicious tags. Hmm…
Notice how it takes my tags (key words) and creates a cloud of it. It manipulates the text and wraps them together to create its own meaning.
Gardner in his post, provides a link to a visual cloud of Martin Luther King’s speech, I Have a Dream. I was amazed, what a great way to ‘hear’ this speech - visually.
This has tremendous potential for use in our classrooms. My suggestion, explore Wordle.
Jun
23
2008
Our class wikibook is coming along nicely. Actually, the students have taken over and are doing a terrific job. They found good research to support their topics and have written a draft page on wikispaces for their portion of the book as a group or independently. Now, it is time to look at each draft in order to make suggestions for edits, provide comments, and begin to look at how interactivity and media can be incorporated onto the page to enhance the content, message, and meaning.
Reminder: This book is intended for K12 teachers and is being written by K12 teachers. The goal is to provide a resource for teachers to learn about information literacy topics, ideas, and skills. It is important that teachers meet the needs of their students and to enhance their classrooms by incorporating these ideas into their curriculum. Our hope, this book will help with this process.
Take a look and provide any and all suggestions that you have directly on the wiki document itself. As one of my students suggested, please provide many and all suggestions that you have!
- Literacy Models and Relevancy
- History of Literacy
- Tools
- Differentiation and Information Literacy
I am adding a few more….June 24….to this posting. It is easier!
- Differentiation & IL
- ESL and Information Literacy
- Application of Information Literacy in the Classroom
Three more added June 24 (afternoon)
- Information Literacy
- Theories
- Safety and Information Literacy
Jun
03
2008
My students in ITEC521 looked at information literacy from a personal viewpoint this week. They applied their understandings and their personal research to the term ‘information literacy.’ Through this process, they explored the deeper meaning of information literacy in the digital age. They designed a definition and then highlighted key points of the definition in graphic format.
I feel strongly that learners should personalize learning by taking information, transforming it to meet their specific needs and understandings. Once information has been personalized it is time for learners to push themselves further to move from their comfort zone (Vytgotsky would say - the zone of proximal development) in order to create a solid understanding of the content itself.
As life-long learners, we need to research, explore, personalize, reflect, and hopefully share our understandings so others can question and reflect in new ways. We also did this, here is how…
Next, students created a model of information literacy that applied to their specific needs and that they could apply to lessons for their students. Yes, there are many models that could have been used without creating a personal one. Again, I wanted each student to personalize the ideas and concepts that they were exploring to ensure that they had a good understanding of the model’s overall importance - personally and professionally.
Students in the class, researched and learned from other models and then created their own model - some are continuing to work on this. Creating a new model is difficult. To share this new knowledge, students created a wiki to post both their definition and model onto. Throughout the semester, students will use this model to explore, dig deeper, and share their new understandings with you. They may even alter the model as they begin to utilize it and apply its concepts to actual lessons and activities.
Each student did a terrific job, but I will only highlight a few in this posting. I randomly chose a few to share.
Brian
Arianne
Definition and graphic
Model
Mike
May
28
2008
For the last couple of weeks my instructional technology students have been talking about and exploring the importance of digital literacy. They have been exploring the Internet by conducting research and identifying effective strategies to implement in order to critically evaluate information found online. As a class, they have explored necessary competencies to develop good research questions so they could/can conduct effective and efficient online research. Lastly, they have been exploring both ethical and legal issues of using all types of information found online.
Through this process, my students have explored Web 2.0 tools in order to share, collaborate, and experience learning and teaching in this digital age with colleagues, students, and the digital community. In creating content for online use, each student is slowly becoming digital citizens. Students are personalizing readings and investigations because they are becoming a part of the digital society. Meaning is beginning to take shape. As a class, they ask questions of the information they are finding, seeking, and creating. They begin to ask themselves, am I digitally literate? Are my students digitally literate?
Through this entire process my students are exploring and experiencing the first steps of critical thinking in this digital age. Each student is beginning to connect the ‘digital dots’ by reading, interpreting, and creating media in all formats. Slowly, they are beginning to understand what it means to be a citizen in this digital world. It has been a good couple of weeks so far this summer.
May
17
2008
How can these tools help teachers become better teachers? Can they?
I was reading an article this morning, Virtual classroom at the University of Central Florida puts teachers to the test, in the Orlando Sentinel and found it interesting. Interesting on many levels - first, I am planning something similar this coming fall with a class. Second, I believe simulations can and do provide a rich experience for students at any level.
As teachers, we search for effective strategies and methods that provide both dynamic experiences for our students and opportunities that encourage thought and discovery. Simulations are one such opportunity. Simulations provide a sense of immersion into an environment and hopefully provide opportunities for the learner to participate and to think as they would in the ‘real world’ - (outside the classroom walls). Thus, processing, making decisions, and learning.
I am planning to implement a dynamic, live, and very present type of simulated experience this coming fall in SecondLife. I will be doing this in a beginning course for teachers at CGPS, Teaching and the Development of the Learner. Students will have opportunities to role play in this world and to practice maintaining a safe and productive classroom environment. Students will use this simulated environment by creating avatars and participating in different roles (student and teacher). As the article suggests, if there is a problem in the classroom, you must fix it. Students will have opportunities to practice doing just that. The benefit, it is simulated and they will receive constructive feedback with opportunities for practice.
It is an interesting and good article. Take a look.
Feb
24
2008
Here is an activity that students in one of my Education classes participated in last week and posted on their personal UMW blogs. I asked students to reflect and explore critical thinking and the use of technology in education. The overarching goal of the activity was to analyze critical thinking and apply it to the classroom using technology as a tool to promote its use.
A student’s personal reflection is provided in the following URL - http://dkuykendall.umwblogs.org/2008/02/17/critical-thinking-and-technology/
Some good insights and analysis are provided by the student on his blog, suggesting that student reflections through a Weblog are a positive way to encourage thought and deeper reflection than might otherwise be garnered in the traditional classroom setting. From this initial blog comment, other students will comment and build on the discussion, thereby promoting collaboration and dare I say, critical thinking, through this technology tool.
Feel free to comment to this student’s blog posting.
