Currently, I am taking Information Literacy in the Digital Age at the University of Mary Washington. Dr. Teresa Coffman is the professor. She has us working on the framework for a wikibook about Information Literacy in the K12 Classroom. The contributions from the class are coming along beautifully. Here are links to a few of them:

Differentiation and Information Literacy

ESL and Information Literacy

Information Literacy Theories

I could not help but feel, however, like something was missing. Then today, it hit me. I am writing a brief history of literacy in an effort to create a bit of context for the work. What is needed, I think, is a broader background in which educators and students can place this concept of information literacy.

In my brief contribution, I cited Stephen Stroup’s writing about the explosion of literacy rates after the development of printing technology. The printing press was, in fact, a piece of technology. As a matter of fact, it could very well be considered information technology. In the Revolutionary period in U.S. history, lanterns were widely used for communication. Who hasn’t heard the story of Paul Revere and “one if by land, two if by sea”? This simple phrase could be viewed as a form of information literacy. If we follow the American Library Association’s definition of information literacy:

to be information literate, a person must be able to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information,

we should most definitely consider the recognition of one lantern or two a simple form of information literacy.

My point is this: information is nothing new, literacy is nothing new, technology is largely contextual in nature, and the interrelation of the three is well established. I believe that educators should be aware that information technology and information literacy are not products of Web 2.0. I further feel that, while we should offer some specific tools that educators can become familiar with now, we should focus our energies on providing educators the framework to find and use all tools: old, modern, and those yet to come.

Perhaps future classes can work towards these goals and further the background that I feel is so important to this topic.

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This evening I attended an online discussion on TappedIn.org about web tools that can be used in the classroom. While the discussion itself was disorderly at best the moderator, PamB, did provide some excellent tools for future use. One tool that seemed to grab a great deal of attention was Animoto, a site that takes your pictures and music and turns them into a sharp looking video that would be great to introduce a unit or to reflect back on the class at the end of the year. Students could also create wonderful videos to reflect some learning that they have gathered over the course of a unit. She also introduced us to a newspaper generator, that could be used for a host of applications. JeffC, one of the site administrators, introduced us to www.snurl.com, a URL shortening site that saves your longer URL’s as shorter easy to remember URL’s that you can provide to your students. That could prove very convenient.  As for the discussion itself, I guess the nature of this type of forum is quite disorganized.  The moderator for the discussion did not seem to control the conversation as much as I would like to have seen.  Many individuals apparently did not feel the need to read all that was typed and constantly missed URL’s and instructions.  The discussion could easily have taken 20-30 minutes, but the interruptions and repeated instructions necessitated a full hour’s time slot.  Perhaps I expect too much.

I think of interactivity as the relationships between people and each other as well as with their environments.  In the modern educational environment, the relationships between our students and the technology/information available to them is something that we, as educators, must take into consideration.  Students today have so many distractors and are so accustomed to multi-tasking that, particularly at the high school level, we must often create multi-media, interactive presentations just to keep students attentions focused on the content that we wish to address that day.  So, not only must the content be stimulating on its own merit, we must involve some moving parts or sounds or videos to keep their minds from wandering.  Even more helpful is when we can get the students involved in a “hands on” manner.  That, however, becomes increasingly difficult to accomplish as they add increasingly specific requirements to the curriculum.  I digress.

As we consider layouts, graphics, etc. for our presentations, we must become more acutely aware of the effects that visual design may have upon our students.  This goes well beyond the aesthetics of our presentation.  Visual designs include the amount of information that we make available at any given time as well as the organization of that material.  Does a two-sided note taking system work better?  What about outline form?  Should all of the information that you wish to address be present on the digital copy of the presentation or should the presentation simply “reflect” your lecture notes?  These are all questions that we must answer to create effective presentations for our students.

While I will not argue the merits of or research behind “Visible Thinking,” I will note that we must be careful when approaching any system that addresses the learning needs and thinking styles of students.  “Visible Thinking” might be an excellent addition to a teacher’s toolbox, but should only be used when it fits the learning styles of your students.  Frankly, most people would likely be quite frightened to see a map of how my mind processes information.  Visually tracing my thoughts will not help me understand anything more or less than before (trust me, I have tried).  However, I would hate to limit this option to a student who may benefit from the process.

I created this podcast about an impending disaster in central Asia for my ITEC 501 class. Click here if you would like to listen to it. Click here to read a transcript of the podcast. I was trying to think about the best way that I would actually use a podcast for my classes when the idea came to me. I could use this quite effectively as an opportunity to expand the course content a little more for those students seeking a challenge. This is one way that I could possibly differentiate the course for those students who show a knack for the content. Further, though, by offering grades for those students who complete these optional assignments, I could use this as an opportunity for some students to make up points at the end of a grading period. Some people do not believe in extra credit, but I believe that, sometimes, we have to make up for the failings in the system. This becomes just another method of assessing what a student truly knows about a subject and how to apply it to everyday events. No SOL or quiz is going to test for that. Some students will never need that type of assessment to do well in a class. Others have a hard time making it through without it.

I had to create this screencast for my ITEC 501 class. Creating a screencast for even a relatively simple operation takes a surprisingly large amount of planning. A teacher using this method to create a tutorial for a class may have to recreate it several times to ensure that no mistakes are made. I chose not to include voice in mine and that meant adding a plethora of notes. I think I underestimated how many notes it really would be for a simple 3 1/2 minute demonstration.

I would love to see students use this in the classroom as part of a project to demonstrate their process knowledge as well as their content knowledge. A simple use in Geography might be to have students record the screen as they identify places on an internet map site. As they fill in the notes, they might have to list a few pieces of information about the place.

Other ways that I might use this in the classroom would be to record an internet research lesson that I could show to multiple classes. It might mean a bit more work on the front end, but during the lesson, I could pay more attention to the class itself and attend to individual questions without interrupting those who may already be familiar with the content.

I visited a “Tips and  Tricks” session on TappedIn.org last night.  I learned a couple of new things, but, honestly, nothing that I couldn’t have found by looking around a little on my own.  A tutorial video or FAQ would likely have helped a person like me just as well and would have taken infinitely less time.  I understand, however, that the owners and moderators of the site wish to create a feeling of community.  At that, they certainly succeed.  BJ was as sweet as she could be walking us through little pieces of the site and introducing us to some of the functionality.  I felt, however, that she let the chatter continue on a bit much (so much so that I had to type something in when two people from Staten Island started talking about who they knew there).  If the other individuals had been able to review the simple instructions that Prof. Coffman provided for us as part of the assignment in Week 5, the experience may have been much more enjoyable for me.  As it is, I feel like I spent an hour and a half ready to poke my eyes out.

All of that having been said, the site as a whole appears to be an excellent community for educators.  I look forward to attending other discussions, particularly the one about K-12 classrooms led by Jeff C.  Over the course of the next week, I would like to start setting up my office on the site in preparation for some online learning opportunities for my students down the road.

Besides the obvious spell checkers and grammar checkers with which we are all accustomed, technology can help students to become more engaged in and to look more critically at their own learning.  With technology, tasks can become more authentic or useful to the student.  They can visit the Pyramids and other sites in a way that was not possible only a few short years ago.  Assignments also become less theoretical and more applicable to life after high school.  Since the assignments are to be completed through a medium with which the student is comfortable, they are also much more likely to enjoy the task and will put more effort into it.  Perhaps the most significant role that technology plays for the student is by way of the sheer volume of information through which the student must sift in order to complete an assignment.  As teachers, we are responsible for guiding the students’ searches to that information which is both credible and reliable.  In this way, students begin to look much more critically at information, in general, and that skill will eventually work itself into all facets of their lives.

Critical thinking involves a complex mix of analytical and evaluative skills.  In my classroom, I intend to introduce real-life problems and issues for which the students will work, both individually and collectively, to provide solutions.  These “case studies” will provide the basis for developing critical thinking skills and will be based on both historical and present-day events.  Social studies is ripe with possibilities for endeavors of this nature, but other subjects can benefit from this approach as well.  Case studies force students to break problems down into their component parts and apply their knowledge to those parts.  Further, students must evaluate the problems and develop theoretical solutions to them.  Lastly, presenting their solutions to the class allows other students to see the number of potential solutions to a single problem.  Hopefully this will teach them to weigh their decisions carefully as they move forward in life.

Thanks for stopping by. Please feel free to read what you want and ignore what you don’t want. I likely will not post all that often, but hope that, when I do post, it will be something of substance worth taking a look at. If you’re up for it, take a look at my website. Thanks again.

Brian