Favorites
I have several favorites that I've learned about in this process. I feel comfortable with Glogster and Animoto, two tools that honestly scared me before. I also am impressed with Blogger. I know that my students in the future will probably have at least one blog for Language Arts. This is very exciting but also very intimidating right now as we begin to teach our students all about the responsibilities of digital citizenship.
Change in Learning
Now that I've been through this process, I can see that technology, although it is changing so much more rapidly than it used to, is somewhat less intimidating because it's mostly web-based. This is great because students will be able to access it from anywhere. All those years of programs that are incompatible with my computer or not accessible from home are gone!
I think I am much more comfortable with the idea of learning along with my students or even learning some of this stuff from my students. Before this, I was kind of held back by my fear of the unknown, but it's not as intimidating as it was before. This is probably because things seem so much more user-friendly than they used to be.
The changes I will need to make to accommodate the 21st century learner--1)teach digital citizenship early and often. 2)Develop a good system of keeping track of my technology. 3) Make technology more of a "forethought" than an afterthought. I want to redesign some of my favorite lessons to incorporate technology or to improve upon the technology that they already use.
Unexpected Outcomes
I really think I will be using a lot more of the tools at my disposal than I ever thought I would do voluntarily. With Atomic Learning so accessible (I didn't realize the login was the same as for my SBISD stuff), I can go learn about things, get professional development credit, and, incredibly, not have to remember yet another password. It sounds dumb, but many times I don't go to these sites because I cannot remember my password! This is huge for me!!!
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Tool #10
There are a few things that I want my students to understand about being good digital citizens:
1) Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see (or in this case, read, see, and hear). This old adage that my grandfather taught me still holds true. They need to confirm information by looking at multiple sources in order to verify it and/or look at the source of the website itself, like they taught us to do at the staff development in August.
2) Students cannot just use the first resource that they come to just because they want to get something over with. They need to look at multiple sources.
3) Students need to see models of good researching, have healthy skepticism, and follow-up with something every time they hear something (I can use the erroneous e-mails I receive and snopes.com as an example of this)
One of the resources that I plan to use instructionally is digitalcitizenship.net. On this website, I found a great lesson entitled Foundational Lesson Plan #2--Digital Compass.
In it, you give each classroom group a "digital compass" that says things like "I don't know if it's right or wrong" and "Depends on the situation". Then you give each group a list of scenarios and they have to discuss the right, wrong, etc. of each "digital situation". Here's an example of one of the scenarios:
Scenario #5 – An hour before class, a student remembers that a writing assignment is due. The
student goes to the library, logs on to a website, and copies/pastes information without giving
credit to the authors. Is using Internet materials without giving credit to the authors wrong?
I would use technology to teach it. Not only would I go over the ethical dilemmas in the digital compass, but I would also use the movies on Brainpop to really drive the point home. I want them to be savvy. In our persuasion unit, we discuss the importance of knowing about persuasion techniques so that students will know when someone is trying to use those same techniques on them and they won't be taken in. Similarly, I would like them to see the value of healthy skepticism to make them smarter and savvier in general.
There is another way I use to drive this point home. I use an article from The Houston Chronicle from Rick Casey entitled "Incredible Lawsuit Tales" about myths that have been circulating the internet since e-mail forwards became popular. In it, Casey tells all of these so-called "true stories" and talks about how they are just myths. Most of the students have heard at least one of these stories and have taken them as gospel.
I would also like the parents to know the pitfalls of believing everything they read by showing them these resources at Open House. For example, I could show them the martinlutherking.org website that was actually created by white supremacists!! I can also post these resources on my website. If the parents know how to research, they will in turn reinforce the message to the students.
1) Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see (or in this case, read, see, and hear). This old adage that my grandfather taught me still holds true. They need to confirm information by looking at multiple sources in order to verify it and/or look at the source of the website itself, like they taught us to do at the staff development in August.
2) Students cannot just use the first resource that they come to just because they want to get something over with. They need to look at multiple sources.
3) Students need to see models of good researching, have healthy skepticism, and follow-up with something every time they hear something (I can use the erroneous e-mails I receive and snopes.com as an example of this)
One of the resources that I plan to use instructionally is digitalcitizenship.net. On this website, I found a great lesson entitled Foundational Lesson Plan #2--Digital Compass.
In it, you give each classroom group a "digital compass" that says things like "I don't know if it's right or wrong" and "Depends on the situation". Then you give each group a list of scenarios and they have to discuss the right, wrong, etc. of each "digital situation". Here's an example of one of the scenarios:
Scenario #5 – An hour before class, a student remembers that a writing assignment is due. The
student goes to the library, logs on to a website, and copies/pastes information without giving
credit to the authors. Is using Internet materials without giving credit to the authors wrong?
I would use technology to teach it. Not only would I go over the ethical dilemmas in the digital compass, but I would also use the movies on Brainpop to really drive the point home. I want them to be savvy. In our persuasion unit, we discuss the importance of knowing about persuasion techniques so that students will know when someone is trying to use those same techniques on them and they won't be taken in. Similarly, I would like them to see the value of healthy skepticism to make them smarter and savvier in general.
There is another way I use to drive this point home. I use an article from The Houston Chronicle from Rick Casey entitled "Incredible Lawsuit Tales" about myths that have been circulating the internet since e-mail forwards became popular. In it, Casey tells all of these so-called "true stories" and talks about how they are just myths. Most of the students have heard at least one of these stories and have taken them as gospel.
I would also like the parents to know the pitfalls of believing everything they read by showing them these resources at Open House. For example, I could show them the martinlutherking.org website that was actually created by white supremacists!! I can also post these resources on my website. If the parents know how to research, they will in turn reinforce the message to the students.
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