Digital literacy is a true passion of mine in the classroom. I am interested in it so much that I designed my action research project around it last semester. I truly feel that digital literacy and citizenship needs to be taught in every classroom. It is the collective work of all teachers that will help our students successfully be able to navigate, make sense of and safely use the internet.
I can use my personalized learning plan from this week as an example. I was excited to try out some of the ideas that were shared this week in class so I added them to my timeline. Specifically I wanted to try/learn creative commons and also the EasyBib add on for Google Docs. I will need to first explore these tools on my own and then I will present them to my class as a part of a content related project or lesson. For example, my students will be writing a letter to an alien next week about the states of matter that we have here on earth and how these compare to what this imaginary alien has on their own planet. Students will be typing a letter in google docs for this. I am going to ask them to include pictures in the letter and I will be showing them creative commons and linking it in the directions so that students will have a chance to practice using it. I will also be having them all add the EasyBib add on and requiring them to cite their images or references in a works cited. By doing these two small additions to my project that I was already planning to do, I am providing my students with an opportunity to practice new skills and to talk to them about the proper use of images found online. I think that when students see more and more of their teachers including digital literacy and digital citizenship in their core classes, it will become natural for the students to do things like use creative commons or be able to properly evaluate the credibility of a website. Some of the data from my action research first semester led me to believe that students know a bit about some of these digital literacy skills, but when not held to that standard, they will always take the easy way out and do things like copy and paste images straight from google image searches. I appreciated the nudge in class last week that as teachers we should always be modeling this for our students by citing where we have obtained images in our presentations and giving credit to the creator of the content.
8 Comments
Shawn
2/18/2018 08:16:41 am
Wow!! What a cool project your students will be working on. I like how you changed it form a normal essay on states of matter. I am sure engagement will be even higher because of your approach to checking for understanding.
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Jane Gallagher
2/18/2018 06:22:06 pm
Maybe you could provide some PD for our school district :)
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Jane Gallagher
2/18/2018 06:30:21 pm
Maybe you could provide some PD for our school district :)
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Diana
2/18/2018 11:01:54 am
I am so impressed with how quickly you take some of these tools and incorporate them into your lessons. My biggest struggle is trying to incorporate just the required curriculum into my 50 minute blocks. I do agree with you, I think that it is important for it to be a collective effort to teach these strategies. The challenge with that comes when not all teachers are as comfortable with the technology. Do you have any ideas or suggestions on this?
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Alicia Martin
2/18/2018 04:52:43 pm
What a fun and creative way of having students show what they have learned. It's so awesome that you learn about something and you are willing to try it out right away. with my age group it is harder to try things because if it doesn't go as planned my students could riot (OK, not riot, but still...). Teaching second graders, I never knew that you had to cite images. That was something I learned this week. As a lower elementary teacher I would love for the students to be well equipped with tools by the time they get to middle school. You seem like you are doing great things!
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Madeleine O'Rear
2/19/2018 08:59:04 am
I love your enthusiasm for digital literacy! I really liked what you said about teachers incorporating digital literacy into their lessons more will help students to understand that this is going to be a normal part of life. If you believe that a teacher's goal is to prepare their students to be successful adults , then the school world should mirror the professional world as closely as possible. As we know that technology is already a constant in the professional world we should strive to make our classrooms match the professional environments are students will be working in as closely as possible. It sounds like you are already doing this and I can't wait to hear more about the research you do this term!
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Scott Marsden
2/19/2018 01:56:48 pm
Christina,
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Joseph Williams
2/19/2018 05:18:54 pm
I appreciate that you take tools that you hear about and immediately plan to utilize them in your classroom! The only way you will find if you like them is by trying them out. I am grateful that you are doing this work and I can be a part of this progression indirectly because this is work that will benefit all of us.
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April 2018
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Photo used under Creative Commons from Theo Crazzolara