Chapter 4 Accessing Primary Sources to Enhance Critical Thinking

This chapter really makes me think about 21st century skills. As was reading I analyzed how much our world has changed and how much information and visual stimuli students are inundated with each day. On pg 64 November states "many students have not been taught to develop strategies for thinking about and evaluating primary sources. The role of the teacher is to provide structure and direction to a student's ability to make meaning."

It is November's belief that students should be taught perspective. (pg 64) I too hold this belief. I think most high school social studies teachers start teaching this skill. However, with students starting to use the web much earlier then high school; it is another skill that must be taught much earlier, so students can make meaning of their research.

November suggest that we teach students to question primary documents; including all of those on the web. I would consider blogs, wikis, and other web resources a form of primary resources that need to be questioned.

I really like his suggestion on pg 69 about connecting experts in the field. It has become so easy for students to do this with the internet in the classroom. I have a vision of a wiki that includes resources about a project and a page where experts can edit to inculde their up to date resource for our students. I can see students, teachers, and experts skyping and emailing. To me this is a powerful way for students to learn. It makes learning real, present, and important.

To summarize teachers should teach visual literacy, search skills and perspective to help students focus their research. The teacher is a guide that directs, facilitates, and evaluates.

Flying Penguins

Could you imagine showing this video to your students? How many of them do you think would believe in flying penguins? Would some catch on when they fly to the Rainforest?
This would be an example of something I would show my class to lead into a discussion on web literacy. It's on the internet; so it must be true right?

Be sure to check out Mr. Romand's Blog to find more activities like Flying Penguins to use with your students.

Ch 3 Emerging Roles Within the Knowledge Community

This chapter begins by telling us that there is way too much for teachers to learn when it comes to technology. (pg 38) However, November states on the next page that teachers don't need to know a lot of technical skills; they need to know how to manage the technology. I think he means the physical management and integration of technology into everyday lesson plans. In addition, teachers need the knowledge of collaboration. In the future teachers will need to collaborate on real world problems, with parents, and the community into order to perform best practices.

I think USD 313 has already started in our own backyard when it comes to collaboration. We collaborate with our teams already often by using googledocs. That is a great beginning. Some of us may be ready for the next step which is collaboration beyond our own school and district.

As we embark on the 21st century classroom roles change. Students become problem solvers, learners, experts. Sometimes they even assume the role of the teacher. The teacher moves to a facilitator role. The changing roles often cause fear in teachers, and this is only natural. I love the last statement on page 54, "if fears are articulated, validated, and discussed, adults are in a better position to learn new skills."

Hopefully, we have enough trust in each other that we as professionals can address our fears together and help each other to overcome them.

Chapter 2 Empowering Learning By Expanding Relationships

Wow! What a paradigm shift on page 34. "We need to end the relative isolation of the classroom and connect our educators and students to the world" that's a complete change in the way that teaching has happened since its creation. I believe today's technology creates a unique learning opportunity to help motivate students because students are given the opportunity to publish authentic, real work; in addition, it teaches them about culture differences and perspective. Video conferencing; such as skype allows parents to connect to the classroom and helps to build school/home relationships. Skype and epals also help students to learn about culture differences which is important for workers of tomorrow in a global economy.

As I was reading, I thought about our students of today and students of past generations. I thought how teens used to feel more worthy and important in the family dynamics. It was necessary for them to work to help provide for the family. This made their role more important and probably established more self worth. In today's world, do teens feel that self worth and responsibility of teens from the past? I'm not sure they do. It seems to take them longer to grow up now days. What if, they were solving real world problems that made an impact on their local communities; or worked hand-in-hand with a local organization or scientist to solve a problem. How would that impact their self worth and help them to feel that sense of responsibility. This is all possible with the use of technology, project based learning, and collaboration.

My thoughts of teachers publishing their work on the web were: I think they should publish authentic work on the web because it provides a model for students and a positive atmosphere for learning

Page 20 Reflection Questions

Please comment on these two questions.

Q1. What does it mean to be information literate?

Q2. Share ways we can teach our students to have the essential skills to be information literate.

Chapter 1

This books begins by stating that "teaching students to use the internet is much more complex than simply using a search engine to surf the web." I believe this statement because students need to learn how to evaluate the information that they read. As adults we know that all information posted on the web is not true. Therefore, it is our responsibility to teach students how to evaluate websites for validity.