Interesting post from Kath Murdoch: Today, as I listened to and watched the medical staff at work, I was reminded of the importance of stopping to closely examine ourselves professionally. Taking time to reflect on our work is vital - but we need to be mindful of what it is we are looking for.
A planning/teaching team in healthy condition is a joy to be part of. Conversely, unhealthy teams who have not taken time to be mindful and caring of what they do and how they work together can miss golden opportunities for both student learning AND professional growth.
Getting kids to really focus on what exactly they are searching for, and then be able to further distill idea into a few key specific search terms is a skill that we must teach students, and we have to do it over and over again. We never question the vital importance of teaching literacy, but we have to be mindful that there are many kinds of "literacies". An ever more important one that ALL teachers need to be aware of is digital literacy. I could go off in many directions on this, but for the purpose of this post I'm focusing strictly on the digital literacy of searching.
There are many free digital tools available to help students efficiently sift through an overwhelming abundance of web content to find the relevant and reliable information they need. This post will explore some digital resources to provide educators with tools to help all students become savvy searchers and independent learners.