Group items tagged

Digital Investigator Training Digital DIF Investigator Applying the Digital Information Fluency (DIF) Process Digital Investigator Training is a way for middle and high school students to learn valuable digital information fluency skills. Educators interested in the teacher's guides should contact us at: 21cif@imsa.edu Start Here (materials open in a new window.) In this training course you will learn to: Power Search for Digital Resources Evaluate Digital Materials Use Digital Materials in an Ethical Manner

What if every student (and educator) was a good online researcher?  I know, you don't have the time to teach information fluency skills.  What if you could get a significant advance is skills with just a 2 -3  hour time commitment?  Here's a great Prezi 'fly by" of the new Information Investigator 3.1 online self paced class.  Watch the presentation carefully to find the link to a free code to take the class for evaluation purposes. 

For those that don't work with an LMS, Engrade looks like a fine tool for educators.  It integrates some interesting power tools. Discussions, wikis, quizzes, messaging.  This might be an LMS substitute for those teachers looking for a free blended tech solution.  Worth investigating!

Janet Allen recommends creating "expert groups" topics from books and having students investigate the topics to build background knowledge for the class. Would expert groups look like this in a digital environment?

I'm all for using pop culture references in teaching, and I did read what Shmoop had to say on this particular video, but would you really feel comfortable sharing this video in class and having a discourse on it? I'm a Jay-Z fan and a hip hop lover from its earliest days, but this video and song are reprehensible on so many levels. With so much else that we can "source" for instruction, why this? Please help me understand. And don't say it's a gangsta thang.

To answer your first question about showing the music video: absolutely not. Why this? I'm still struggling with it. We're in an age where we are entertained by self destruction. Kanye (unfortunately, because I was a fan of his earlier work) is definitely becoming one of the monster / Charlie Sheen / Jersey Shore / reality TV burnouts. And yet, there is an audience for it... When I first skimmed the analysis, I thought I'd go back to see if Schmoop was established enough to have a worthy application of Freud to Kanye. Alas, I was mistaken. I haven't become a fan of Schmoop; they've got some work to do. I'm sorry I misplaced my "under investigation" tag in ECN's collection.