Shafer Library Research Group

"Digital literacy is the ability to use information and communication technologies  to find, understand, evaluate, create, and communicate digital information, an  ability that requires both cognitive and technical skills.

"This Tweet shifted my world: If you can Google it, it isn't a good assignment." http://t.co/Rq0A8CytBR by @crossons

Read the short blog post, follow some of the links, and most importantly, try to find 50 minutes to watch the Will Richardson video - from his ISTE presentation. All of this reinforces my belief (our belief) that the library should be at the CENTER of a school's academic purpose. Teachers should be sending students to this place of inquiry, research, collaboration, and creative problem-solving. This belief should drive our library re-design and it's program.

100+ STEM websites ... livebinder

Sample research papers by grade (6-12) from San Diego

Maryland Common Core Standards for Writing in History/Social Studies

Maryland State Social studies standards. View by grade on the right of the screen.

Article about the National Council of Social Studies themes and standards.

Rewordify.com is free, online reading comprehension software. It helps people understand difficult English faster, and helps them learn words in new ways. This might be a good tool for students who encounter roadblocks with difficult texts.

The six Dimensions of Inquiry are: Questioning, Locating Information, Evaluating Information, Applying Information, Sharing Knowledge and Reflecting. Together they represent the inquiry process. Standards now require that inquiry be taught across all content areas and all grade levels. The IMatrix System allows you to see the hierarchical scaffolding of skills in these dimensions from early grades through high school...

Here's an article about Ohio's iMatrix from "Teacher Librarian"; I'll also post the link to iMatrix itself. It looks like a fancy version of what we are trying to do with our google site, and it's also searchable by skill or grade level. What keeps you up at night? Educating students to be college and career ready? Incorporating inquiry into your teaching for the very first time? Shifting your instruction to explore topics in greater depth and at more rigorous levels of learning? Or are you struggling to incorporate formative instructional assessment?

This helped me think a little more about the big picture and what could be beyond college for our students. Summary: Global connectivity, smart machines, and new media are just some of the drivers reshaping how we think about work, what constitutes work, and the skills we will need to be productive contributors in the future. This report analyzes key drivers that will reshape the landscape of work and identifies key work skills needed in the next 10 years.

I was struck by the empahsis on planning for presentation space as part of the design for a library. The format of the final product or outcome of a research project in years to come will involve sharing in ways we have probably not yet considered, much less designed in our school spaces.

While this article focuses on citation analysis and its impact in higher education, it discusses specific databases and the problem of keeping up with the boom in online information sources. It also provides a glimpse of the cutting edge of research about research.

This contains a long list of websites in addition to Creative Commons

Similar to CRLS's webpage. This website has a ton of information on many topics from citing to evaluating online sources.

I like their explanation of why it is necessary to cite source material properly. It stresses the credibility that expert sources lend to an argument, the author's assumed interest in building his/her own professional reputation, the reader's possible interest in further study of a topic, and the importance of giving and receiving due credit for one's thoughts.

From 2011 and still relevant. Some basic skills to model in the classroom.

As we think about what skills and capacities a GFS graduate should have, this might be helpful.