Americans might tend to inflate the influence of the United States in the history of the spread of English. Before the World Wars, particularly WWII, the US was a bit player on the world stage. The...
"Our job as teachers is to draw our students attention to the fact that copy-paste culture is destructive and that appropriate citations and crediting back the sources, if ever we are allowed to, are two important things we always need to invoke as we are dealing with both digital and non digital content. I have an entire section in this blog packed full of resources, tools and tips on how to teach your students about copyright, check it out here to learn more.
Today, I am sharing with you this wonderful flowchart I come across in digital inspiration. You can use it with you students to teach them about the kinds of images to cite and how to do so."
We create economic value out of information when we figure out an effective strategy that includes aggregating, filtering and connecting.
So, the real question is, how do we design filters that let us find our way through this particular abundance of information? And, you know, my answer to that question has been: the only group that can catalog everything is everybody. One of the reasons you see this enormous move towards social filters, as with Digg, as with del.icio.us, as with Google Reader, in a way, is simply that the scale of the problem has exceeded what professional catalogers can do. But, you know, you never hear twenty-year-olds talking about information overload because they understand the filters they’re given. You only hear, you know, forty- and fifty-year-olds taking about it, sixty-year-olds talking about because we grew up in the world of card catalogs and TV Guide. And now, all the filters we’re used to are broken and we’d like to blame it on the environment instead of admitting that we’re just, you know, we just don’t understand what’s going on.
The five forms of filtering break into two categories: judgement-based, or mechanical.
However, even experts can’t deal with all of the information available on the subjects that interest them – that’s why they end up specialising.
As we gain skills and knowledge, the amount of information we can process increases. If we invest enough time in learning something, we can reach filter like an expert.
There can also be expert networks – in some sense that is what the original search engines were, and what mahalo.com is trying now. The problem that the original search engines encountered is that the amount of information available on the web expanded so quickly that it outstripped the ability of the network to keep up with it. This led to the development of google’s search algorithm – an example of one of the versions of mechanical filtering: algorithmic.
heingold also provides a pretty good description of the other form of mechanical filtering, heuristic, in his piece on crap detection. Heuristic filtering is based on a set of rules or routines that people can follow to help them sort through the information available to them.
Filtering by itself is important, but it only creates value when you combine it with aggregating and connecting. As Rheingold puts it:
The important part, as I stressed at the beginning, is in your head. It really doesn’t do any good to multiply the amount of information flowing in, and even filtering that information so that only the best gets to you, if you don’t have a mental cognitive and social strategy for how you’re going to deploy your attention. (emphasis added)
I've been seeking a way to explain why I introduce Diigo along with Information fluency skills in the E-Learning for Educators Course.
This article quickly draws the big picture. Folks seeking to become online teachers are pursuing a specialized teaching skill that requires an information filtering strategy as well as what Rheingold calls "a mental cognitive and social strategy for how you're going to deploy your attention."
Feed readers
are probably the most important digital tool for today's learner because they
make sifting through the amazing amount of content added to the Internet
easy. Also known as aggregators, feed readers are free tools that can
automatically check nearly any website for new content dozens of times a
day---saving ridiculous amounts of time and customizing learning experiences for
anyone.
Imagine
never having to go hunting for new information from your favorite sources
again. Learning goes from a frustrating search through thousands of
marginal links written by questionable characters to quickly browsing the
thoughts of writers that you trust, respect and enjoy.
Feed readers can
quickly and easily support blogging in the classroom, allowing teachers to
provide students with ready access to age-appropriate sites of interest that are
connected to the curriculum. By collecting sites in advance and organizing
them with a feed reader, teachers can make accessing information manageable for
their students.
Here are several
examples of feed readers in action:
Used specifically as
a part of one classroom project, this feed list contains information related to
global warming that students can use as a starting point for individual
research.
While there are literally dozens of different feed reader
programs to choose from (Bloglines andGoogle Reader are two
biggies), Pageflakes is a favorite of
many educators because it has a visual layout that is easy to read and
interesting to look at. It is also free and web-based. That
means that users can check accounts from any computer with an Internet
connection. Finally, Pageflakes makes it quick and easy to add new
websites to a growing feed list—and to get rid of any websites that users are no
longer interested in.
What's even
better: Pageflakes has been developinga teacher version of their tooljust for us that includes an online grade tracker,
a task list and a built in writing tutor. As Pageflakes works to perfect
its teacher product, this might become one of the first kid-friendly feed
readers on the market. Teacher Pageflakes users can actually blog and create a
discussion forum directly in their feed reader---making an all-in-one digital
home for students.
For more
information about the teacher version of Pageflakes, check out this
review:
without a strategic plan for a department, you cannot implement new initiatives successfully, nor can you plan changes or institute changes in thinking. Without a strategic plan, movement forward will always feel forced, slow and lacks critical conversations that must take place with all members of staff in order to have team “buy in”. In the formation of the strategic plan, it is the one time that all staff have input and can “own” the direction of the department as a whole.
As a library we are a strategic arm of the school, even if we are not mentioned directly, and if we are not mentioned directly, then that’s our fault for not doing enough to be important to the school plan.
Library strategic plan based on the goals of the school strategic plan
If you have a Library strategic plan that you wrote with your staff, but never talk to other departments about then how do you expect them to have “buy in”?
sent it to other Libraries or your personal learning network (PLN), then how do you know what you are missing that is critical Library functions?
no corresponding operational plan then you have not thought about how you are going to archive your goals in the strategic plan
if you do not review the plan with all your staff and see how far you have moved, then its just a bit of paper that makes you feel better and is not an item that you have action as a team.
ask everyone to write one goal based on the overarching goals setout in the School Strategic Plan. These are big picture statements.
highlight the main goals of the school strategic plan
1. Tell your team that you are going to need them to review and read the school strategic plan.
Each individual sent these through to the Head of Library who combined and sent these to everyone removing who wrote what.
this was the main opportunity for all staff to have a chance to contribute to the strategic plan and the direction of the library for the next three years.
As the Head of Library I undertook the role of reading each goal and combining some goals together to ensure they incorporated the essence of each team members thinking.
From these I started to break out these goals into articulated statements that specifically looked at the library and what this meant day-to-day.
the strategic mission statement needs to be written which sums up the overarching goal of the plan
Once completed you need to send these goals out to the team for comment and any aspects that need clarification.
Once the fundamentals have been articulated in the goals and then corresponding support statement as Head of Library I need to present these back to the Curriculum Leadership group for comment. In addition a meeting with individual departments needs to be conducted to hear what they require from the Library going forward over the next three years.
The plan is then reworked and specific items for each department are highlighted in a separate document.
"On this site, you will find message templates (sample e-mails, letters, newsletter blurbs, brochures, and even videos) containing these taglines and targeting specific stakeholder audiences in order to promote school librarians as 21st century skills experts. We hope that these sample templates will be used by school librarians and school library advocates to inform their communities about the vital and irreplaceable role that school librarians play in teaching and learning. Maybe you'll get inspired to create something for us that we can use, too. In the meantime, we hope you find this site helpful."
"Invention - Create Solutions -
According to the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, "Learning and innovation skills increasingly are being recognized as the skills that separate students who are prepared for increasingly complex life and work environments in the 21st century, and those who are not. A focus on creativity is essential to prepare students for the future."
School Librarians TEACH students how to invent, innovate and create solutions. They provide students with creative tools and apps that inspire students to use innovative solutions, express knowledge in unique ways, propose answers to real world problems, and share their world."
Practice as many questions before your assessment. The more psychometric aptitude test questions you practice the more your speed, accuracy and confidence will improve. Improving these factors will...
Welcome to the 'iPad in Education' web site - concerned with using Apple's iPad for learning and teaching. Although this is based in the UK, the site's content will reflect practice from other counties and contexts in order to explore and learn from a wide field. I am Ian Wilson (www.ianwilson.biz) a freelance Apple Education Mentor based in the north west of England (Twitter: @Ian__Wilson). I have set up this site as I believe the iPad signals the opportunity for a transformation in how technology is used in schools, colleges and universities. I am interested in looking at all age ranges, all abilities across all areas of the curriculum and keen to see if the iPad makes technology more transparent and cross-curricular as it should be.
Educators are increasingly using new media and digital technologies to teach and engage their 21st century students. Reading, writing, gaming, trans-media, immersive worlds, augmented reality, and Web 3.0 are all part of the new digital frontiers. Whether it's science or science fiction, Alice in Wonderland or Angry Birds, the dynamics of this new information ecology are transforming learning experiences in our schools. We can lead this learning revolution by ensuring that our library and the learning ecology we create can harness these new environments. How we do this, will determine our success and the future relevance and importance of our school libraries.
Individual and group challenges are a great way to teach and practice information fluency. All aspects of searching and evaluation are covered by these game-like challenges, from turning questions into effective queries, picking the right databases, homing in while browsing, evaluating authors and content, and more. Challenges are linked to Common Core State Standards and Information Fluency Competencies
UCF - imilar to movie trailers, video book trailers are short, minute and a half to two-minute videos that introduce the basic storyline. They differ from book reports captured on video in that in these productions the story is re-enacted with artistic and creative decisions made by the director as to what parts of the story are presented.\n\nTEACHERS: Are you interested in creating your own book trailers and posting the on this site? UB the Director is a curriculum model that answers the inevitable question from your students: "Why do I have to read the book if I can watch the movie about it instead?" Our curriculum teaches you and your students how to visualize the books being read and how to utilize the story invention process to create your own video book trailers. By registering, we will provided guidance on how to create video book trailers and how to add them to the Newbie's Corner our site.
What's more, we're *drowning* in information. Pre-Internet librarianship was like pre-Internet newspaper publishing: "select, then publish." That is, all the unfiltered items are presented to a gatekeeper, who selects the best of them, and puts them in front of the rest of the world. Now we live in a "publish, then select" world: everyone can reach everything, all the time, and the job of experts is to collect and annotate that material, to help others navigate its worth and truthfulness.
That is to say that society has never needed its librarians, and its libraries, more. The major life-skill of the information age is information literacy, and no one's better at that than librarians. It's what they train for. It's what they live for.
"No matter how strong your math and science skills are, you still need to know how to learn, think and even write. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon (and the owner of this newspaper), insists that his senior executives write memos, often as long as six printed pages, and begins senior-management meetings with a period of quiet time, sometimes as long as 30 minutes, while everyone reads the "narratives" to themselves and makes notes on them. In an interview with Fortune's Adam Lashinsky, Bezos said: "Full sentences are harder to write. They have verbs. The paragraphs have topic sentences. There is no way to write a six-page, narratively structured memo and not have clear thinking.""
Zoom-In Inquiry is often an introduction portion of a lesson. During this activity, students uncover a primary source image piece by piece in order to understand a big idea or theme related to curriculum standards. An investigative question starts the exploration and guiding questions focused on observation, interpretation, and evaluation follow as pieces of the image are revealed one at a time. Students use evidence and subject specific vocabulary to support their hypotheses. Students reflect on their understanding of the primary source and its relationship to "the big picture" or a large scale understanding that is overarching and essential to the subject. Finally, other related primary sources are presented that ask students to apply knowledge and understanding from the Zoom-In Inquiry to a new source or problem.
why books such as Markus Zusak’s Book Thief and Annika Thor’s Faraway Island, both set during the Holocaust, and Laurie Halse Anderson’s Chains, set during the American Revolution, weren’t given any “educational value.” The editor in chief had no clear answers, but those books have now been awarded “educational value” on Common Sense Media’s site. It is clear to the nine organizations that are working hard to protect children and young adult’s freedom to read that Common Sense Media is a moving target, and their piecemeal response to such questions won’t fix what is at heart a misguided and dangerous concept.
Wow! I had no idea. I've used the Internet saftey information and videos but didn't know about the book ratings.
While Common Sense Media isn’t censoring anything, it is providing a tool for censors. There is already a documented case in the Midwest where a book was removed from a school library based solely on a Common Sense review. Common Sense Media allows users to filter books by “on,” “off,” and “iffy” ratings. And reviewers are instructed to point out anything “controversial.” Such warnings encourage site browsers to take things out of context instead of looking at books as a whole.
Bombs, lips, and martini glasses! Indeed, let them be a warning. We must be proactive in helping parents understand that rating books is dangerous. Otherwise, more censorship bombs are sure to explode.
If you had asked me a year ago what bombs, lips, and martini glasses have in common, I would have answered, “A fraternity party.” Now I have a different answer. It’s called Common Sense Media. This not-for-profit Web-based organization is in the business of using a “rating” system to review all types of media that target children, but their “ratings” of books are especially disingenuous. They claim that they want to keep parents informed. Informed about what? What their children should read or what they shouldn’t read?
Over four themed episodes that criss-cross the globe, journalist and academic Dr Aleks Krotoski explores the meaning of a phenomenon that is transforming everything from how we learn to how we shop, vote and make friends. The series reveals astonishing facts about how the web is rewiring our society, our economy and - drawing on a unique experiment conducted specifically for the series - maybe even our brains.The series brings together everyone who's anyone on the web - from its inventor Tim Berners-Lee to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg; from Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales to Amazon's Jeff Bezos; from web pioneers like Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak to digital media barons like Arianna Huffington and Twitter founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams.
This wiki was created for school library media specialists by Dr. Donna Baumbach and Dr. Judy Lee, University of Central Florida. The purpose is to provide information about some of the new web-based tools (Web 2.0) and how they can be used and are being used by school library media specialists and their students and teachers. Much of the information--including identifying a need for this kind of information--is the result of a survey conducted in 2008 of over 600 school library media specialists about their knowledge and use of web-based tools in library media programs.
If we want to connect with the latest generation of learners and teachers, we have to totally redesign the library from the vantage point of our users—our thinking has to do a 180-degree flip.
This learning commons is both a physical and a virtual space that’s staffed not just by teacher-librarians but also by other school specialists who, like us, are having trouble getting into the classroom and getting kids’ attention.
specialists such as literacy coaches, teacher technologists, teacher-librarians, art teachers, music teachers, and P.E. teachers
In the physical space, we enter a room that’s totally flexible, where furnishings can be moved about to accommodate different functions and groupings.
experimental learning center,
the learning commons is both a giant, ongoing conversation and a warehouse of digital materials
—from ebooks to databases to student-generated content—all available 24/7 yea
Imagine a learning environment in which the multimedia world of information fed individual students’ needs, and where on-demand digital textbooks/multimedia/databases are available 24/7 and under the control of the user.
examples of one-way communication.
But in the new learning commons, homework assignments and library Web sites offer two-way communication.
Directive adults have been transformed into coaches; direct teaching has been transformed into collaborative inquiry.
On another day, parents may be invited to the learning commons to observe a jointly designed medieval art fair created by a classroom teacher, the art teacher, and the teacher-librarian.
The experimental learning center aims to improve teaching and learning by offering professional development sessions and resources that are tailor-made to each school’s greatest needs.
The teacher posts assignments on a blog that’s linked through an RSS feed to individual students in the class, each of whom can access the blog through an iGoogle page or another personal home page.
myebook aims to revolutionise the way we create, publish and share ebook content online. Built on a feature-rich social platform, complete with powerful, browser-based, builder software, and a slick reader environment, there's never been an easier way for anyone and everyone to 'get it out there'.
With myebook.com, we've made it possible for anyone to upload, or create from scratch, beautifully simple or adventurously complex page designs and covers online, in no time. What's more, you can publish your book with a single button and release it to the world before the (virtual) ink's dry! You can create as many publications as you want. And it's all free.