Skip down to Paragraph 3, unless you want context, fluff and personal opinions/biases. Teach this, follow this scope and sequence, use these assessments, nope, sorry, curriculum is changing, adapt, scaffold, yadayadayada. Yes, this seems like a pessimistic view and I apologize that it comes off this way, but this is the feeling I had when teaching in a traditional, comprehensive school setting. Fortunately, I got to help design and use a curriculum I stood behind, was able to have input on assessments and was allowed to design my lessons in whatever manner I proved was effective. Rabbit hole, back up for air. Now back to the question at hand. Finding space within the daily tasks to design and implement digital literacy. The buzzword, 21st Century skills come to mind and if we as educators are charged with the task of teaching these 21st Century skills, then we must also be drawing from content that is 21st Century relevant. Teaching technology should no longer be thought of as snippet that is introduced as we hand out Chromebooks are assign iPads. Digital literacy is part of the education, woven into our daily lives much like Restorative Justice practices and should not be thought of as a stand-alone lesson. These are the 21st Century skills, these are the reasons that we value education. Off the soapbox, time for action! Being in a 1:1 classroom has pushed me as an educator. Looking back a mere three years ago (pre 1:1), my classroom looked differently. Chromebooks came out on special occasions, after we signed up for a cart and patiently await "our day". The SBAC's were done on Chromebooks, so were a few basic transformation (Geometry) tasks but that was it. Today, students engage in discourse through Padlet, answer questions through Quizizz, access shared docs through Google Classroom, create zines through online templates and use Desmos to compare functions. With this great power comes great responsibility. The way that I have begun to teach digital literacy involves: 1) Modeling/Moderating online communication - Using apps such as Padlet for warm ups, quick writes and debatable topics, gives the students a chance to communicate digitally. Within a comment thread that is similar to Facebook, students can piggy-back off of others ideas, debate and get ideas from others. Having this sort of communication within the safety/confines of the classroom allows students to help build online awareness (and online writing and grammar skills). 2) Using various sites and resources to analyze validity of online content - Specifically, teaching some basic "look-fors" when digging through content such as official accounts often have a blue check box and locked Wikipedia pages are more trust worthy. I Lately I have been using resources from Stanford's Civic Online Reasoning site and using these mini tasks as a quick warm up or segue into a larger project. 3) Taking charge of their learning - This year, I have been creating YouTube videos and screencasts to teach supporting skills for our content. Instead of students receiving direct instruction from the teacher (live) they have the power to watch (or not watch) a demo/instruction. The goal in this was two-fold, one, if students already had the content knowledge the could skip this resource, two, it allows students to work at their own pace with the power to rewatch, pause and go back. These videos are posted to Google Classroom for easy access. An area that I would like to push myself and students into is the Creation realm of Digital Literacy. This year has been a first for many of our students integrating technology into their daily classroom routines. Much of their comfortability relies on being told exactly what to do. After reviewing the Hyperdoc site as well as many of the samples, I believe this is a route to scaffold independence in relation to technology, allowing students space to explore while still being pushed towards an end product.
4 Comments
helen
2/19/2018 01:21:14 pm
I like reading your site, though it is so far removed from third grade, it reminds me of the real world my students live in and the issues they will be facing very quickly in their lives. Your thoughts stretch my reflections to think about how I can get my students to internalize behavioral expectations that will help guide them. thank you.
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Christina Schreiber
2/19/2018 01:27:05 pm
I agree with every word in your second paragraph. We would be doing our students a disservice if we do not help teach them how to navigate all of the information found online. I also agree that it should not be a stand alone lesson done once in a while and forgotten. What I am also noticing with my students is sometimes doing the "right thing" online like citing a source, or checking 2 other websites to verify information takes students a lot longer and they are much happier taking the easy way out. It is our job to help them keep practicing so that these skills become second nature.
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Scott Marsden
2/19/2018 02:21:15 pm
Joseph,
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Diana
2/20/2018 10:06:42 pm
Joseph, I love that you began your writing with the honestly that so many of us feel. Teaching in a general classroom has become so much of a balancing act, it is hard to imagine adding one more thing into the mix of our already overwhelmed schedules. It was about 3 years ago for us as well that we went 1:1. At first, we only brought the chrome books out on "special occasions" simply because we had no idea what else to do with them. Now, it seems like everyday there is a new app or website that is guaranteed to make our jobs easier. For me, I find that I really need to learn and invest my time in one before adding another. It seems like you have an amazing grasp on how to manage all of this in your classroom. Awesome job!
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AuthorHello, I'm Joe. Welcome to writings about my thought process throughout the journey of Touro's Innovative Learning Graduate Program. Archives
July 2018
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