Always Learning
This week’s reading talked about professional development and teaching digital natives (kids who grew up with technology).
As far as professional development is concerned with information literacy it has to be a continuing effort, not something that is talked about once a year or so. The teachers also need to incorporate the technology into the classroom environments and share how they are using it with their co-workers and what works and doesn’t work. Also, when having professional development classes the “instructor” needs to incorporate as many Web 2.0 tools as possible into the training session.
The VSTE journal discusses digital natives and digital immigrants. Digital immigrants are the teachers who are not “experts” with technology. Digital natives are those who grew up with technology and are more than comfortable using it. The challenge for teachers is finding a balance between learning from our students and actually teaching our students. We have to find a way to teach the students to challenge themselves with technology not just be comfortable with it. Here is one method that will help in this endeavour:
D-I-S-C-O-V-E-R Information Literacy:
• Define – Define the problem to be solved and the information needed to solve it.
• Inquire – Inquire about a variety of resources. Include more than just the Internet.
• Search – Search for information in multiple locations including different search engines
and offline resources.
• Collect – Collect information you have found for further consideration. Cite all sources as
you work.
• Organize – Organize the information collected and refine your search if needed.
• Verify – Verify the authenticity of information gathered. Is it unbiased, reliable, and truthful?
• Extend– Extend your understanding through analyzing the gathered information and sharing with others.
• Reflect – Reflect on the entire process. Did you accomplish your goal? Should the goal beredefined or reevaluated?
Another idea that works with the discovery model is havign students keep a digital portfolio with their goals and work. That way they can see the progress that they make.
Basically, we are always learners. Someone said “the day I stop learning, is the day I should stop teaching”. This is something I whole heartedly believe in. If we expect our students to learn, we must also continue to learn with them!
June 29th, 2008 at 10:08 am
Christine: I agree with you about teachers being learners, and what you said about not teaching if you were done learning. I wish that all of my co-workers and my administration were reading the same articles this week. (I’ll be passing the VSTE article on to them.) All teachers need to know the importance of recognizing that we are the “digital immigrants” and what measures we need to take to ensure the success of our ‘digital native” students in the digitally-competitive world of today. Nice reflection. Lauren B.
June 29th, 2008 at 11:10 am
I agree with you that we are always learning. I think it is so important that we keep up with technology so that we can help our students learn the necessary skills to succeed after graduation.
-Shannon