NOTES FOR WIKI

From neatoday magazine: "Turning the Page ," byTim Walker

...used Ning.com to create a class-only, social media group called Verona Lifestyles (studying Romeo and Juliet)

"It's about initiating higher levels of engagement," says Seale, "and making the learning more self-directed and self-motivated." "Let's face it," she says, "being literate today means more than reading words on a printed page and writing an essay."

...being literate also means using critical thinking skills to analyze, critique and evaluate information - essential skills in an information-abundant society.
Central to this new literacy landscape is a highly participatory culture. "The ability to learn from and collaborate with others around the world," Fisch says, "is an amazing development."

Helping teachers adapt to a more interconnected world is one of the goals of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, a national group of education, business, and not-for-profit leaders that promotes integrating content mastery with critical thinking and advancing classroom use of technology.

...help students develop critical thinking skills in order to find credible information...

It's part of digital literacy, which Wikipedia defines as "the ability to locate, organize, understand, evaluate, and create information using digital technology."

When beginning research projects, they provide a list of ten Web sites they want to use for information, ...teachers help students evaluate their sources.

...look for an author, recent dates, and extensions like .edu, .gov, or .org.

...encourages students to think about why it's meaningful [to the world]. It's not enough to know facts...students need to be problem solvers.

"Ultimately, we have a responsibility to teach our students how to communicate well, to prepare them of the future."

Instead, her students take "To Kill A Mockingbird" to the blogosphere and discuss the novel with a ninth-grade English class in IL, led by a teacher Seale met via Twitter. She also plans to have her students use Flip video cameras to record each other actions out different parts of the novel as they explore character motivation and perspective.

More and more educators, however, are discovering that is precisely digital media's limitless possibilities for collaboration, sharing, and communication that can captivate students. Thanks to user-friendly,
Web-based publication technologies, young people may be writing more than ever, for friends, family, and peers across the US and even around the world.

...creating for and sharing with someone other than the teacher.

...harness their students' enthusiasm and help them develop their raw skills.
"Kids have the passion, the technical know-how. and the creativity," says Hogue, "bur they need educators to teach them how to use digital media constructively and responsibly."

[Bill Blass says] "Most kids live in the digital world, but beyond the actual tools involved, their knowledge of how to make it work for them in the long run is pretty superficial. I know I can make these technologies help them communicate better and prepare them for life after school. That's the power of the teacher."

Tools for libraries

nifty site for my final proj:

http://www.ebscohost.com/flashPromo/librarian_page.html

LIBRARY CALCULATOR

This worksheet has been adapted from the downloadable spreadsheet provided by the Massachusetts Library Association.

LIBRARY CALCULATOR