I really enjoyed reading the various articles, blog posts, and videos for Module 5 on Critical Literacy. The sentence that really resonated with me was when Heather Davis (2010) wrote, “Both critical thinking and information literacy work together in partnership, each leaning on and supporting the other.” This, in essence, is what we, as teacher-librarian, do. We work together with our staff, students, community, and world to support each other in creating and expanding our learning.
So much of what we do in the library is intertwined together, as Davis (2010) states, “Much of these alternate literacies can reinforce and provide added dimension to the information literacy competency and create critical skills for the 21st century student.” When I think about critical literacy (and the other literacies), I do not think of them as separate entities, but as important pieces to a puzzle of learning, growth, and reflection. As I read through the articles, I thought about how important critical literacy is and how essential it is to include as part of our teaching. We must help our students construct this knowledge to better prepare them for the future (not just for research or school purposes, but also for everyday life experiences, to help them build empathy, and in hopes that they will construct and make positive changes to the world). If I want to demonstrate how learning commons help schools achieve their goals (as my essential question), then I therefore need to ensure that I am integrating critical literacy (and all literacies) into my teaching, learning, and collaboration.
When I saw the prompt for this module’s learning curation, I automatically thought about PowToon. When we were first introduced to PowToon, I decided that emaze was a better fit for my presentation, so although I explored PowToon, I did not have a chance to use it as a tool to showcase my learning (or to teach others). I finally got the opportunity to try it out for an audience this past week as part of an inquiry assignment in LIBE 477B. The inquiry was on fostering a reading culture in school and, rather than list a bunch of strategies, I decided to make a PowToon movie. If you’d like to see it you can view it below.
I had such a blast creating the movie that I knew that I immediately wanted to use it again for this prompt. I tend to write a lot and I wanted to use a tool to showcase my learning using fewer words. Because this prompt lends itself well to key concepts and ideas, PowToon was a perfect resource to again showcase my learning. You can view my Critical Literacy PowToon below:
As a side note, PowToon is such an easy, fun program to use. I love how many templates are available and how quickly one can create a movie. The only downfall, teaching-wise, that comes to mind immediately is helping students differentiate between all the upgrades (i.e. not being able to use certain features, slides, or templates). I can definitely see using it as a teaching tool and, despite the upgrades, can still see myself using the program with students (I think they would have a kick out of the different features).
References:
Bird, E. (2014, August 1). Wikipedia, Amelia bedelia, and our responsibility regarding online sources. [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2014/08/01/wikipedia-amelia-bedelia-and-the-responsibility-of-online-sources/#
Coffey, H. (n.d.) Critical literacy. Retrieved from http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/4437
Davis, H. (2010, February 3). Critical Literacy? Information! [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2010/critical-literacy-information/
Farkas, M. (2011, November 1). Critical inquiry in the age of social media. [Blog post]. Retrieved fromhttp://www.americanlibrariesmagazine.org/article/information-literacy-20
Hayes, D. (2014, August 9). Let’s stop trying to teach students critical thinking. Retrieved from http://io9.com/lets-stop-trying-to-teach-students-critical-thinking-1618729143
Matthews, D. (2014, February 6).Critical literacy activity. Retrieved fromhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uolu2tKdugA
Roberge, G (2013, June). Promoting critical literacy across the curriculum and fostering safer learning environments. What works? Research into Practice, Ontario Ministry of Education. Retrieved from https://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/inspire/research/WW_PromotingCriticalLiteracy.pdf
Than, G. A. (2014). Mother Jones sit down and read. Retrieved from http://zenpencils.com/comic/149-mother-jones-sit-down-and-read/