BC’s Digital Literacy Framework (draft) defines digital literacy as “the interest, attitude, and ability of the individual to use digital technology and communication tools to access, manage, integrate, analyze, and evaluate information, construct new knowledge, and create and communicate with others”. The following is a list of skills that I think are necessary to participate in today’s society.
– ability to locate and use information
– ability to judge the reliability of information
– ability to interact and understand the norms within various online spaces
– ability to appropriate and remix content in a meaningful way
– ability to create online media
– ability to multi-task
Our job as educators is to ensure that we are exposing students to digital literacy and preparing them for a world that is changing rapidly. The truly humbling thing about digital literacy is that you will never know it all. I have accepted the fact that by the time I master one form of social media or communication application, hundreds of improved or more popular variations will already be on the market. And I’m ok with that. 🙂
For me, the only way to keep from getting completely overwhelmed, is to decide what is truly necessary for my teaching and daily life. Rather than dabble in multiple communication forms, I prefer to master just one or two. As a grade 6/7 teacher, Twitter is not for me. I can see its merits but it isn’t filling a gap in my teaching practice. The same goes with Facebook. I prefer to remain somewhat anonymous on the web as I’ve heard too many stories of teachers crossing the line. I also have to be very careful about privacy issues with my students. My class website purposely does not list our school name and I do not post pictures of students. Within our closed classroom community on Edmodo, I am able to post student pictures and work and freely discuss our school. It is probably quite different in high school, but in the elementary system I feel an obligation to keep my students safe.
On a regular basis, I like to browse the “communities” on Edmodo to see what’s new in the world of education and technology. I will often do a search for the latest and greatest education apps and in this way, I’ve discovered numerous invaluable teaching tools. I do feel I need to simplify for the sake of my sanity. I already organize useful information on Pinterest and in my Edmodo library, therefore a tool like Pearl Trees is somewhat redundant for me. It has been really great to hear about all these different applications and tools this week. I especially love learning how other educators are using technology in their classrooms.
While you clearly have come into this course with a great deal of knowledge, I am heartened to read that your searches have led you to the Mark Prensky videos. It is always great to find continued inspiration, even when you are already confident in your skills. I have now viewed some of his work as well and am thankful that you have shared this resource. Sometimes it is these accidental finds that really do inspire and synthesize a vast sea of knowledge.
I understand when you said that you were feeling a bit bogged down, I continue to be, but I think that your point about picking things that work for you in your teaching practice is a very key concept. Since you have experience using some of these resources in your classroom, I always greatly look forward to hearing what has worked for you and what hasn’t. The practicality of the matter for me is that I would like to invest time, initially, in something that has been proven at the elementary level before I dabble in things that may or may not be effective.
I would be curious to hear what the one thing is that you are going to go forward and implement that you have not tried in the classroom before. I was also wondering about the technology resources at your school. Do you have great technology at your disposal?
I think I want to delve into the world of iPads. Our school has 10 iPads that I can sign out and I’m thinking of ordering one with my scholastic points. I know you can do amazing things with the iPads in the classroom but I haven’t had the chance to work with them extensively before.
And the technology at our school is a joke. We are supposedly getting wifi over the summer which is very exciting. I’m going to miss tripping over the 50 ft. ethernet cable that I connect to my laptop.
Julie, you’ve brought up a lot of great points in your blog about technology being great, but incredibly overwhelming at times. In the elementary setting, the task of incorporating technology at the integrated level can be an onerous one, not to mention our responsibility of protecting student privacy. I also struggle with the idea of our connected selves, blending our personal and professional lives for the online community to see. Perhaps this falls back on online safety education, or even social responsibilities; students and adults have to learn to respect personal boundaries in the real world and in the digital.
It sounds like you’re already doing some neat things with your students using technology, and identifying practical solutions. It is incredibly frustrating trying to be leading edge when you don’t have the technology infrastructure at the school level.
Thank you for sharing resources like Edmodo and Mark Prensky. I haven’t even heard of Edmodo before this course. Perhaps it’s my own ignorance, but I think there is a need to develop more community and resource sharing amongst educators. There are numerous experts in certain fields within our schools and so little time to connect with one another. How cool would it be if we could collaborate on a unified level?
It’s great to hear what works and what doesn’t in the elementary classroom. Do your students participate on Edmodo and other online sites/communities? I was wondering how one gets around disparity in technology within the school and what students have available at home, and how you can keep elementary students accountable for work done online?
The iPads question is a great one. Especially in the context of unreliable wifi. How can iPads enable, enrich and enhance learning? I use my iPads for certain things, but there are things I use my laptop for that I just can’t do on my iPads. Another point that I have seen coming up is the problem of dealing with the plethora of ict possibilities (I am an example of that). What I find, in my practice, is there are certain devices, applications and network infrastructure that can’t do without – these would be in the centre of my zones of usefulness. The, there are ict resources that use intermittently, that qualify in varying degrees of importance. And then there those things that I can clearly live without. The items in these circles may change, but there are some constants. I have posted elsewhere that there is a need for a concerted teacher + public movement to ensure equitable distribution of ict resources.