Schools must promote a platform for sharing both digitally and as a physical space. Many of the digital platforms exist on third party grounds. For example, social bookmarking could be set up through Diigo for a class project with the librarian starting the list, adding her favorite resources and monitoring the quality of student contributions. In a physical sense opportunities for experts, authors and community members to share is vitally essential to encouraging collaboration among a learning community.

As pointed out on Ed4Wb Pull-outs: The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age, participatory learning is a major element in this process; “most fundamental to such a change is the understanding that participatory learning is about a process and not always a final product.”

Our school offers the ability for students to take Virtual High School (VHS) courses but only a small percentage actually do.  As brick and mortar institutions embrace online learning portals they are in the current form of education taking a risk to outsource but with this risk comes great rewards by expanding options for students to access vast amounts of courses and learning opportunities.

What is your school doing with regard to enhancing your student’s opportunities for different learning platforms?

The students where asked to design an avatar and record their answer to the following questions:
How does what I eat and drink affect my health?
What should I be eating for optimum health and how much?

Get a Voki now!

Get a Voki now!

Get a Voki now!

Get a Voki now!

The work of Dr. Helen Barrett showcases the power of eportfolios as an access point to archiving life long learning. When students consuming and creating new media where does accountability fit in?

Transparency is a start but teachers must have the pedagogy to guide learners to use technology to increase their own learning not information glut.

But I just can’t help but notice that students are turning inward instead of leveraging this technology to collaborate. Which brings me to the idea of curriculum……..when students cover the same context as they did pre-laptop but just in new ways with more bells and whistles they are not extending there reach they are playing……and at best getting good at navigating collaborative tools amongst themselves w/in the school walls.

To truly enhance learning experiences we need to find ways are educators to extend the reach of students beyond the classroom with technology far better than we are doing now. But we need the help of organizations outside of schools to do this. One example of this that has potential is the new Peace Corp project Worldwise Schools that matches volunteers with teachers in classrooms.

Information Literacy

1. How can we teach our students to navigate the world of ever growing information in the present and for the future?
2. What are ways in which social media can be used to leverage access to real time information for our students?
3. How does the Big6 IL approach help to successfully navigate vast amounts of information?
4. What are ways teachers can check to see where students are in the Big6 process of IL and how can a students ability to articulate where they are increase their ability to problem solve independently?
5. What are some of the reasons why the movement away from teaching isolated computer skills to teaching integrated information and technology skills is essential?
6. Where can you see the real context for IL in your curriculum?

The amount of information an individual encounters today is vastly different then in the past.  Today the problem is not being able to find an answer to a question but being able to sift through vast amounts of information to determine the best answer to the question.  Michael Eisenberg a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle has researched particular Information Literacy (IL) methods to locate, assess and use information that is desired as well as separate out information that is not. In his 2008 article “Information Literacy: Essential Skills for the Information Age” Eisenberg presents three specific contexts for IL to bring about success in the teaching and learning process which hold extremely valuable insight for the teaching and learning process.

Essential skills according to Eisenberg  (2008) from the US Department of Labor for the 21^st century for all types of workers “must include the ability to: (i) acquire and use information, and (ii) work with a variety of technologies” (p. 39). In the context of teaching and learning this means that we must not merely teach our students information or computer skills but the ability to apply computer skills in authentic ways to access pertinent information. Successful workers now need to tackle the “information problems and be able to locate, use, synthesize, and evaluate information in relation to those problems” (Eisenberg, 2008, p. 39). Due largely in part to the rapid expansion of informational technology and networked information education has migrated away from one primary information resource highlighting the need for teaching specific IL strategies not only in the library but in all classrooms.

Eisenberg (2008) highlights three basic foundations for successful IL application: first that information is a process in and of itself, second that technology is the context in which to find information and finally the application of such information for real needs. This foundation provides focus and better positions individuals for success by transparently outlining the process.  Understanding that all three are ever present and interdependent sets the tone for successful strategies for teaching IL in today’s classrooms by specifically calling upon students to understand and be able to identify where they are in their application of the IL process.

A particular strategy developed by Eisenberg (2008) titled the Big6 is an approach to teaching information and technology skills in the real world context.  With the Big6 model students are taught to handle any problem, assignment, decision or task.  The model has six stages: task definition, information seeking strategies, location and access, use of information, synthesis and evaluation in which all individuals move through when looking for or using information when solving a problem.

Opportunities for students must be provided for them to learn and practice IL skills.  Curriculum planning must allow for integration of information skills instruction across all grades and all context areas to allow students to develop a full range of skills in a variety of ways.  Collaborating to plan ways in which this can happen is the first step in delivering these opportunities for students in context and will move students toward successfully entering the workforce in the future.

Eisenberg, M. B. (2008). Information Literacy: Essential Skills for the Information Age.

DESIDOC Journal of Library and Information Technology, 28 (2), 39-47.

National School Reform Faculty (2008). Text Rendering Protocol. Retrieved June 27, 2009,

from http://www.nsrfharmony.org/protocol/learning_texts.html

Drexler, W. (Producer).  (2008, November 26). Networked Student. Video retrieved from

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwM4ieFOotA

Solution the all but unfortunate phpadmin slq delete from wp_comments where comment_approved = ‘0′

Oh well…heres to a new dawn

I created the blog to help showcase a multi million dollar facility and to document the learning process as it took form and developed within.  Now as I leave I am passing over the helm to a colleague and can’t wait to get started on my new learning environment online at my new school.

At this stage I just can’t help but wonder-

When teachers create online learning environments the main purpose is for the students but this very selfless act leaves one (unless they are self hosted) having to start completely over if they move schools if they do not self host. At this point in the year if I had access to my new schools online learning environments I would be moving and creating already but, since I don’t I have one of two choices….

1. self host and take control of my content
2. wait until August and most likely not have my “classroom” as I like to think of it online read for my new students as they walk through the door

What would you do….  what are the pros of self hosting and what are the cons?