As part of our year long training on the new NC essential standards, technology facilitators and media coordinators attended training this week at Morgan Elementary School. Marlo Gaddis from Technology and Jackie Pierson from Media Services headed up the training sessions, and overall it was a good opportunity for technology and Media to get together and share ideas and collaborate.
Here is a link to the Wiki with all the resources made available to us from the district:
The focus of our first meeting is on the two first standards:
- Sources of information
- Informational Text
The following are my notes (some stream of consciousness from the training session)
Jackie Pierson: spoke about the beautiful Media Center at Morgan
Instructional area that you are in--
- Plans for these schools were done in 2005, so already some things are out of date for today’s needs (electrical outlets are lacking for example)
- Print and non print collaborate learning areas
Steven Anderson--Spoke about sources of information
“Google Search stories” Google did several (http://www.youtube.com/user/SearchStories)to illustrate the power of search, kids are looking for lots of information and we need to help them figure out
Here are the new standards:
6-8
9-12
- The technology strands of the SCOS show Blooms Taxonomy progression from classifying information to assessing and examining the reliably and relevance to analyzing all of those pieces
- The standards are the core of what the students need to be able TO DO at those grade levels
- It’s progressing and the skills are building
- We brain stormed a list of Print and non-print sources that we use and kids use everyday and the advantage and disadvantages of each:
Print:
- Magazines/newspapers/books/old encyclopedias
- Can be out of date/ information may change
- Harder to access, more expensive
- Controlled by commercial aspects, skewed view—Bias
- Text books
- Newsletters
- Photos
- Art work
- Anything that can’t interact with on paper…(if original form is electronic than it is not print)
- Actual People
- Radio/TV (reliability concerns, bias)
- Internet: (could be print and non-print)
- (Google, YouTube, Live binder, web path Express through destiny, netrekker, NCWISE owl)
- Films (independent vs. non print)
- Primary Resources: Face to Face (possibly get more authentic information, also reliability biased concerns)
- Half and half use of print and non print:
- E-readers (can be both)
- Films reliability /commercial bias
- Songs
- Pod Caste
- Google earth
- Wikis
- Blogs
- Broadcast media
- Photos (both)
- Maps
- Letters (can be both)
- Diaries (can be both)
Don’t get hung up on the semantics, the medium is the message.
Line between print and non-print is blurred. Students can get most of their information “on-line”, so Is content any less valuable if it’s found on-line?
What do we mean be transformational media?
Print: Advantages/disadvantages
- Can be more copies accessible to students if technology access is limited
- Professional has vetted the print resources? (Not always the case though)
- Portability—100%? (Access to everyone)
- If you drop it, it’s wont break
- More of a one time cost
- Static and dated
- Can be damaged or lost
- Storage issues
- Current for non literate or different learning styles and multi-sensory learners
- Requires energy or is that relevant?
- Cost
- Access
Where do you find resources?
- We are discovering that some know of sources of information while other do not
- http://www.mobiledia.com/
- Consumer reports.org
- Google and Wikipedia are excellent resources to find sources
- Destiny 10 is coming out in December
- destiny mobile quest coming with mobile access.
- Webquest and nettreeker both inside destiny help students gleam information that is educationally focused (help them start here)
- There are lots of Specialized resources in destiny: e.g. college bluebook
Primary Resources
Library of congress: definition of primary resources.
Raw materials of history original documents and objects which were created at the time under study. http://loc.gov/teachers/usingprimarysources/
- Annalsof American History—print
- Jstore—database:
- Americandecades—print
- Digital Forsyth:
- Libraryof Congress for pictures but searching is a bit difficult
- http://digitalnc.org/
We need to change the way we find information.
Central Question: Should we encourage teachers/students to go back to the primary source vs. a secondary source or commentary?
Common Core is —Call to change, call to higher level thinking
Library of Congress Primary Sources by state:
Personal Speakers provide a special connection--with a primary source person (speaker) can really add to an experience (For example, we had three people in our workshop today who were at Martin Luther King's "I have a Dream Speech")
The Medium: Skype to get a connection—don’t forget to utilize technology department
Information is constantly changing—need to continuously explore these resources, have to get a head of teachers and be looking for what resources they might need.
District also has Databases (district pays for some)
Program managers in resource areas are also primary sources
Project for group:
Given a topic, find 6-8 resources
No more than four are web-based
3-4 primary
2-3 non print
http://bit.ly/itesinfo2 (google doc with group searches)
Evaluation of resources (.org, .gov and .edu, do not discount.com though)
Reliability of sources: Are they credible?
- Wikipedia is always criticized, but it is not as bad as everyone says:
- Community members have to be vetted and approved by communities otherwise there is a disclaimer, and can verify through the links on the bottom.
- It is citable. It is organized and logical. It is a springboard.
Marlo: PM Session/Informational Tech:
Chore: Getting teachers ready
Find, and write directions from media center
Strategies:
- Evacuation map
- Ask for help
- Different the second time: walk back through
- Landmarks are important
YouTube video on giving non-sense directions:
Informational Text:
- Organizational aids:
- Graphical aids
- Students many times don’t know how those features can be used on-line.
- Not easy to tell what certain things (like table of contents, etc) are…if we as the information experts can’t tell, how can we expect students to be able with out come guidance
- Do an activity like: “A table of contents looks like this...”
- A site map?
- What makes sense logically to one webmaster, does not necessarily seem organized to others
- Citation tools on websites?
- Problems with digital resources that have no linear “end”
- We still need to be teaching students strategies to help them navigate
- 6th-12—teach them to read to learn (informational text) interpretation is written in the common core under English/Language Arts
- Why do authors choose one type of instructional media over another?
- Look at common core and see how a technology and information skill are embedded—has the potential to be a really cool time, though a scary time for those who don’t like change.
Getting teachers to evaluate resources—What we are doing today is a "think aloud”
It's 2014...What do our classes look like now?
- needs to be blended learning...
- what if we reversed classroom/homework agendas?
- Maybe online class information used at school, and then at home students might read or do things that do not require "access"
Do take time to get to know elementary people, and communicate…
How do we share and help teachers and support them?
- How do we support teachers in the classroom?
- The sharing has been good, Marlo— –some really great conversations, open attitudes.
- When we come together again in January, talking about technology as a tool,
- All that we have talked about today is accessible on the wiki:
- Wsfcs.pbworks.com:
This is a process—this is the start of the change, opportunities will be coming.
What was shared at teacher training about technology skills?
Do we know?
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