Chapter 3- Wikipedia

Chapter 3: The Overhyped Dangers of Wikipedia (Marcovitz, ISTE, 2012)

Critical Information Literacy

Digital Connections in the Classroom(Marcovitz, ISTE, 2012)

"A first step in critical information literacy is to understand that any given source is fallible" (Kindle location 1000 of 4336). 

I loved the title of this chapter. So many times I have heard my students say that they cannot use Wikipedia as a source for research and information. When I question them on why, they just say that they had a teacher somewhere along their schooling that told them to never use it. Who tells that to kids anyways and actually expects that they will heed your advice? Just because a student does cite Wikipedia as a resource, doesn't mean that that's not where they started their research. I agree with Marcovitz that the dangers of using Wikipedia are over told to students instead of telling/teaching them how to use Wikipedia appropriately. 

I liked that he compared the use of Wikipedia to the use of Encyclopedia Britannica, they are both a great starting point for when you don't have any background information and sometimes a good source of other relevant links/resources.   

The ideas that Andy Carvin suggested for verify the content of Wikipedia is a great idea and having student approved pages as well as the other exercises suggested about researching the content of Wikipedia pages and verifying/editing the information. What a great way to get the students involved with the information and teach them research skills. This would be a great follow up activity to the website quality checks described in Chapter 2. 

Chapter 2: Digital Connections in the Classroom

Chapter 2 Digital Connections in the Classroom (Marcovitz, ISTE, 2012)

Critical Information Literacy

Digital Connections in the Classroom(Marcovitz, ISTE, 2012)

“Critical information literacy is not about neat and tidy outcomes or simple checklist. It is about preparing our students with the mental tools to be able to tackle the real and messy web.” (Marcovitz, iPad page 66)

When Marcovitz mentioned an article he wrote called “I Read It on the Computer: It Must Be True”, I first thought of the State Farm commercial where the girl that says “they can’t put anything on the Internet that isn’t true.” Pretty funny commercial because most people know there are a lot of websites that are not accurate. Just like the fake websites Marcovitz mentions, there are many websites with bad information, some that are easy to spot and some that are not easy at all. The author also writes that you would think students would easily pick up on the fake websites, but many of them don’t.  We need to help students think critically about the information they are given and the authors’ intent.

As teachers, it is important to model and provide experiences to analyze and think deeply about the information on the Internet. There is many times where we need to use the Internet to find a small piece of information, fact retrieval, just like I did to find out what company made that commercial I mentioned. We need to teach beyond that skill. I appreciate that Marcovitz says that teaching how to be a critical user will not happen with a few lessons, instead we should help students build on their skills throughout their schooling. My school is evolving our Library to a place called Learning Commons. When students go to the “library” for their special, there will not be as much emphasis on books, but how to find information and researching skills using books and the internet. I am hoping through this we are able to give students experiences in being a critical user.

The resources and lesson ideas Marcovitz gives provides me with some resources and ideas to help strengthen my students’ evaluative skills. Has anyone had any experience in using any of these resources? Do you have a lesson that you are thinking about using with your students to promote being a critical user? 

Chapter 1 Digital Connections in the Classroom (Marcovitz, ISTE, 2012)

Reading the introduction and Chapter One.

• Digital Connections in the Classroom(Marcovitz, ISTE, 2012)

Internet Basics.  

Basically explained history of internet from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 and basics of HTML language.
Listing of Browers and how to read URLs endings.

Metcalfe's law that the networks usefulness is related to the number of people who use it.   More people mean more useful.  Although you can get to the law of diminishing returns.   If you are thirsty a glass of water is great, but every glass after the first is less desired until not wanted at all.    We have all done the Google search and got millions of hits.  It would take years to go through them all; however, if you are to specific you get so few results they are useless.

I found this chapter very basic info.   How about you?

So... now done the first book... what did you think of it?

Would you recommend I use it next year?    Did it fit the concept we were watching?

3-D Printer Clip

I was watching Big Bang Theory tonight and this was in the episode!

Project Proposal

Here is my project proposal. Any ideas/feedback is greatly accepted!

Chapter 8= The End!!

I thought it was very fitting that Crawford decided to write his final chapter about the value and importance of being intrinsically motivated as well as the benefits that failure can have on a person (and their drive).

Motivation is something that I think all teachers struggle with (especially as the students you work with get older). We are all much more motivated to complete and achieve at "leisure" activities that something that we are forced to do. Think of our students for example, they have no problem persevering or paying attention through a video game or producing quality work on their dirt bikes or snowmobiles.When students are interested and invested in what they're doing for more than an extrinsic reward, their achievement level soars. Unfortunately, we continue to cut programming in schools that allow learners to have these experiences and don't insist that classroom teachers pick up the slack for this loss. As Aristotle is quoted on page 198, "all human beings by nature desire to know". Think of how excited kindergarten students are for school. What experiences do learners have that make this love of learning disappear and more importantly what can we do to bring it back? If you want an interesting read on motivation (it is not an educational text), Daniel Pink's Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us will make you ponder.

I have said on many occasions that I think failure is one of the most important components of the learning process. I specifically liked how Crawford spun this section to discuss the importance of our top students failing. It is definitely not something that they are accustomed to, which means when they do fail for the first time it's going to be a very difficult blow to their ego and self-esteem. We need to allow all students to fail and get back up in a safe environment. Honestly, if everything is always easy to our learners, then we probably are not doing all we can to challenge them. My best friend was our high school valedictorian and went on to Bowdoin then completed her graduate program from University of North Carolina to be a genetic counselor. Last summer, she had an internship through Yale. She has never had to work incredibly hard and has always succeeded. She called me the second week of her internship saying how miserable it was and how much more difficult it was than she anticipated. The other people she was working with didn't respect her opinions because she was just an intern and she was doing menial tasks. She had never experienced not being the smartest person in the room and she didn't know how to handle it, plus she had no support group around her to help her overcome this difficult placement. Although this situation probably would've happened either way, had she experienced failure/not immediate success prior to this internship, she would've been in a much better position to overcome it and probably wouldn't have wanted to quit the entire 12 weeks. I think we're doing a failure to our students if they never have to work through difficult times until they're 26 years old.

Also, I had to add that on page 181 Crawford states that "The teacher who is really a teacher loves children, and wants to figure out how to make them smarter". I don't really like this statement at all. Crawford has made many insightful observations throughout this book and shown his personal belief on the value of gaining deeper knowledge and experiences. He is not one for brevity, but this comment is just that and not does not go with most of the other things he said in the book. Sorry for the rant, it just irked me.