Technology Play-Testing Assignment 4

Information Literacy

 

The website Businessdictionary.com defines Information Literacy as the:

 

“Ability to define problems in terms of their information needs, and to apply a systematic approach to search, locate, apply, and synthesize the information and evaluate the entire process in terms of effectiveness and efficiency.”

 

For this week’s blog, I chose to focus on Option 1: Information Literacy over Option 2: Content Objectives because of the growing need of individuals to efficiently and responsibly evaluate information in its various formats (print, digital, audio/visual, personal, etc…), from data sources all around the world, in order to become a conscientious contributor to our global, digital society.  Because of the proliferation of diverse collections of informational sources found throughout the world-wide web, individuals face the daunting task of sifting through enormous volumes of materials to determine the source’s validity, authenticity, and reliability. Information literacy skills play a vital role in these pursuits, in our understanding of the legal and ethical use of this information, as well as impacting many aspects of our daily lives including:

 

Political:  Information Literacy skills are critical if one hopes to participate, as an informed citizen, within our democratic society.

Business:  Information Literacy skills are applied in a professional setting for the purposes of a corporation acquiring, evaluating, presenting, and sharing information with potential customers and to stay ahead of industry competitors.

Education: Information Literacy skills are applied in an academic setting for the purposes of classroom reports, projects, group presentations, and even, especially in higher grade levels, research papers.

Personal:  Information Literacy skills are applied by individuals in the pursuit of making knowledgeable decisions on consumer purchases, services, and rentals.  

 

I also felt that last week’s blog post on Creativity Tools covered, to some extent, option 2 on content objectives.

 

     The Boyer Commission Report entitled Reinventing Undergraduate Education advocates strategies that necessitate the student to be actively engaged in "framing of a significant question or set of questions, the research or creative exploration to find answers, and the communications skills to convey the results..."  Classrooms structured in this way create student-centered learning environments where “inquiry is the norm, problem solving becomes the focus, and thinking critically is part of the process.” These educational settings require the incorporation of information literacy skills to insure that K-12 students are given varying avenues by which to interact with the lesson, to awaken their curiosity, and ultimately inspire them to delve deeper into the given information and make it meaningful.  Students are encouraged to take on an active role in their own learning, to form their own connections within and across the curriculum; to discover the relevance of the presented material as it relates to them in their everyday lives.

*Table from the 1998 American Association of School Librarians (AASL) report entitled Library Skills, Information Skills, and Information Literacy: Implications for Teaching and Learning, Volume 1.

 

Identify 4-5 tools you found to support learning information literacy skills. Describe where they fit into the NFIL infographic and how you found the tool.

 

Big6 Information and Technology Skills: 

The Big6 information literacy process is a six-stage model by which students interact with information in order to form opinions, make decisions, or to solve problems which can be applied across all curricular activities as well as in the student’s personal life or even a work setting.  This process model provides an avenue for instructors to implement highly relevant concepts; through the use of dozens of included figures, templates, and lesson plans; to aid in the implementation of information and literacy skills and also the achievement of local, state, or Common Core educational standards across all grade levels.  There are six main stages in the Big6 program, each consisting of 2 subcategories; a brief outline of this instructional model is included below:

 

1.  Task Definition

1.1 Define the information problem

1.2 Identify information needed

2.  Information Seeking Strategies

2.1 Determine all possible sources

2.2 Select the best sources

3.  Location and Access

3.1 Locate sources (intellectually and physically)

3.2 Find information within sources

4.  Use of Information

4.1 Engage (e.g., read, hear, view, touch)

4.2 Extract relevant information

5.  Synthesis

5.1 Organize from multiple sources

5.2 Present the information

6.  Evaluation

6.1 Judge the product (effectiveness)

6.2 Judge the process (efficiency)

I believe this program would fit into the NFIL infographic on Information Literacy under the subheading of Research & Library Skills and I was first introduced to this process by the librarian at my previous school during an in-service on the incorporation of effective information gathering and literacy skills within the secondary school curriculum.

 

Super3 Information and Technology Skills: 

The Super3 information literacy process which incorporates the same ideas as Big6 but this program has been specifically designed for use with young children with three steps which are easy to remember and use, which include:

 

Step 1:  Making a Plan (Beginning)

            Students are encouraged to focus on “What they are going to do?” and “How they are going to do it?” This helps them to learn how to form and implement a plan.

 

Step 2:  Doing (Middle)

            Students use their plan to work on their projects, asking for assistance as needed.

 

Step 3:  Review (End)

            The student is asked to reflect on and evaluates their work by asking, “Did they follow their plan and how did it work?” “Was it a good project with high quality work?”

 

I believe this program would fit into the NFIL infographic on Information Literacy under the subheading of Research & Library Skills and I was first introduced to this process by my wife who is a kindergarten teacher.  The librarian at her school presented this material during an in-service on the incorporation of effective information gathering and literacy skills within the primary school curriculum.

InfoQuest: A New Twist of Information Literacy 

            The InfoQuest information literacy program is designed to give students repetitive practice in developing their research skills while also serving as a motivational tool, allowing them ample opportunities to practice and apply their information literacy skills.  Each week, a different research topic question is presented and students are given the entire week, as well as access to the school’s media center, to use reference tools and available media to answer the question.  As an incentive, small prizes are awarded to all students who have accurately reported on the week’s topic.  This program comes with ready-made resource sheets, classified by subject area, and also includes an extensive list of available resources intended to aid the instructor in individualizing the materials to meet their particular needs.    

I believe this program would fit into the NFIL infographic on Information Literacy under the subheading of Media Literacy incorporating both visual and computer literacy; Research & Library Skills; and also Critical Literacy including aspects of both critical reading and thinking skills.  I stumbled across this program while doing research on the Big6 and Super3 informational literacy programs.  I’ve never used it before but was intrigued by its’ simplicity and ease of use.  The implementation of this program could very easily be accomplished by incorporating the weekly research topics into a classroom blog and while providing a creative way to challenge my students and also fostering their natural curiosity of the world around them. 

 

Palmetto Digital Literacy Program:

            The Department of Education along with the website Learning.com and the South Carolina Education Oversight Committee have all partnered together to create the Palmetto Digital Literacy Program.  This program is intended to help K-8 students and their teachers with digital literacy curriculum and technology skills and is made up of five parts: EasyTech, EasyCode Basic, Inquiry, 21^st Century Skills Assessment, and also WayFind.  

EasyTech is a self paced program, intended for grades K-8, which provides students with interactive lessons to help them develop the necessary Information Literacy and Technology skills to be successful in school and eventually at work.  Some of the basic skills include keyboarding, word processing, responsible digital citizenship, and coding.

EasyCode Basic is a “plug-in” to EasyTech which affords students coding challenges in which they are tasked with using real programming language along with their computational skills to solve problems.

Inquiry is a project-based approach towards integrating core subject instruction with technology skills.  There are six projects per grade level K-8 of varying difficulties spanning the core curriculums of math, science, social studies, and ELA.

21^st Century Skills Assessment is designed to test student’s information literacy, decision making, critical thinking skills, and innovation in grades five and eight.  Digital citizenship and technology operations are also included within these digital assessments.

WayFind is a multiple-choice, performance-based program intended for use by the instructor.  This application is used to measure a teacher’s 21^st century teaching skills with tie-ins to professional development needed to address any personal deficiencies.  This program has also been aligned with the ISTE Standards for Teachers.

*Funding to purchase this program is available to school districts with a poverty index of 80% or greater.

     I believe this program would fit into the NFIL infographic on Information Literacy under the subheading of Media Literacy incorporating both visual and computer literacy; Research & Library Skills; and also Critical Literacy including aspects of both critical reading and thinking skills.  I stumbled across this program while doing research on informational literacy programs.  I have never used this program before but after reading about Arlington ISD’s successful implementation of Learning.com’s EasyTech program in 2012, a district of over 65,000 students – 68% of whom are identified as Hispanic or black, I knew that this was something which I wanted to learn more about.  Arlington ISD uses these applications to help develop and implement a blended learning experience for their students grades K-8.  One class in particular caught my attention; they have recently developed a year-long program for their eighth grade students entitled CTHEI or Career Technology and Higher Education Investigations course whose focus is on developing comprehensive career and college paths through active investigation.  They also chose this program because of its ease of use, intended as a guide for instructors with minimal experience integrating technology within the classroom curriculum.  Students are receiving exposure to learning through technology applications which help to ensure that they are learning the right skills to be successful in the 21^st century as they move forward in their educational and professional careers.

REFERENCES:

Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research University. Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America's Research Universities. http://notes.cc.sunysb.edu/Pres/boyer.nsf/

Carey, James O. (1998). American Association of School Librarians (AASL). Library Skills, Information Skills, and Information Literacy: Implications for Teaching and Learning, Volume 1. http://www.ala.org/aasl/sites/ala.org.aasl/files/content/aaslpubsandjournals/slr/vol1/SLMR_LibrarySkills_V1.pdf

“EasyTech: K-8 Digital Literacy Curriculum | Learning.com.” N.p., n.d. Retrieved December 05, 2016, from  http://www.learning.com/palmetto

Eisenburg, Michael B., & Berkowitz, Robert E. (2000). Teaching information & technology skills: The Big6 in secondary schools. Worthington, OH: Linworth Publishing.

Eisenburg, Michael B., & Robinson, Laura E. (2007). The Super3: Information skills for young Learners. Columbus, OH: Linworth Publishing.

Information Literacy. BusinessDictionary.com. (n.d.) Retrieved December 05, 2016, from BusinessDictionary.com website: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/information-literacy.html

Milam, Peggy S. (2002). InfoQuest: A new twist of informational literacy.  Worthington, OH: Linworth Publications.

  

Technology Play-Testing Assignment 3

Creativity Tools

Creativity Tools are “anything that allows a student to create or produce something,” they help to inspire and empower students to brainstorm, generate, and organize their ideas.  Creativity tools are much more than avenues by which information is recalled by the student, they instead provide a framework by which individuals begin to focus on higher level thinking skills.  The student moves up Bloom’s Taxonomy from simply memorizing information to name, select, locate, and identify items (Remembering) to being able to compare, differentiate, critique, assess, plan, and combine information in the production of an original, unique product. This not only requires the student’s thorough understanding of the subject matter but also taps into their originality and creativity (Analyzing, Evaluating, and Creating).   

 

 

      For my 3^rd Tech Play Assignment on creativity tools, I will be exploring several applications for Apple products since the district I'm currently employed with has spent millions of dollars developing mobile iPad labs for all of its middle and elementary schools as well as providing iPads for all high school students for their use throughout the school year.  The applications I will be reviewing are iMovie, ComicBook!, and Science360; all are available through the Apple App Store for download.

  

iMovie:  ($4.99, Rated for ages 4 and up)
 

  *I’m beginning with this particular because I’ve seen it used first hand in a 3^rd grade science class and the results were impressive.

    

This is an application from Apple which allows teachers to create videos to introduce or support classroom instruction and content delivery, videos which can then be accessed and re-played by students whenever necessary to re-teach and review classroom instructional material. Students can also produce their own videos, generate their own stories, and show electronically their understanding of presented materials and demonstrate their comprehension of concepts.  Both the instructor and students can, through this application, bring relevant topics from the out-side world into the classroom by documenting and recording current events to then be shared with the entire class or school if the material is deemed appropriate.  These engaging, collaborative presentations incorporate video, pictures, text, sounds, and music into a medium which can be distributed through iCloud to all Apple devices or saved to a photo library, iTunes, accessed through a classroom blog, shared directly on Facebook and Vimeo, or even via YouTube using the Mac X YouTube application.   This incredible application literally puts a mobile movie studio into the hands on the student for pennies on the dollar, excluding of course the initial cost of setting up a mobile lab.  This technology incorporates cross-curricular skills to construct video reports and classroom projects for their core curriculum classes, book summaries or trailers for their reading class, as a means, within a language arts class, to compare and contrast characters found in classroom literature, as a tool to demonstrate the mathematical properties of slope, surface area, volume, etc… as they apply to everyday items found throughout the classroom/school, or even within a social studies class as a means of discussing important/controversial historical issues and the student’s views on their possible impact on today’s society (upper grade levels).  The iMovies application provides a “digital age learning experience” which “facilitates and inspires students learning, creativity, and innovation” in ways which regular classroom instruction simply cannot (ISTE Standards, 2008).  The types of lessons made possible through this application would elevate classroom instruction into the Advanced Tech, Level III found within the Texas STaR Chart, specifically:

TL1.  Teacher structures classroom learning to student experiences based on inquiry and higher level thinking processes using age appropriate graphics, animation, multimedia, and/or video.  Curriculum activities are integrated with technology allowing all students to solve problems and make decisions.

*I’ve included the webpage below to an example of what a video made using the iMovie application can look like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f82BP2mh8gg&feature=youtu.be

 

 

This particular video was produced by a 9 year old as an American History school project on abolitionist…

 

 

  

I was blown away, this is Truly Amazing!!!!!!

 

ComicBook!:  ($2.99, Rated for ages 9 and up)

      This very well designed application from Apple allows teachers and students to create their own comics using a wide variety of features giving them a tremendous range of creative control in the development of their final product.  Images can either be imported from the user’s personal library or new pictures captured and used.  Images can be adjusted according to scale and position and ten adjustable image filters are available to vary the look from sketch to poster or comic effect to noir. 

 

 

374 “stickers,” created by artist Joanna Mulder, are also available for use within the pages of the comic as well as eleven different caption tools to help capture the mood of the piece. 

*These are some examples of the “stickers” available for use within the app.

 

     The fonts are adjustable according to theme, size, boldness, and color.  105 background layouts are provided to help in the customization of the comic, some categories include:  Vintage, Fun, and Classic photo portrait layouts; and also, Classic, Modern, and Vintage style landscape layouts with selectable aspect ratios of 1:1, 3:2, 4:3, and 16:9.  Created works can be saved as a JPG or PDF file and shared through a photo library, on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or even printed out for distribution.  This incredible application allows the student to produce their own high-quality comics for pennies on the dollar, excluding of course the initial cost of setting up a mobile lab.  The ComicBook! application takes advantage of the recent revival and interest in these tales of good versus evil with characters many of us grew up with and a whole new generation is learning to appreciate. 

*Three of the top 10 highest grossing domestic movies of all-time were based on comic book characters and many of the other titles went on to be published in a comic format.

All Time North American Domestic Top 10 Movies

Note: These figures represent the total amount of money a movie has taken domestically over the lifetime of the film since its' original release.

Rank	Year Released	Title	Domestic Box Office	International Box Office	Worldwide Box Office
1	2015	Star Wars Episode VII:   The Force Awakens	$936,662,225	$1,122,000,000	$2,058,662,225
2	2009	Avatar	$760,507,625	$2,023,411,357	$2,783,918,982
3	1997	Titanic	$658,672,302	$1,548,943,366	$2,207,615,668
4	2015	Jurassic World	$652,198,010	$1,018,130,015	$1,670,328,025
5	2012	The Avengers	$623,279,547	$896,200,000	$1,519,479,547
6	2008	The Dark Night	$533,345,358	$469,546,000	$1,002,891,358
7	2016	Finding Dory	$486,293,573	$536,436,170	$1,022,729,743
8	1999	Star Wars Episode I:   The Phantom Menace	$474,544,677	$552,500,000	$1,027,044,677
9	1977	Star Wars Episode IV:      A New Hope	$460,998,007	$325,600,000	$786,598,007
10	2015	Avengers: Age of Ultron	$459,005,868	$945,700,000	$1,404,705,868

*Information gathered from the website: The Numbers: Where Data and the Movie Business Meet. “Movie Box Office Records: All Time North American Domestic Top 10 Movies.”

 

Unfortunately, many individuals maintain a less than favorable view of comics in general which is truly unfortunate.  Comics about events in history can not only serve as the stimulus for engaged discussions in a social studies class between the instructor and his or her students but also within the student body itself.   Cause and effect relationships could be analyzed, across many core curriculum classes, by delving into a comic book character’s origin story.  Comics are a great way to inspire students to plan, design, and write within a language arts class.  Within a reading class, as a unit culminating activity, students could be tasked with producing their own comic book story as a follow-up to a book read and discussed in class.  One such novel could be The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton.  Students could be given the opportunity to work individually or collectively in small groups to first, choose a surviving character from the book with whom they can relate to and develop an original narrative taking place 10 years after the events of the story.  This would allow the students an opportunity to write about what they wanted to write about and not what we as educators think they should take away from the book.  The use of the ComicBooks! application would empower the students to take charge of their own learning from the literature, to gain ownership by creating their own original artwork, making storyline decisions based on their understanding of ideas and values presented within the book, and providing supporting and vivid details within their original composition which would never have see the written page given an average, run-of-the-mill, vanilla writing assignment.  These comics could then be posted to the classroom website and shared with their classroom peers, friends, and family.  Students could even be given the opportunity to critique each other’s work virtually, online. 

I really enjoyed learning about this app and reflecting on some of its possible uses within the curriculum.  Student engagement is everything; excited learners take pride in what they are doing and I believe the use of this technology could very well lead to great gains in student planning and sequencing skills, their descriptive writing, use of punctuation, an expanded vocabulary, and would very likely engage reluctant readers within the class while allowing opportunities for the advanced pupil to extend these activities to incorporate cross-curricular knowledge.   The types of lessons made possible through this application would elevate classroom instruction into the Advanced Tech, Level III found within the Texas STaR Chart, specifically:

TL1.  Teacher structures classroom learning to student experiences based on inquiry and higher level thinking processes using age appropriate graphics, animation, multimedia, and/or video.  Curriculum activities are integrated with technology allowing all students to solve problems and make decisions.

but also Target Tech, Level IV of the Texas STaR Chart:

  EP5.  Teacher uses technology tools in new ways where learning becomes more collaborative, interactive, and customized.  Teacher provides opportunities for students to extend their learning with project-based, individualized activities as the norm, resulting in increased student independence and sophisticated products.

 
Science360:  (Free, Rated for ages 4 and up)

 

      This very well designed application developed by the National Science Foundation for Apple which incorporates text, images, and streaming videos covering an extensive range of news and information on current topics in science, mathematics, and engineering.  The high interest content will appeal to science loving kids of all ages and is sharable through E-Mail, Facebook, and Twitter.  Content is searchable through what the developers call a “360 View” or key word search.  

                                360 View Screenshot

                                   Keyword Search Screenshot

 

Science360 allows users to bookmark favorite images, articles, and videos so that they can be easily located at anytime.  An in-app news feed option is also available for individuals wanting to keep abreast of breaking reports on new scientific discoveries.  The types of lessons made possible through this application would elevate classroom instruction into the Developing Tech, Level II found within the Texas STaR Chart, specifically:

EP5.  Teacher modifies instruction through the use of technology (e.g., Internet research to locate contemporary sources, use of word processors for student writing and editing, etc.)

*Although this is a very engaging, creative application which I can see being an incredible addition to any classroom for teachers and students alike, there is no avenue by which students can “create and/or produce something” and it is for this reason that I do not think it should be included in a discussion of creativity tools.

 

REFERENCES:

Standards, ISTE. (2008). ISTE Standards for Teachers & Students. Retrieved December 3, 2016, from http://www.iste.org/standards/standards

Staff, Teach Thought. (2013, April 7). 14 Bloom’s Taxonomy Posters for Teachers.  Retrieved December 3, 2016, from http://www.teachthought.com/critical-thinking/blooms-taxonomy/14-brilliant-blooms-taxonomy-posters-for-teachers/

Texas STaR Chart. (2006). Retrieved December 3, 2016, from https://www.txstarchart.org/

The Numbers: Where Data and the Movie Business Meet. “Movie Box Office Records: All Time North American Domestic Top 10 Movies.” Retrieved December 3, 2016, from http://the-numbers.com/movie/records/