Sarah Dessen

Spider Movie

Sy Montgomery

Google and Creative Commons

Today I read from Wes Fryer's Blog that Google is now going to let searchers look for images that are tagged with the creative commons license making it easier to find images that the creator is okay with people using, modifying, etc. This is another thing we can teach students about when it comes to images.

Learnings from Redefining Literacy 2.0

Three pages that I marked in Redefining Literacy 2.0 summarize three new learnings for me from the book. The volunteer form on p. 30 is so good, it makes me think, "Why didn't I think of that?" I don't have any great ideas on how I would use the form in the near future, but that is why I marked it because I have a feeling, I will be in a situation that warrants finding out what "experts" are available to me. Another page I marked is page 41 Search Evaluation Tool. What a teaching tool! We give students tips on searching and send them off and hope for the best. With this tool, we can have students record the steps of their searches and can find out where any breakdowns in their understanding of internet searching. The final thing that I want to remember from this book is the HTML list of teachers on p. 127. Again, can't think of when or where I would use this, but I'm bound to need it one of these days. I should probably scan all three of those pages and save it to my computer as a PDF. I would probably retrieve them more quickly that way . . . . just a thought.

iClipart

I went to iclipart.com. I thought it was easy to use. I went to the photographs and searched for book and computer. I wanted something that represented both types of reading, but the results didn't bring me what I was looking for. I searched book in the photographs, and 222 photo results were shown. In some pictures, I couldn't figure out the connection to the search term book. I wonder if this site is similar to flickr, and the users are tagging the pictures. Either way, I found a picture of two children reading a book that I liked. I downloaded it following the instructions on the download page. Because of the way I downloaded Infranview or "infrared" as I like to call it, pictures automatically open up in Infranview. So, while I had it opened, I played with the image effects and like how sepia softened the picture. So, here is evidence of my playing with iClipart. Enjoy!

Btw - Did I mention I am typing this in a pitch black night while sitting in a lawn chair by a campfire at a KOA campground in Kansas City? I am being eaten alive by mosquitoes, so I am going in!

New Literacies

I finished the Richardson book. I always like the big picture endings that good books have. It is easy to get lost in the details of how to use the web 2.0 tools in education, but Richardson does a good job of explaining the changes and movements that will take place when web tools are used successfully in education. Some ideas I highlighted under the heading New Literacies in his book are the following:
1) It will be more important to know where or how to find the answer to a question than the answer to the question
2) The ability of students to learn 24/7 may mean we need to change the structure, time and dissemination practices of the school day
3) Teachers can't pretend to know everything anymore, so we have to tap into the resources available to us.
4) Finally students needs to learn how to build their own personal learning networks.

I was reading a blog post from Richardson today entitled Digital Inclusion. I get the feeling that schools are not changing fast enough for Richardson of which I can empathize! Another point that he makes that I would include in this set of "overall picture" ideas is that unless parents understand the benefits of digital learning to their children, change will continue to be slow in education. Below is an excerpt from his post.

"While this is not a post on where the lever is, I’ve been arguing for a while now that not much of this is going to change until the stakeholders, in this case parents, take it upon themselves to demand something new. Something more relevant. But the only way that parents are going to DEMAND access is if they see that not simply as a way for kids to get a computer but to see connections online as a way to a better future, a way to help thier kids become more educated, better learners than by books and paper alone. Unfortunately, we’re losing the media war on this one right now. Feeling like a broken record, but we need to do a better job of making this case beyond our own still small, nascent network."

I, Lisa, would also say that schools will not create digital learning opportunities for students until those 21st century skills are what are tested on district and state wide assessments. Anyone have thoughts on that statement?