domingo, 29 de enero de 2012

Assignment 7. Information Literacy: A neglected Core Competency

“The ability to find, use, and communicate information effectively and ethically is commonly known as information literacy. It is the umbrella term for emerging literacies such as technology literacy, media literacy, and health literacy. Information literacy is the domain of all educators” http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Quarterly/EDUCAUSEQuarterlyMagazineVolum/InformationLiteracyANeglectedC/199382

When I was in Middle School and High School I was trained on how to look for good books for my research papers, teachers and librarians played a very important role in that search for meaningful information. It was also reinforced at home where my parents could see the books that I brought from school. I can remember my father recommending me to read certain books, on how to handle them, and how to cite them in my research. The same thing happened with periodical articles, there where some magazines that where kind of forbidden because they where only for entertaining, and there where also, the great ones, that school had the subscription and some students where lucky to receive them at home. We shared them!

The amount of information that our students can reach nowadays is incomparable from what I used to be exposed to, but the tools might be the same: from early years our students need the presence of the teacher, the librarian and their parents in order to better orient them on how to browse for information, on how to develop information literacy skills. Teachers and parents cannot assume that for the simple reason of being exposed to internet they will be able to find good and reliable information. We need to be present when they look for information, and of course, we need to be actualized and trained in courses like this one (ade634) to better help or fellow students.


Assignment 6 Google Reader-Blogs



As uploaded in Moodle!

Assignment 5 Diigo




Assignment 4. Time to build your PLN

1. Learning styles and professional preferences

I considered that I was pretty involved in a technological world and that I was able to access reliable information from the web, but I never stayed close to Twitter since I thought it was mostly chatting in the Internet. I also considered that I was well connected by email or chat with friends and colleagues… Far away from what now I know that I can be. Just the twitter hashtags are a huge universe that I am starting to get confident with.

2. Set a goal.

I am really getting in the habit of browsing articles in Twitter using different hashtags, tough in Spanish is not as useful or common than in English but yet I have found very interesting ones. My tweetdeck is getting bigger and bigger every week. Now, I am still getting lost in the vast amount of information and my goal is to limit or to focus my search to what really can be used in my daily teaching. Using Diigo constantly is also one of my goals and I have started to spread the word about it!

3. Set a team-routine

For sure my best time to build my PLN is before dinner when my house is quiet and I have some time for myself. Also in my prep time, but usually I have tons of thing to do for my classes… Having access to different devices might help also to dedicate little chunks of time to build my PLN.

4. Find resources that help

Google reader would be an extraordinary tool to find good resources for education; also the list of educational hashtags is a resource that I need to keep at hand.

5. Do not force it

I need to remind myself constantly about not getting overwhelmed and taking baby steps. Usually I try to get everything done as fast (and better) as possible, for my PLN I have learned that I need to go little by little.

Assignment 3. Twitter and Apps from Chrome



All Apps are downloaded and some of the are in the upper right hand. (picture uploaded in Moodle)

Follow me on Twitter @fernandezisabel


Assignment 2. What a Heck is a PLN?

Sharing, collaborating, and learning from each-other. That is what I understand as a PLN and that is exactly the challenge that I have been facing since I started creating my own: What to share? How to collaborate and whom to read? I spent hours “navigating” in Twitter and I wish I knew in advance what the hashtags purpose was as I have spent some time in that.

I have found fascinating to browse around Twitter, using Diigo, Google Chrome Apps, and looking at all the information you can access and share from there but at the same time I face the challenge of being immersed a huge, endless world of information where I can easily loose the focus of my search. I really wish I can learn in this course how to discern from reliable and not reliable information and how to manage myself in how not to loose track of what I am looking for.

As I move forward with my PLN I wish I can find teachers with the same interests, and even more challenging I wish I can found a group of Mexican History teachers and that we can share lessons, tips, strategies… I really wish that could happen.

Assignment 1. “How do we educate our children to take their place in the economies of the 21st century?”

The actual education needs to be revised and adjusted to present (and more challenging, to future) demands, and this is not new. There are a lot of “old fashioned” paradigms that we really need to get rid off. Even though I do not agree with all of the author’s ideas (like the one about ADHD and East Coast), some of them really made me reflect. I found very interesting what he exposed about the divergent thinkers, his idea that kindergarteners are more able to make “side” connections and think “out of the box” than when they get more “educated”, it give us teachers a lot to think about. It is clear that students need to be prepared to step out of the box, be creative, question what the teachers says… but, are we allowing them to become independent thinkers?

Our students are digital natives, they need technology, they breathe it, and they are surrounded by it. How can we balance the use of technology it in our daily teaching? How much technology is enough? Shall us teachers, limit it? Or shall them limit our traditional teaching? Honestly, I think we need to work harder in order to better prepare our students for the challenging economics of the 21rst Century. We need to envision our students as independent, creative and divergent thinkers; lets try to stay at their pace and renew our teaching in order to better prepare them.