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I just want you to ponder this quote as you begin to listen to my presentation. The illiterate
of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot
learn, unlearn, and relearn." And this quote is by Alvin Toffler, and I think about that
and I think about how we need to change as educators to really meet the needs of our
students in this digital age. So, to start with the rundown here, I have a bit of a digital
manifesto. And that is I want to see a paradigm shift in education. I believe we do have a
strong education system and students are learning to read and write and do amazing things. But
with access to technology and the amount of information out there. Students need to be
able to navigate and have the skills to know how to learn in this digital age. As teachers,
we can no longer be the content experts, but we have to change and we have to immerse ourselves
in the strongest pedagogical practices for our digital age so that we can serve our students
and prepare them for a world that has not yet been imagined.
So in the following slides I'm going to talk a little bit about how we can help students
with accessing information, managing it, how to integrate that information into their work,
how to evaluate the quality of that information, how to create awesome things with that, and
then communicate those awesome things out.
This is just going to be an overview in here. So the first part is accessing information.
And this really fits with researching skills we need to help students really understand
research. We need to also help them see what is a good or a bad website. We also should
teach them just basic Googling skills, using quotations, writing like you think the answer
would appear, and also connecting them with experts and using ourselves and helping them
see where they can find those people. Google Helpouts that just came out I think will be
awesome for that. And also using Creative Commons to access work that they can use and
give credit for.
We also need to help them manage these resources using Chrome bookmarks, using social bookmarking
like diigo or delicious, and also being able to utilize twitter favorites. Having all of
this information isn't any good if they don't know how to curate it. That's why this is
very important.
And once students have this information They need to be able to integrate it into their
work. Those are proper citations, using such tools as easybib. Following really good presentation
guidelines, such as the six by six rule, and I know Ilike the use the video Like after
Death by PowerPoint by Don McMillan. It is great to show everything that is annoying
about making slideshows and it helps us see ways we can make it better. And then also
utilizing some tools that are embedded, such as Prezi and Google Docs, which have searches
for Creative Commons works or images. And Google Docs also has a research future in
which you can pull in the citations, which is really nice and can help them integrate
this information.
Evaluating sources really ties into some of the other features. Basically, I really see
this as being able to find sources on the same topic to give validity to the information.
Also helping them see the keys to an online source. Suce as A noticeable author, recent
date, things like that. And then using tools such as turnitin.com to doublecheck and make
sure they aren't plagiarizing anything accidentally or not. And then on more of a teacher end
using something like the Google Docs Revision History so you can see if a whole bunch of
text appeared at once and how each student contributes.
For creating there are a host of things to create. Ilike screencasts, hangouts on air,
web 2.0 tools, there' s a million of them. I like Prezi, and recently Soundcloud. And
then also the Google Apps for Education suite, as well as Google Maps and Google Earth a
great way for students to create things and tell their stories.
And lastly how do they communicate this information. I think websites, and having an e-portfolio
as they go through school is great. Google sites, weebly, wix, great resources for that.
And also using youtube to share their stories, their voice, their videos. and then social
networking, using those for a positive. And that comes with teaching internet safety,
digital citizenship and we need to include those things.
So, basically, our students really need us to adapt. We cannot afford to let our students
enter our society without these proper skills. Content really isn't in our control. Students
have access to all of that. But our role needs to shift from one that we deliver content
to one that guides students to content, and helps promote a love of learning and that
drive to keep learning. I believe we can make this shift, no matter
what and it will be difficult, but our students deserve that from us. Thank you.