"Textbooks, Wikipedia and Schooling"

Should teachers be armed in schools from jodeenelson

• I felt that the Think aloud project was enlightening. I wish we had for the first Wikipedia project. I now know what to look for in credibility, validity and reliability. When my students start their research projects in the fall, I will definitely be showing them this.
•   It would be very hard to have intelligent consumers without giving them the tools to know how to consume.It's pretty scary to see students believe whats out there because "if it's on the internet it has to be true". It is our job to start early to teach how, who, what and where to look for reliable and credible information. The digital age is moving so fast and furious we as instructors need to be there to guide the students.
• This project reminded me of the good ol' days, when I studied with texts , paper and pencil( we did have electricity) I would write out and talk aloud to remember the facts. Thinkaloud is pretty much the same concept only on the internet. I found it to be extremely helpful in find the who,what,where and how of the sites. Text books are often outdated or edited to meet someone's needs. I've always pretty much new that, but this brought it to light. I so agree with the Geoff Ruth when his first statement was "The students in my general chemistry class almost never open their textbook. My reason: The less I use the book, the more they learn."(http://www.edutopia.org/teaching-without-text.)I find I'm doing the same thing in my Respiratory Classes. The internet is so much more up to date, I am constantly updating my material. But I still have a very hard time getting rid of the texts. Old habits are so hard to break.

• Web Page Evaluation Checklist
• Name of page: National School Safety and Security Services
• Address/URL: http://www.schoolsecurity.org/ Date Accessed: 6/6/13
• How did you find the page?Google search
• DOMAIN
• What is the domain of the page? .org
• Do you feel that the domain type helps add to or lessen the page’s credibility? Yes it does
• AUTHOR/AUTHORITY
• Kenneth S. Trump is the author and president of this organization.  
• Mr. Trump  is one of the nation’s leading school safety experts and has 25 years of front-line     school security experience working with school and safety officials from all 50 states and Canada.This lends a level of credibility to his statements.
• Some bias regarding security in schools. It is his website. However, there is no political association so all opinions are his.
• Mr.Trumps contact information is located under the tab 'contact information'
• I feel with Mr. Trump's experince and expertise he is  qualified to make these statements.
• INTENT
• The purpose of the page clearly stated under the 'about us' tab
•  The purpose is to inform school district administrators about security and safety
• There are no adverisements , this a for-profit consulting corporation.
• INTENDED AUDIENCE
• The audience is school superintendents, principals, and school boards  
• CURRENTNESS
• This site is updated on aregular basis and is maintained properly. All links work.
• RELIABILITY
• He has a board of directors
• I feel with his credentials and experience in the field he is very reliable
• CONCLUSIONS
• I have np reservations that I feel this source is reliable and would recommend it others.

READING FOR WEEK #3
How do you feel about using web-based resources instead of textbooks in school?

• I like using web-based resources; it’s Wikipedia that throws me for a loop.
• I like the factual articles all lined up in rows or columns.
•  Wikipedia kind of vomits out information.
• I‘google’ something before looking it up in a text.
• In the health care field, as in most fields of study, information changes on a daily basis.
• Looking up health based organizations gives the most up to date information.
•  Wikipedia can guide the student to these organizations, but so does google or bing or whatever search engine one wants to use.
•  Last year I actually took the plunge and put the whole class on Black Board and gave web-based readings instead of text reading. It was well received by the younger students the over 40’s not so much.

What opportunities for the development of information literacy skills for students if they began to learn without textbooks?

• Opportunities are endless.
• As long as a student has a computer with internet access, the world is a wide open space.
•  You can Google or Bing absolutely anything and everything.
•  It’s access to the internet that may be a problem for some students.
•  It’s also appropriate education regarding credibility, reliability and validation that is important.

   3.How do these articles change or support your stance on using Wikipedia learning resources in the classroom?

• I always suspected that texts were a conglomeration of facts mushed together to accommodate the school buyers. I never dreamt it to be this extensive.
•  I remember reading my children’s textbooks. The civil rights era and Vietnam were just footnotes in their history books. Both of which were still considered distasteful at the time.
•     The author Tamim Ansary said it best “In fact, most of these books fall far short of their important role in the educational scheme of things. They are processed into existence using the pulp of what already exists, rising like swamp things from the compost of the past. The mulch is turned and tended by many layers of editors who scrub it of anything possibly objectionable before it is fed into a government-run "adoption" system that provides mediocre material to students of all ages.”(Tamim)
• As far as not using texts I agree with Geoff Ruth when he stated “The students in my general chemistry class almost never open their textbook. My reason: The less I use the book, the more they learn” (Ruth)
• I have been pulling away from using the texts that we have.
• I haven’t been able to totally make the break completely, because I want to believe they can be valuable resources for their future references. Especially when the students go take their credentialing exams. However there are so many on line practice exams, I wonder if they really use the texts.
•  For the first time this year, ebooks are available, I am not going to discourage the use of these. I believe Wikipedia has a place in the classroom, it is a powerful tool as a resource to start the imagination process. To be used to start the student exploring the world around them.

• References
•  Ruth , G. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/teaching-without-text
• Tamim, A. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/muddle-machine

I feel this was me before this project.

The unhelpful teacher, only we are not this young.

http://troll.me?p=70532