Final Trackstar and Citizen Journalism

I love trackstar and will be using this regularly. TrackStar Final Product
After viewing my colleagues' reports, I feel woefully inadequate. I think my blog was too safe, and if I should ever present this to my students as a project, I think I would go with edgier.
 Citizen Journalism Report

Week #10 reading

How does the project detailed in the video support research process consistent with the kind of research people encounter in the workplace?

 

• It supports workplace research by taking a pressing issue, in this case rainforest deforestation, engaging people to work together with experts and taking action.
•  Not just collecting data and talking about what to do.
• They used existing resources, modern technologies and embraced 21^st century learning to motivate students to help solve problems. 

• This project allowed for global participation in the form of satellite and 3D images.
• The students’ videos and social networking sites used as an interview reinforced the social skills and imagination that the youth needed to acquire to be a full participant in the workplace and community. 

How does this project support new literacies?

• The new literacies are supported here, in every venue available. It also allowed for the new literacy ‘illiterate’ to learn the power of connecting to the internet, social media and understanding that their contributions matter and outcomes can make a difference.
• However, along with this power comes responsibility of ethics, validity and responsibility.

A friend sent this to me on FaceBook, which I think is appropriate for this course,

“The moment your students have an audience for their work that exists outside the walls of your school, you’ve made the work in your classroom relevant, important and shows your students that they matter.” (anon)      

Citizen Journalism Report Very Rough Draft

I decided to go with a blog, because
1. I don't have any video equipment handy to do what I want,
2. I hate being on camera and
3. I hate my voice.
I decided to give my students the same option. They still need to do some videotaping and interviewing, but they can put it on a blog.

 Citizen Journalism Report

Quote of the week #9

Quote of the week #9
“The crucial role of schools in the world of the evolving web is not only to use it to engage students and support their learning, but to guide students in ethical and socially responsible use of the increasingly complex and global worlds of the web.” (Asselin & Moayeri, 2011)

• I choose this statement, simply because the schools are the places the students will become engaged in learning and the appropriate way to use information literacy. Students must learn with the power to post they also need to learn to be socially responsible .One of the things I have learned through painful experience is to learn how to carefully craft our words to adequately meet our purposes. Nuances such as irony can be easily lost in text and the intention of one person’s comments can be misinterpreted by others

Asselin , M., & Moayeri, M. (2011). Practical strategies literacy learning: the middle years. 19(2), Retrieved from http://ictandliteracy.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/practical-strategies.pdf .


With the power to post in a public space, it becomes particularly important for students to understand the ethical and political context behind their work.

Retrieved from www.webimax.com

 

Then answer the following questions:
1. What makes a literacy practice a "new literacy"?

•   “New literacies” are those practices that facilitate thoughtful and critical participation and collaboration in the creation of new understandings that are widely distributed.

2. How does might Citizen Journalism support the development of "new literacies"?

•  New literacies include thoughtful and ‘critical’ participation. Citizen Journalism expands literacies for learning include criticality, metacognition, reflection, and important skills for creating and publishing content.

3. What is critical literacy and how does your Citizen Journalism project encourage critical literacy?

• Critical literacy encourages students to critically review the text by understanding the foundation and conflicts that lie beneath the surface content and the relationship that the text holds with other text(s).
• Our projects encourage the students to examine issues of class, gender, race, culture, and authority in the aim to advance democracy and in my case healthcare. Students need to understand that all text, ‘just because it’s on the internet’ may not be all true.

How might you change your project to encourage critical literacy?

• I would have them delve deeper into the pros and cons of the healthcare issue. So far there are only two

  4. What problems may arise when students use Web 2.0 tools for learning in school?

• Problems may arise surrounding ownership of work. Trustworthiness and bias can become an issue. Learning how to annotate a web page and how to read material with annotations is a new literacy skill in need of attention. Issues of identity, connectivity, and community can help impact the school culture and may play a role in affecting student learning.

  How might teachers capitalize on these opportunities to promote information literacy?

• Teachers can use collaborative software to allow a class to work with one another, in creating a narrative or non-fiction writing piece.
•  The point is the students work together in a collaborative manner. Each student contributes to a portion of the project and the different portions are then linked and hyperlinked together. The teacher encourages ethical implications.
•  Social networking can also be used in many forms. Our respiratory class uses the Facebook organization app where only those invited, can see the posts. Through this we post notes, ideas and learning web sites and after they graduate job opportunities.
• But many posting happens in a public space, it becomes particularly important for students to understand the ethical and political context behind their work.

Story Board

This was the first time I created a story board. After looking at everyone else's, I find I am woefully inadequate. Enjoy, any advice will be greatfully accepted. Thank you in advance.
I would like to have my stduents use audio/video to put on youtube. However not all students have access to equipment or may be camera shy. So I'm thinking have them to create a blog to  express the ideas on the story board.
Story Board

Quote of the week #8

My Quote of the week “ Given the seductively easy accessibility of masses of unregulated information, it is imperative that students, from the very beginning of their academic careers, adopt a critical approach to information and develop the ability to evaluate the information they encounter for authenticity, accuracy, credibility, authority relevance, concealed bias , logical consistence and so on.”(Grafstein , 2002)

•  I totally agree with this statement. Students need to be able to critically think and not mindlessly sift through information simply because it is at hand. Throughout this course I have stated that technology must be taught to the students regarding reliability, validity etc. It is so easy or seductive to take the first and easiest way to find information, but do the students care who wrote it or posted it? I suppose not if writing a paper, but when their name goes to publication the facts must be valid.

Grafstein, A. (2002, July). A Discipline-Based Approach to Information Literacy. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 28(4), pp. 197-204.

This was posted on my facebook by a high school classmate , who is taking summer classes in information technology. I feel this is so appropriate for me.


The modern learner has to sift through a lot of information.
That means higher level thinking skills like analysis and evaluation are necessary just to reduce all the noise and establish the credibility of information.
There is also the matter of utility. Evaluating information depends as much on context and circumstance as it does the nature of the data itself. The essay full of fluff may distill quite nicely down to a 140 character tweet. A trivial fact about governments may appear useless in a research paper on the 3 branches of government, but could find utility in a project-based learning artifact on the evolution of government systems worldwide.
Context matters, and the diagram from edorigami below captures this, though not from the perspective of the student and content knowledge, but the teacher and various pedagogical components themselves, including Higher-Order Thinking Skills, Peer Collaboration, and Media Fluency.

 http://www.teachthought.com/technology/a-diagram-of-21st-century-pedagogy/

1. What is the difference between IL( information literacy) and BI ( Bibliographic instruction) and why is this distinction important?

• New literacies are information on the Web and the Internet that consist of information that is continually changing, as it is frequently revised, removed, or rearranged.  This digital information is usually hyperlinked to networks that explore new forms of story grammar and various new formats.  These new formats that allow readers to navigate their own course—by selecting links in a variety of orders—that may be different than the intended path of the author or other readers. 
•  In contrast BI or bibliographic instruction is traditional text, the print remains the same, it does not change each time the book is opened, reminds me of the Encyclopedia Britannica. The BI format is linear, as it follows the intended path of the author and usually sequential. Additionally, BI is non-interactive with non-adaptable features.  The author constructs information and readers must follow the author’s designed plot or expository structure. 

2. Why should classroom faculty teach IL?

• I believe that effective programs involve a shared responsibility among librarians, academic administration and classroom faculty.
• Web 2.0 is just the beginning, I’m sure there will be a 3.0, 4.0 into infinity and beyond. When computers were first introduced into schools to students as young as kindergarten (1970s &1980s), many parents were questioning the validity of that. Now children are born with an iphone in their tiny little hands.
• Teaching only traditional tools do not prepare students to use the new technology effectively. Technology changes daily and the faculty are the front line instruction to prepare the students.

3. What is the role of classroom faculty in developing information literacy?

• The classroom faculty must be able to change with the technology. We cannot standby with old techniques and hope the students get it.
•  The ultimate goal is to develop in the students the capability to both critically evaluate the information they encounter and continue to use these skills they have acquired and confidently handle any new challenges that will confront them after they leave us.

Citizen Journalism Roughdraft

This project was a little harder than I thought. I'm not from WV so trying to find something from around here that was controversial was difficult. Also I am not a controversial type person. I did get some help and choose Fracking in the area. A friend lives in a county where fracking is just up the road from her. I did not know the extent of health concerns until she told me about the cancer outbreaks around her and her extentensive water purifying system in her home. It is far enough away so the noise pollution was not an issue, but the huge trucks on the road was.
  Citizen Journalism Rough Draft

Week 7 Techology - Rich Projects

I could quote the entire conclusion, but the first line pretty much states my agreement.

•   “ The project reported here demonstrates that students may be behaviourally, cognitively and emotionally engaged when undertaking technology-rich projects, but that high levels of engagement aren’t necessarily guaranteed by simply infusing technology.”(Adlington & Harvey, 2010)
• I selected this because, a teacher can introduce all kinds of technology into a project but the students must be engaged or boredom and indifference sets in. I think that’s it’s important to have different alternatives at hand to allow for these indifferences. There is so much to choose from, it’s hard to not just throw it out there, but to use it is important to not overload.
•   This is so me,
  
(2009). Education the times are a changing [Web Video]. Retrieved from www.youtube.com/embed/wuyrP_HhWEg

Reference: Adlington, R., & Harvey, H. (2010). Engaging young learners: the multi-faceted and changeable nature of student engagement in technology-rich learning projects. ACE2010: Digital Diversity Conference , Retrieved from http://acec2010.acce.edu.au/sites/acec2010.info/files/proposal/172/acec2010engagingyounglearners.pdf Then answer the following questions:

1. How might your citizen journalism project resemble a technology rich project?

• Citizen reporting, involves research in different medias, such as the web, a blog, youtube or print. It involves synthesize material in excel or a statistic package and presenting it in an appropriate forum with powerpoint , prezi or any public media.

  2. What did you learn about successful implementation of technology rich projects?

• I think that they need to be done in guided steps and preferably in small groups. This project was supported by technology in a variety of ways. I think variety is the spice of life. They used a different technology for each step, but that technology was appropriate for that step which I think is very important. I like the collaboration too, brainstorming usually produces some good ideas.