Upgrade your KWL Chart to the 21st Century

One of the take aways from the Curriculum Mapping Institute this past week was that it brought an upgrade to THE trusted KWL (Know, What to Know and Learned) Chart to the forefront. It seems a no brainer…one of those things… “I should have thought about it”… So what is this upgrade all about?

An “H” snuck into the Acronym!

• What does this “H” stand for”?
• Why is this an upgrade for the 21st century?

I started out by searching Google, which immediately wanted to correct my search term and showed me  the traditional “KWL chart” results. I had to re-affirm that I indeed wanted to find out more about KWHL charts. (The nerve…!)

The  top search results turned out mostly downloadable files for templates, which was quiet interesting as there were several explanations in these tutorials what the “H” could stand for:

• HOW can we find the answers to these questions?
• HOW can we find out what we want to learn?
• HOW did the learning take place?
• HOW can we learn more?
• HOW will we find the information?

In direct relation to our quest to bring Information literacy in the 21st century to our teachers and students, the “HOW will we find the information” sticks out right away for me. A chart, that points out “knowing HOW to get to information”, which  highlights essential skills in the Information age, seems of vital importance when planning lessons and units as well as teaching the process to our students.

My Twitter network was much better in helping me extend my search for KWHL.  The tweet from my friend Chic Foote from New Zealand even revealed a further extension by including “AQ” to the mix: Apply and Question.

OK, so we have doubled the length of the original acronym. We have a total of three new sections in the famous chart.

The search for “KWHLAQ” immediately took me to Maggie Hos-McGrane from Switzerland (How could I have not ended up at her excellent blog Tech Transformation? ) Maggie wrote a great explanation post about the letters that make up the Alphabet Soup- KWHLAQ.  Maggie is putting the acronym in relationship to the PYP (IB Primary Years Programme) model at her school? She assigns the following explanation to the three “new” letters in the acronym

H – How will we find out the answers to our questions?  Students need to think about what resources are available to help them find the answers.

A – What action will we take?  This is another way of asking how students are applying what they have learned.  Action is one of the 5 essential elements of the PYP and it is an expectation of the PYP that inquiry will lead to responsible action initiated by students as a result of the learning process.

Q – What new questions do we have?  At the end of a unit of inquiry there should be time to reflect on whether we have successfully addressed our initial questions and whether we have come with with other questions.  Actually, if the unit is successful I believe there should be more questions – we should not be “done” with learning.

As Maggie used the PYP model as the base for her rational of the expansion of the traditional KWL chart, I am looking at it through the 21st century skills and literacies lens.

H- HOW will we find the information to answer “What we want to know?”
Information Literacy is one of literacies educators and students seem to have the most trouble with. Not being able to find the information we need or having to wonder if the information is accurate often gets blamed on the OVERLOAD of information being produced and disseminated online, as well as the fact that ANYONE can contribute. We need to have the skills to be able to deal with the amount of information by learning how to filter that information through a variety of means. What better way to integrate the “H” into our learning inquiries in order to find, evaluate, analyze, organize, curate and remix information.

A- What ACTION will we take once we learned what we set out to learn?
There used to be a time… (when I was at school) that information was set in stone (well, it was written in black and white on paper, bound in a book). I could not really add my perspective or new information that I learned from my teacher, family, friends or from experience to the “book”.  Issues that we learned about, where (mostly) far removed (time and geographically) from our reality. How could one student accomplish change beyond their immediate surroundings? How could one student affect change? The reality of feeling helpless beyond our neighborhood has changed. Tools to reach and collaborate with a worldwide audience are available and free to use. Making students aware of their power and the opportunities available to take action is imperative.

Q- What QUESTIONS do we have?
The “Q” immediately brought Bill Sheskey’s quote from the book Curriculum21 by Heidi Hayes Jacobs to mind.
Bill has summed up the upgrade of the KWL-chart for me. It is not about delivering the answers anymore. In the 21st century, being able to ask the questions (and continuing asking)  is the skill we need to instill in our students. Learning is not confined to a textbook, the walls of a classroom or peers and experts who are physically in the same location. Learning is open ended…we strive to be life-long learners. Why would a chart end with the question “What have I learned?”. Let’s leave the chart open ended with “What (new) questions do I still have?

I have learned in the past that when planning with teachers in upgrading their units, chart templates have been a welcomed addition. It creates a manageable overview of what we need to consider as we strategically upgrade to the 21st century. Using templates also can show, over time, the different skills, literacies and roles to empower learners that have been touched upon. Templates such as these, when used consistently, can support teachers as they are struggling with 21st century fluency.

What are your thoughts on adding the “How to find the information?”,”What Action will you take?” and “What new Questions do you have?”?  How do these additions relate to good practice in education for the 21st century?

How have you used KWL, KWHL or KWHLAQ charts in planning and/or with your students?

If we want Web Literate Students, We Need to be Web Literate Educators.

As an extension to my first blog post “Add a Global Perspective to your Google Search“, I wanted to add a video that was inspired by last week’s keynote presentation by Alan November at CMI 2011.

If we want web literate students, we need to be web literate educators. Please share how you add global perspective to a Google Search? What are some tips and tricks of the trade to support your students in becoming web literate?

My World of Reading- Part I

Ryan Bretag’s blog posts Reading Digitally: Exploring the World of eBooks sparked the desire in me to continue documenting about my experiences as my reading habits are changing. I want to reflect upon and complete the following sentence:

My World of Reading is…

What does reading mean for me in 2011? How do I read? What media and method do I prefer? Where will I go from here? How do I feel about the comment “I like the smell of books”?

I have reflected by writing periodically about my reading in the past:

• So, What About Books?
• My (and Mother’s) Life As a Reader
• Books I Read Around the World

Ryan Bretag, in the above mentioned blog posts, lists other great questions about reading digitally. He  is focusing in on a conversation that deeply intrigues me, a conversation that is centered

on our mindsets about reading digitally, eBooks, digital texts, and teacher created (ePub) materials. While there is the obvious discussion about potential cost savings and green focus, the core is the notion of learning, literacy, engagement, reading habits, personalized devices, and social media.

In his blog post he asks the following questions.

• Will books become entirely digital?
• What is the difference between reading digitally or in print?
• What do we lose and what do we gain?
• How do we define literacy and what does this mean in the context of an always on, content rich society that is highly social?
• Are the habits of reading evolving with the web and digital content?
• Is there an environmental and fiscal responsibility?
• What are the expectations of future generations?
• What does research tell us about reading digitally? What are the cautions? warnings? gaps?
• Would you exchange your print books and texts for digital pieces if it also provided students an iPad?
• How do we begin the discussion in order to engage in a meaningful discussion that leads to action?
• What is reading?
• What happens when reading becomes social?
• What happens to reading when readers have access to their own personalized device?

Ryan did not stop by answering these questions for himself, but created the following pilot program for members of his instructional team to collaboratively explore their world of reading.

Reading Digitally: Exploring the World of eBooks summer pilot

where educators (teachers, librarians, and administrators) across disciplines and position focus on themselves as readers.[...] Therefore, the purpose of this pilot is to explore the experience of reading digital books as readers and members of a society immersed digitally. Through this exploration as readers, we will come to better discuss the experience of reading digitally and move the discussions into future phases that focus on the perspective of learning and teaching.

So here is my attempt to answer the prompts:

Will books become entirely digital?

I don’t believe that traditional books (printed on paper) will become “extinct” in our lifetime. We have to remember that not every person in the world has electricity, nor Internet connectivity, nor the desire to go digital. While I can see the possibility that ALL the books I will purchase in MY future might be digital, I think that there might be a gradual phase out of printed books as more and more people purchase digital only. I do know that I have moved with my existing, physical books across three continents and do not plan on abandoning any time soon these individual letters that form words,  sentences, paragraphs and are printed on paper and bound together to create meaning and stories. (Can you tell that I have a relationship with books?)

I hear many readers, who have made the jump to e-readers, say that they read non-fiction and books in their professional library as ebooks, but still prefer to read their novels and other fiction books on paper. Initially I started out that way too, but am realizing already that the ability for me to:

• carry all my books in one convenient device
• have immediate access to books in other languages
• be able to organize my library easier and more conveniently (also, don’t have to dust them)
• be able to share books with my mother (who lives in Argentina and has my old Kindle connected to my Amazon account now)
• make it easier on my wrists when reading the otherwise heavy historic novels ( I like to read in bed).

Take a look at the following articles to form your own opinion about printed books becoming extinct:

• Will physical books be gone in five years? – CNN.com
• iPad and books

What is the difference between reading digitally or in print?

Nowadays, I am reading more digitally than in print. Not only because of blog posts, internet sites from different countries, twitter, etc, but because I have digital print more readily available anytime, anywhere. I always carry my iPhone and/or iPad around with me.  I have over 50 books on my Kindle app, ready for me to open, read, highlight, add a note, take a screenshot, share a quote via my social network, etc. I don’t recall ever having brought along more than one paper book in my purse other than a travel-guide or a book when heading out on a long flight. Now I carry an entire library with me. So, those are some logistic reasons why reading digitally is different than reading in print.

But what about other differences?

While I might skim reading an online blog post or through my Twitter feed, I don’t feel like I am skimming more or less an e-book than a paper book. I always have been a fast reader and I am not realizing  if I seem to be reading faster digitally than in print.

I am just reading more, since I have more available to me. I remember starting to get ansy when I was about to finish a book, since I had not another one readily available at home to continue reading. I had to wait until my next trip to town to a bookstore.

I remember the days before Barnes & Noble or Amazon, when

• the “bookstore” (in Germany) was only a few shelves in a department store.
• I had to save all my allowance to be able to buy my next book.
• the only bookstore that carried German books (in Argentina) was two bus rides and about 1 1/2 hours away.
• the bookstore (in Argentina) was not a pleasant place to hang out, no chairs, no coffee shop and unimaginable that you would be allowed to actually start reading the book before you would buy it.

As I am reading, I am using the build-in dictionary regularly on my iPad. Maybe because English is my third language…Maybe native speakers don’t… Doing this on the iPad is something that has become fluent. Looking up a word, does not interrupt my flow of reading. I do not perceive it to slow me down as having to set my physical book aside to pick up another one, the dictionary, and then look up the world to then pick up the original book again to place the word in the context.I don’t remember using a dictionary much before the iPad.

In order for this blog post to not go on forever, I will continue answering Ryan’s prompts in part II of “My World of Reading”. Stay tuned.

What are you noticing as you compare your digital vs. printed reading habits? Have you blogged about it? Documented it? Or would you just like to share here in the comments?