Using visuals to create and support stories is a skill we should encourage and nurture in our students . It should be obvious by now that I consider storytelling an integral part of a teacher’s toolbox. You can read about the Need for Storytelling and Why Storytelling Can/Should Be Anywhere/Everywhere and will understand why storytelling can fulfill many roles in the learning process.

Storytelling:

• helps us pass on knowledge
• connects the overwhelming flow of information,  so our brains can digest and remember it better
• uses a format that students of today are familiar and comfortable with

Now add visuals to the mix…

According to Wikipedia, Visual literacy is

the ability to interpret, negotiate, and make meaning from information presented in the form of an image. Visual literacy is based on the idea that pictures can be “read” and that meaning can be communicated through a process of reading.

It is hard sometimes to make/find images available to your students (especially for the younger ones) that they can use in their digital storytelling projects or for creative writing. I am always hesitant to let them loose on Google or Flickr to find their own images, because of copyright issues, but also inappropriate content.

I wanted to share a Flickr set of the Travel Bear from Argentina, China, Egypt, Costa Rica, Peru and Italy. There are all in one place and licensed under Creative Commons to share and use with your students.

In the past, students have made up stories with images from the bear for younger students by using PhotoStory

Students could choose different images from the set to create whole new stories made up by them. Sixth graders created short movies for their first grade buddies.
Andrea Hernandez from edtechworkshop encouraged her first graders to choose an image from the Travel Bear’s Italy Blog, download the image into Pixie (or you could use KidPix or TuxPaint ) and the six year olds wrote a postcard style letter to Jose, the bear.

Here is a slideshow of images available from the travel bear around the world. I would love to hear what kind of creative writing projects you have come up with by encouraging your students to use creative commons images from the web? Please share…

I am guest blogging on My Wonderful World Blog (National Geographic Education Foundation) in honor of Geography Awareness Week 2009 the week of November 15 – 21!

This year’s theme is “Get Lost in Mapping: Find Your Place in the World”.

I wanted to share a successful geography lesson that continues to grow throughout the school year.  I have blogged about the  News Events Assignments with a Twitst and The Logistics of creating a Current News Events Google Map previously.

The lesson was born out of a very traditional  “Current Events Assignment”, handed in to the teacher on paper, which had been part of the curriculum for years.

The Middle School Social Studies teacher at my school (Martin J.Gottlieb Day School) was not satisfied with the paper and pencil assignment and was looking to bring the old and tried task into the 21st century. She wanted students to not merely be looking up random and disconnected news events that were handed in to her on a weekly basis. She wanted students to be really making connections among these events by involving higher level thinking skills such as evaluating, analyzing and creating. The new assignment was to not only involve geography skills, but also bring into the lesson information literacy and global awareness.

We decided to create a collaborative map for each grade level (6th, 7th, and 8th grade) with Google Maps. Each student was assigned a different colored or shaped placemark within Google Maps . They were also given the class username and password to be able to log in from home.

Their weekly “Current News Events” assignment now consisted in:

• Logging into their grade level map
• Placing a placemark on the location the news event had taken place
• Entering the location’s country as the title of the placemark
• Using the description box to add a category the news article was falling under (Ex. politics, environment, entertainment, etc.)
• The source link to the original news article or citation if from a paper newspaper
• A summary of the article. Preferably in 140 characters or less.

Since the start of the assignment,  several weeks have passed and new lessons have been learned, input from educators around the world received and new dimensions to the lesson have crystallized themselves.

As more news events are added,  we are asking questions such as:

• In what category do most news events we added fall?
  
• In what continents and countries are these news items in?
  
• What area of the world do we know or hear the most or least about? Why?
  
• How can we expand our horizon to cover more areas of the globe?

It has been good to observe that students are branching out in their search for sources. They are reading newspapers from different locations around the world, such as the UK, Australia, and Japan.

They are realizing that:

• different sources bring different points of view, opinions and kinds of news items.
• not all perspectives are represented in one source
• to get a “fuller” picture of a news event, you have to look at more than one source
• location of a source influences the content and perspective of the article

We  are asking ourselves:

• What does it mean if the majority of our sources are US based by coming from CNN.com and Foxnews.com?
• How are other countries affected by events happening in different countries or continents?
• What is ( or is there) a difference in terms of validity of news when the source is BBC or Comedy Central?

Each week students, after they have entered their news event, present the location and summary of their placemark to the class on the SmartBoard.

As students present their news event, other students are working with their laptops at their desk and are editing their peer’s placemark. They are becoming collaborators and critical thinkers  by validating and cross-referencing sources, asking for clarifications if the summary was not understood and making suggestions to where to place the placemark best.  As Mrs. R., their teacher said:

In previous “Current News Events” assignment, there was never an element of self- and collaborative checking of their work. Students handed in their news event and summary on a paper. I was the only one reading it.  The collaborative web based map has brought a new dimension of deeper thinking.

Why are students motivated to go over and check their own and classmate’s work?

Students are aware that their Google Maps of Current Events have been viewed by over 10,000  people (all three maps combined). Over 20 comments have been left by others from far away countries such as Israel, Australia and Korea, leaving students with a sense of pride and that what they do in class matters. Other teachers are using their maps as examples to teach their students. Commenters have:

• asked students to add source links to the original articles
• requested that we double check location placemarks
• challenged students about the “worthiness” of adding articles in the entertainment category
• encouraged students to look for patterns about their news event locations
• shared links to images about a news event

As the Social Studies teacher and I reflect on this weekly task, we want to continue to add new elements and enter into additional phases of the assignment in order to prevent it from becoming routine or just another thing to do for the students.

We are contemplating:

• To give students a broad topic and asking them to find relevant news sources, representative of different countries? Is there a difference in the “facts” that are reported or omitted depending on location? What is their “take” on a specific event?
• Ask students to come up with a world news topic, add their opinion and take on the subject, then ask others around the world to contribute their unique perspective to that topic.
• Have students analyze responses from different locations around the world and consider responses on basis of geography.

What are your thoughts and ideas how to expand, develop and create even more facets to this assignment?

Take a look at the GoogleMaps at and leave a comment for our 6th graders, 7th graders and 8th graders.

We want our students to start creating…
We want them to use different media to express themselves, demonstrate their understanding, learning and connections to the world.

So, the teacher has agreed to the substitution of the traditional written book report (from years past) with allowing students (5th Grade) to create and record a PhotoStory based on a biography of  a famous person.

Step one was to give students an overview of using PhotoStory. Step two was the issue of obtaining images they could us.  I was amazed at how many students were STILL thinking that it was OK to just google images, right click, save as and voila!

I know for a fact, that most of them were introduced to the issue of copyright through one of the projects they had done in TechConnect last year.

• They did not listen?
• It was too complex to understand?
• It did not sink in?
• It was not reinforced on other occasions?

Some students had even their parents help them save images obtained from a google search. (Note to myself: Need to offer Copyright issues workshop for parents next school year)

So, Step two was an opportunity to revisit and reinforce copyright issues students encounter when creating digital projects involving images.

Allowing my elementary school students to “freely” search for images on the web is not an option.

At the beginning of this school year, I had created a  Media Library on our server, where I placed public domain and creative commons licensed images, sounds and video clips to be used in projects.

The question is though: How are they going to learn, if we (teachers)  pre-chew everything for them?

For this biography project, I wanted them to search for images of their famous person on Wikipedia and learn to be  (1) aware, (2) check the licensing options of each image and (3) cite the image credits properly in the PhotoStory project.

As a whole group. I showed them to check  for copyright license by clicking on the image itself .

Scroll down, pass the image to take a closer look at the license of the image.

If the image is in public domain, students are free to save the image and import into their project. They do not need to credit any source.

If the image is licensed under GNU Free Documentation License or  Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License, students are free to download the image, but are required to give credit to the author or owner of the image. They are to save the image with the “by author or username” before importing it into their project and include the name in a credit page in their project.

I believe that elementary school students are NOT too young to learn about copyright and copywrong. A school project should not be placed into a different  category that make it ok  to not follow the law because:

• well, it does not really matter…
• it is not “real”…
• it does not count…
• I am not “really” doing anything wrong…
• no one will know, except my teacher…

Expressions, like “YES!!” with accompanying body language could be heard all around the classroom, when students found a good image and it happened to be in public domain.

They are being aware of copyright issues and they are becoming familiar with terms such as Creative Commons and Public Domain.

Will it “sink” in this time?

While in Bangkok visiting Kim Cofino from Always Learning and Chrissy Hellyer from Teaching Sagittarian, I attended a session of CoTaIL (Certificate of Technology and Information Literacy) that is being taught at their school (International School of Bangkok). Jeff Utecht, from The Thingking Stick and co-teacher of the course,  had asked me to share with their class participants my recent experience with chatrooms in the classroom.

image by teachingsagittarian

I started out the session by creating a chat room on tinychat.com. With no preparation and little instructions, I asked the participants to use the chatroom to summarize what they were hearing.  I was hoping to be able to document a change in usage and focus of the chatroom as the presentation progressed.  As the primary focus of the session taught by Jeff and Chad Bates was “Digital Footprint”, I tried to tie in the use of a chatroom as yet another way of documenting your and your students’ learning. A way to be able to go back and reflect on conversations, questions and threads.

How do we teach with a tool that our students use exclusively (until now)  in a social setting? How to we guide and prepare them to use it on an academic stage and leaving a (positive!) digital footprint behind?

After the session was over, I was eager to go through the chat log to see what kind of thoughts were documented, what transformation (if any) had taken place in the mind of the participants, what kind of thoughts were “circulating” in the back channel while I was giving the presentation?

Well, as the technology gods must have wanted it, the chat log mysteriously only saved about 3 minutes of the about 40 minutes participants were using the chat.  So here is a snapshot of what went on during the presentation. No conclusive, since the majority of the log is missing but still insightful nonetheless. …

(5:13 am) breedlove – @teresa what about mandating students read the log of the chat and reflect on that?
(5:13 am) bedridden – Can someone move the camera so I can see the smart board?
(5:13 am) Karen – Application: Feedback on an oral presentation in real time.  Useful as we don’t always video tape presentions.
(5:13 am) Ida – I’m having a hard time writing while looking at Silvia and trying to digest everything she’s saying!
(5:13 am) Margherite – So could we have kids in different countries chatting at the same time?
(5:13 am) Stargirl – @carole @gaby…students can then check in and check others
(5:13 am) Teresa – @Jon: Yes, I like that idea.
(5:14 am) teachwatts – it seems like we all stop chatting when someone asks a question
(5:14 am) Chrissy – @Jon I like that idea too
(5:14 am) Andy – Sorry, but this really hits me as verbal diarrhea… people just throw so many thoughts out without filtering their thoughts. Does this lead to deep understanding?
(5:14 am) Kim – @margherite we have adults in this chatroom outside of thailand right now
(5:14 am) Karen – Question: Could you repeat your whole presentation when we’re done chatting.  I enjoyed chatting but I feel I missed a lot of your presentation.
(5:15 am) teachwatts – shouldn’t we give the same respect to the teacher?
(5:15 am) breedlove – @ andy that is ironic
(5:15 am) Teresa – @Andy: Love your question
(5:15 am) Chrissy – @Andy as the novelty wears off – most definitely
(5:15 am) Margherite – What’s Jono’s idea. I can’t find it
(5:15 am) bedridden – 1
(5:16 am) Guest66623 – Focused
(5:16 am) Chrissy – @margherite what about mandating students read the log of the chat and reflect on that?
(5:16 am) Diane – What Jeff is talking abou is what we’ve been doing…checking it out!
(5:16 am) mj – good point @jutecht
(5:16 am) Carole – How about access to computers….?
(5:16 am) breedlove – /msg Margherite the idea was to have the students read the log and reflect on that
(5:16 am) beachbum – @carole…good question

Since the presentation a few of the participants have reflected on their own blogs about the possibilities that a chatroom might bring to their classroom and what it might mean to  student learning.

Jono in his post Chatological Etiquette

I understand that this kind of set-up is second nature to a lot of kids, and that they often spend time chatting in this format. I can see how this may certainly be a big advantage to kids who find speaking up in class very difficult. With this, they can find a voice and have time to compose their thoughts and make comments without the fear of “looking stupid”.

Mary Belloney jumped right in and used tinychat with her elementary school students. She reflects on her blog post “Have you experimented with TinyChat?”

We have a lot of work to do when it come to chatroom etiquette but it was a great experience. I discovered that I need to break it into smaller groups as the slower typers didn’t have a chance to respond. As a class we are going to look at the transcript and see how we can work to make our chat more learning focused. I’ll update you the next time we use it!

I believe that using a chatroom can be a powerful opportunity to use a tool, that students find motivating and engaging, turning it from a social into an academic focus AND teach at the same time about:

• auditory skills
• writing skills
• online safety
• digital footprint
• collaborative work

It is up to us to harness these opporunities and be creative when implementing them with the ultimate goal of TEACHING our students. No matter what grade level, subject or skills.

Here are some ideas of chat integration:

• Collaborative classroom discussion of a video (Back Channeling in Middle School Social Studies)
• Documenting and summarizing Skype Video Conference (Using Chat Rooms As a Tool in the Classsroom)
• Beginning of class Foreign Language Review (Stinto takes a casual chat to a study activity)

Have you used a chatroom with your students? How are you integrating? What has been your experience? Would you do it again? How are you tweaking your lessons?

Why is our first impulse to believe something that we see, read or hear? Especially if it is in print, online or comes in an “officially” looking packaging?

How do we teach ourselves and our students, that another impulse has to follow the first one immediately: Evaluate…critical thinking… learn to listen for and to your own “gut feeling”… cross referencing…

Information literacy is an important part of being literate.  Being able to know how to read and write alone, just doesn’t “cut it anymore”.

As always, I started out by asking my PLN on Twitter if they had any resources that might be interesting. Thank you all who contributed!

How easily can your students be fooled?

Start out by:

• showing them the following video clips for example. Observe their initial reactions?
• designing a lesson around a website deliberately sprinkled with false facts
• find out how many just blindly trust everything the read, see and hear online?
• find out how many  of your students are critical web users?

Once we prove to our students that “they too” can be fooled, we might be able to get them to see the value of having a process (criteria) in place that allows them to evaluate websites and other media

The House Hippo

Dove Commercial

All About Explorers

I blogged about this site as a valuable resource a few weeks back. Lesson plans, activities and resources are assembled for you to lead your students to research and evaluate information critically.

Further resource links  and examples of bogus and hoax websites:

Fake Internet Resources- The Bogus Internet

Facts about Dihydrogen Monoxide

Google: The Technology behind Google’s great results.

Mr. Puffin’s Evaluating the Web links

Website Evaluation in Elementary School (Washburn Elem. School)

Evaluation criteria you want  your students to consider when doing research:

• Kathy Shrock’s Guide for Educators: Critical Evaluation
• Chris Betcher’s 5 Factors for Evaluating Websites

Great lesson plans and Student evaluation checklist from Cybersmart for different grade levels.

Lesson Plans and Student Activity Sheets via kwout

This post title is “Teaching Information/Research Skills in Elementary School”, but this post is as much for adults and older students.

Many adults are overwhelmed with the quantity and new kind of media that is available and accessible through technology. Older students in High School and College might not feel overwhelmed, but have never been taught how to navigate, evaluate, save and retrieve the information that they are seeking.

How and what kind of information skills do we need to start teaching in elementary school, that will grow and expand with our students as their grow older?

What do teachers need to know in order to introduce and guide their students in a

• critical
• efficient
• effectively
• safe
• ethical

way as they navigating through the sea of information available?

We need to help students develop these kind of information skills:

• locating information
• evaluating information
• learning from information
• using (remix) information

I have written a few blog posts in the past months trying to wrap my own understanding what and how we can teach information/reserach skills starting in elementary school.

• Research Skills in Elementary School
• Web Searching Strategies for Elementary School Students
• How to Do Research? Kentucky Virtual Library Presents

I ran across what looks like an amazing resource to include in lessons.

All About Explorers

All About Explorers was developed by a group of teachers as a means of teaching students about the Internet. Although the Internet can be a tremendous resource for gathering information about a topic, we found that students often did not have the skills to discern useful information from worthless data.

So we set out to develop a series of lessons for elementary age students in which we would demonstrate that just because it is out there for the searching does not mean it is worthwhile.

The idea of creating a website and sprinkling in false information to make a point about

• not everything you find online is true
• you are responsible to verify with other sources the information you find
• use common sense when you find information that sounds “too good/ too outrageous/ too odd to be true”

is well thought through.

Because we wanted to make a point about finding useless information even in a site which looked at first to be fairly well put together, all of the Explorer biographies here are fictional. While many of the facts are true or based on truth, many inaccuracies, lies, and even downright absurdity are mixed in indiscriminately.

All About Explorers | Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about every explorer who ever lived…and more! via kwout

Students are invited to join in on Explorer Treasure Hunts, that point them to the site’s information page for each explorer (sprinkled with false facts) and one other link (with correct facts..well as correct as historical “facts” can be). Students then are asked to answer questions and fill them in direclty on the website. The submit button prints the page out with the answers.

There is also an extensive list of downloadable lessons and worksheets the teachers have used in their classroom in conjunction with this information skills lesson.

• Lesson 1: Just Because It’s Out There Doesn’t Mean It’s Good
  Students go on an Internet treasure hunt to find information about a famous world explorer. They compare information from two different sites to come to a conclusion about whether they can trust all Internet sources.
• Lesson 2: So How Do You Find the Good Stuff?
  Students are taught about the difference between publishing a book and posting a web site, emphasizing the selectivity of the publishing process. The “1 – 2 – 3″ approach to researching on the Internet is introduced. Students then get a chance to try out the first two steps.
• Lesson 3: Google, What?
  In this lesson, search engines are introduced in more detail. Emphasis is placed on the fact that these are collections rather than selections and that there are no humans involved in the collection process. Students explore some search engines to see the differences in results.
• Lesson 4: Where Exactly Am I, Anyway?
  Students learn about how to decode a URL and that it is the address for locating a web page. They also learn how to begin evaluating a site based on the top level domain (e.g. .com, .org, or .edu), as well as a few other tricks for determining the quality of the site.
• Lesson 5: How Could They Be So Wrong?
  Students research the correct facts and draft an email to the AllAboutExplorers site webmaster to fix the mistakes they discovered in Lesson 1.
• Explorer WebQuest
  Students will apply what they’ve learned about Internet research to a real world project.

Not only have the webmaster’s made available all the lesson plans, but they have also created a WebQuest for your students to complete. The student’s introduction is as follows:

Every year in our country, we celebrate many holidays. Several of those are in honor of famous and important people from our history, like Martin Luther King, George Washington, and Christopher Columbus. In this WebQuest you are going to find out more about an explorer your team chooses and about how and why we use holidays to honor them.

Who was this explorer? What is important to remember about him or her? How can you use a holiday celebration to tell his or her story well and communicate the important aspects of his or her life and accomplishments to the public?

Gerald Aungst, one of the webmasters of the site, was gracious enough to answer a few of my questions from his experience in developing and using  the site.

What grade levels are the lesson plans intended for?

The lessons are specifically targeted for our original audience of fourth and fifth grade students, but they could certainly be adapted down to second or third grade, and I have heard of middle school and high school teachers using the site as well.

What were some of the reactions when students found out that the information they found was wrong? Did some students not figure it out?

Reactions tend to vary. Some students start noticing “weird” things in the biographies, such as references to cell phones, and it dawns on them that there might be something odd going on. Other students plow ahead, copying information happily from the site. We always have a couple of groups that figure it out quickly and a couple that never figure it out until we point it out. It is particularly effective when we teach these in our own schools, because we can truthfully say, “What would you say if we told you all of this was made up, and we wrote it ourselves?”

Do you feel that some students were (even more) confused about what were the true facts?

I haven’t had that experience, though I suppose it is definitely something you want to be cautious of, and it is the reason we explicitly teach students how information gets into books and onto Internet web sites. And even in the publishing world, with multiple layers of fact-checking, often errors make it into the final product. How much more, then, do we need to be cautious of the instant-publishing online world? After teaching these lessons, I insist that students find at least two sources, including at least one print source, to verify every fact they find.

What tips would you give someone who wants to use the lesson plans? What are some things to look out for?Highlights? Pitfalls?

I would strongly recommend using the full series of lessons and doing the follow up activities. While some of these can work well in isolation, it is the sequence that builds the understanding. Users also need to be aware that in some cases the content in the lessons is fairly specific to our own situation, particularly with reference to the subscription databases that are available to us. It is important that teachers using these lessons review them carefully and adapt the details to match what is available in your district.

I would also caution teachers to consider these principles themselves when doing any research of their own on the Internet. I have actually witnessed teachers who were present during our lessons with their classes and participated in the activities with us go later to search for something online and accept what they read at face value without checking the source or verifying the facts later. It’s important that we model these things for our students on a daily basis–show them that you apply the same principles to your own work as you expect them to do in theirs.

How could a teacher or media specialist customize your idea of creating a source of “false” information to another subject (not explorers) they are researching?

I have actually gotten requests along those lines to add more information on other topics and in other languages. While I haven’t had the time or energy to even consider pursuing such a project, with new Web 2.0 tools like wikis, a teacher could create a page of “false” information about a topic they are going to teach and have their students compare with a reliable Internet source.

What do you think of the idea to have students involved in such a project not only in uncovering “false” facts but actually correcting them online?

This is the entire purpose behind activity #5 in our lessons, “How Could The Be So Wrong?” I think it is crucial for students to learn that they not only have the obligation to think critically about what they read on the Internet, they have the power to do something about it. When they write to the webmaster in that final lesson, I read and respond to every comment. Now, granted, I’m not about to “correct” the errors that are on the actual pages–that would defeat the purpose of the site–but I do encourage the students to continue to pursue accuracy in their own research.

I believe it would be a very powerful experience for students of any age to follow up this unit with a visit to Wikipedia where you can have them search for–and correct–errors about a topic you may be studying in class. While it’s hard to predict when they might find such errors, and you certainly need to be cautious about what topics you explore in this way, it’s a perfect example of how the users of the Internet need to take responsibility for using it wisely and contribute to it effectively.

The more I “explore” the All About Explorers website, the more I am impressed with a well thought through concept.

• As a webmaster, I can appreciate all the time and effort in designing, linking and updating the pages. The pages look well designed and “official” (not a home-made look). This supports the effort of separating the notion that content accuracy is coupled with professional looking packaging.
• As a technology integrationist, I appreciate the fact that students are being guided and taught at school in using the internet to research curriculum related units instead of just being told “Google it” as a homework assignment. Technology is not the “enemy” that we need to protect our students from.  We need to teach/use technology as a tool COMBINED with the necessary skills to allow our students to use these tools in a  critical, efficient, effective, safe and ethical way.
• As an educational media specialist, I am thrilled to see students being introduced to research skills that go beyond the book checked out in the library. Information found online or in any electronic form should NOT be discarded, prohibited, seen as less valuable or automatically inaccurate per se, but as an integral part of the research process.
• As an elementary school teacher, I am thankful for age appropriate content and links, that allow my students to learn skills that are absolutely necessary for their future in the information age.

Watch this interesting video about The 21st Cenury Librarian from the New York Times that also mentions All About Explorers.

Many times there is pressure to teach the “traditional” Office programs (word processing/spreadsheet/presenting software) in school. Parents and administrators have something tangible to see/say that their child/student is learning/getting computer skills. It is harder to recognize/put your fingers on skills like communication, collaboration and connections.

So far, we had started first graders out on using PP to create a presentation about an insect project. They were given a template with a predetermined number of slides and learned how to:

• edit title of slide
• enter bullets and text
• add/change background color
• insert transitions
• insert clipart or images
• save and retrieve their file

I attended a presentation Kinder can do PowerPoints too at TCEA this month, that got me excited about the possibilities of combining some 21st century skills and the introduction to a program like PowerPoint for our younger students.

The concept and design can of course be adapted to older students as well and is not limited to PowerPoint, but will work beautifully with the SmartBoard Notebook Software.

The idea is to not just give students a template that they learn how to edit by adding content, but to allow them to manipulate a file created by their teacher that shows their comprehension of a lesson.

They do not just sit through and watch a presentation file, but are in the driver seat to manipulate the PP file in the edit mode.

Steps for creating  your own unit/lesson activity for your students to manipulate:

1. Decide what skills you want your students to learn or reinforce.
   1. Choose a book, lesson unit, or holiday
2. Find or create media that contain the information you want your students to gather, process, or use in the activities.
   1. Use Discovery Education video segments (directly embed into PP) or download and convert (Zamzar) video files from YouTube before embedding.
   2. Look for Creative Commons licensed images on Flickr.
3. Creating your  slides
   1. Title Slide with Student Name
   2. Slide with media for students to explore: text,  images, audio or video or combination
   3. Activity Slide 1
   4. Activity Slide 2
   5. Activity Slide 3 (number of activities depend on age of students)
4. Record audio instructions for your students to follow on each slide. Reinforces written instructions.

Skills addressed:

1. Reading
2. Following directions
3. Learning to listen to, read and watch in order to extract information and comprehension.
4. Move from one slide to another
5. Drag and drop
6. Highlighting
7. Deleting & entering text
8. Extracting information in different media (audio/video/images)
9. Printing (Handout view of their manipulated slide)

Comprehension activity types:

• Drag and Drop
• Sorting
• Sequencing
• Multiple Choice
• True/False
• Pointing to

Information is ALL around us. Actually there is SO much information, that most people are overwhelmed with locating, saving, organizing and then later on retrieving it.

Searching and research skills are becoming more and more important. Even first graders at our school are being asked to research in order to produce some sort of report.

Most reports will need to be written out on the traditional piece of paper. Occasionally, the assignment becomes creative and asks students to make a poster, a model, or a diorama. Some teachers are now venturing into integrating new media and allowing students to create different kinds of “reports’ that demonstrate their knowledge (or recount) of the information they have found. Ex. PowerPoint slideshow, PhotoStory movie, podcast audio

Until recently classes were sent to the library to check out pre-selected books that would have some information about their topic.

Allowing students to search for their information on  the web makes teachers often uncomfortable.

• They can’t control the content, students encounter
• Overwhelming number of search results
• Inappropriate sites
• Inaccurate information
• Citation

All the above mentioned reasons are valid points, but can’t be used as a reason to “stick to the book” when allowing younger students to research.

We do have to prepare them for research in media that is current for our times and one they most likely will use as as their primary source for gathering information as they grow.

Are books still your PRIMARY source when YOU gather information?

In our elementary school we are using the following search tools :

• Encyclopedia Britannica (Membership required)
  
• NetTrekker (Membership required)
  
• Customized Google Search Engine
  

The customized Google Search engine is designed specifically for our students. The search is narrowed down to give results only from specific domains, handpicked by our teachers.

As part of a plan to continue to introduce and reinforce information literacy among our students, here are several resources for teachers and students to improve their searching skills on the web.

• Patrick Woessner from Technology in the Middle outlines several important components of Web Search Strategies on Digital Literacy: Effective Search Strategies.  I especially liked the definition of search words he mentions from the Illinois Science and Math Academy (ISMA)

• Keywords that are effective “as is”
• Intermediate words that represent important ideas but probably are not effective “as is”
• Words that have little effect on the outcome
• Stop words that are ignored by a search engine

It is important to point out and practice the distinction of these words with your students. Check out the following Keyword Challenge site. It is a great sample of how to show examples and practice with our students.

• Keyword Challenge: Become a Power Searcher

• CommonCraft – Web Search Strategies in Plain English

• Surf the Internet- Minimize your wipeouts for Elementary School Students

• Patrick Woessner’ Effective Search Strategies from Technology in the Middle is geared towards 7th graders, but definitely adaptable to elementary school students.

• Google has made avariety of Search Tip pdf files available for download and distribution such as the one above on their Librarian Central Site.

What are some search strategies that you are using to prepare elementary students in becoming efficient and productive web searchers?

All of our teachers at my elementary school maintain their own classroom blog.  As I wrote about in Blogs vs. Static Website and Changes in Classroom Blogs, we still have a long way to go as we need to move forward from merely a one sided communication tool to an online learning space that encourages, fosters and supports students’ creativity and learning.

Being able to read AND express yourself in a digital world is an important part of being literate in the 21st century.

Bill Ferriter on Digitally Speaking says:

Blogging and podcasting has allowed me to create a forum where my students discuss current events connected to our social studies curriculum while developing language arts skills like critical thinking and persuasive dialogue. It has also given my students the opportunity to be creators—rather than simply consumers—of online content. Finally, blogging and podcasting have given my students an audience for their ideas, which has increased levels of interest and motivation.

Blogging is one way of linking writing, reading, and connecting information and learning together. It seems the perfect venue to introduce elementary school students to the online world world of networked learning. They need to get acquainted to reading and writing hyperlinked text .

Somewhere between 4th and 6th grade (10-12 year olds), students discover social network places such as MySpace and Facebook. Their older siblings, cousins, neighbors or friends “are on it” and they long to be be part of that network to chat, upload and comment on each others’ photos and generally know what is going on in their school and with their group of friends.

Now is the time for us educators to expose them to safe practices AND to academic uses of online spaces.

One of our 5th grade teachers, Mrs. K., has maintained her classroom blog for over a year now. (Sorry, but is password protected for now, as all our school’s classroom blogs are).

It has been a place where she posts:

• communication to parents
• homework assignments
• reminders
• rubrics

At the beginning of this current year, she took a step forward by creating usernames and a passwords for each one of her students as  “subscribers”.  This allowed students to leave comments on  posts that she had created.

Students were enthusiastic and each blog post generates quite a few responses. Here are some of my observations:

• There are no formal assignments to comment or assessment of the content.
• Several students are using the blog as a forum to stay in touch after school and now during winter break.
• There are many comments, completely unrelated and irrelevant to the blog post content
• Comments are sprinkled with typical tweenie exclamation point writing and plenty of emoticons.
  
• Each student was given a username that represents their number on the class list. They are to use and address each other with that number in order to not reveal their identity to an outsider. Yes, the blog is behind a password protection, but it is important to get the younger children aware and  used to safety. More and  more students are using their first names anyway when signing their comment. They are referring to each other with their first name and even clarifying which username belongs to which student!!
• It is clear that protecting their online identity is an issue that has to be visited over and over again.

The children have been begging to get their own blogs. Mrs. K is ready to jump on board and start integrating blogging into her teaching.

BUT…

….although there is merit in allowing students to get comfortable in their classroom space by learning how to read posts and other comments,  sign in, type and respond in the blog environment….

….there comes a time, when to get serious…

• How can we prepare the classroom space to become a space for learning, reflecting, and for a portfolio of their learning process?
• What are the expectations that the teacher needs to make clear of what is acceptable and unacceptable in terms of content in that learning space?

I am taking the time to create a blogging guide/unit plan for this 5th grade teacher and other elementary school teachers who want to start their own blogging adventure with their younger students.

The purpose of this guide is to address the following topics:

• Introduce students (3rd grade and up) to the world of academic blogging.
  • Outline of unit lesson plan
  • Introduction
  • Online Safety
  • Effective Commenting
  • Relevant Writing
• Setting up a blog
• Logistics of formatting blog posts
• Difference between hypertext and “traditional” writing and reading
• How to create a learning community on your classroom blog
• Connecting to a world wide audience
• Assessment and evaluation of student blogging

So follow along, as I am exploring and reflecting on each one of these of topics as we are planning for lessons and reflecting upon outcomes.

Any contribution of  links to resources, examples or anecdotes of your adventures in blogging with younger students are greatly appreciated.

Check out the following links for more resources about blogging with students (Thanks to Larry’s post on Best Sources for Advice on Student Blogging for pointing me into the direction, that kept leading to more and more resources)  :

• Sue Waters’ Tips on Blogging with Students
• Bil Ferriter’s Two Critical Tips For Classroom Blog Projects
• Kim Cofino’s Blogging is Elementary
• Al Upton’s Class blogs – management, moderation and protection

Update: Thank you to Gail Desler’s Blogging with 4th Graders post, I found the following video from Alice Mercer:

In the information age, it is becoming increasingly important that our students have the literacy skills to:

• access
• analyze
• evaluate
• store
• retrieve
• record
• communicate
• remix
• produce
• distribute

information. As an elementary school teacher, I believe that we need to START teaching these skills early.

We need to integrate these to introduce and develop  media literacy skills from the beginning. It is important that we develop a information literacy plan, that considers and supports:

• ISTE’s National Technology Standards
• The school’s Technology Standards set for each grade level
• Grade level curriculum
• Media specialist curriculum

The plan needs to:

• show progression from one grade level to another
• link to and integrate grade level project
• foster communication and collaboration among classroom teachers, technology facilitator/literacy specialist and media specialist
• include a variety of media – books, newspaper/magazine, internet, audio, video, images

Technology Standards

• ISTE National Education Technology Standards- NETS for Students 2007
  • Research and Information Fluency
  • Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information. Students:
    • a. plan strategies to guide inquiry.
    • b. locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and ethically use information from a variety of sources and media.
    • c. evaluate and select information sources and digital tools based on the appropriateness to specific tasks.
    • d. process data and report results.
• Our School’s Technology Skills for Evaluation and Selection of Information
  • Identify keywords, names, and phrases for a search
  • Gather reference material online
  • Evaluate research results from a search engine
  • Search using a Web browser
  • Use proper citation methods for sources

According to Berkowitz & Eisenberg there are six main skills or also called “The Big 6 Research Skills” to master in order to become a  successful researcher.

1. Task Definition
1.1 Define the information problem
1.2 Identify information needed

2. Information Seeking Strategies
2.1 Determine all possible sources
2.2 Select the best sources

3. Location and Access
3.1 Locate sources (intellectually and physically)
3.2 Find information within sources

4. Use of Information
4.1 Engage (e.g., read, hear, view, touch)
4.2 Extract relevant information

5. Synthesis
5.1 Organize from multiple sources
5.2 Present the information

6. Evaluation
6.1 Judge the product (effectiveness)
6.2 Judge the process (efficiency)

Further Resources:

• Lesson Plans and Student Activity Sheets
• Helping children to become better researchers from ICT Teaching and Learning blog.
• How to do research? by Kentucky Virtual Library- View recommendation.

These are some of my thoughts as I start to draft a plan to introduce, demonstrate, foster, support, reinforce and integrate research skills in elementary school. What are some of your thoughts, ideas and/or experiences on this topic?