Unit 11 - Digital Literacy

 What resources did you find the most helpful?

I found a great deal of the information helpful. The Literacy Quiz and the Information Literacy Quiz Answer Key were not available. The webquest, Velcro crop article, and dihydrogen monoxide article were great examples of websites that needed to be validated. A student reading them with limited knowledge might be tricked into thinking they are credible sites. Reading a web address and looking at the domain name extensions are also very important to check credibility and purpose. This is important for everyone. Even if the website article, web address, and extensions look credible, it is good to find out who the publisher is. November’s site includes a great tool to look up the publisher to websites. Lastly, November’s site had three great questions for users when looking at the external links that are posted on website. These questions would also be useful when considering the legitimacy of a website.

 

As a school leader, how will you help all staff to become digital literate?

 

I think using November’s website is a great way to start. I would like to have all of the staff take the web literacy quiz. I would then like to inter-mix some of the less than credible websites with those that were. I would also like to share the Teaching Zack to Think story. We could go through some of the techniques and tips that November talked about. I would then like to get someone to come in and do some professional development on correctly researching and using the internet.

 

What is your reaction to the Teaching Zach to Think article?

 

My first reaction was…WOW! As odd as it sounds, it is easy and tough to get in the mindset of a 14-year old boy doing a research paper. I have the years of reasoning, research, and education under my belt to know that article and the websites associated with it are the furthest thing from credible. However, Zack does understand that. Many of these students are learning about their research topics the first time they type it in Google. In any case, Zack’s example is a great conversation starter to not only history, but credible websites. One of the first things that we need to tell students is that we need to check multiple sites. If 1,000 sites say the Holocaust happened and 15 deny it, we have to err on the side of numbers. We also need to teacher our students to look at the author and publisher. We need to help our students use November’s three questions. One, what is the purpose of the website? Two, was the author or the research validated? Three, is the website credible? On a broader level, we need to teach our students to interpret what they found and question it if something seems off.