Participate 2.1.1 Collecting Reputable Digital Resources Quest

What were the three most useful tools or resources resulting from the web walkabout?

 1.         Eutopia: The George Lucas Educational Foundation: http://www.edutopia.org/stw-online-learning-research-roundup

            Edutopia is a web site published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation.  This site has articles by educators and other education professionals, along with resources, videos. The mission of The George Lucas Educational Foundation is to improve the K-12 learning process by "documenting, disseminating, and advocating for innovative, replicable, and evidence-based strategies that prepare students to thrive in their future education, careers, and adult lives". There are several core strategies included in Edutopia and one of these is technology integration. In effectively integrating technology, this site looks at four key components:  active engagement, participation in groups, frequent interaction and feedback, and connection to real-world experts.

            Many of the articles published on this site are based on research on online education.  One of these states that “The primary reason school districts offer online courses are to expand what they can offer their students and provide them with classes that would otherwise be unavailable. It is also an effective strategy for personalizing the learning process to meet individual student needs” (Dawley, 2010).  This site also has many research-based articles written by Kathy Schrock, the author of the book, Writing and Research on the Computer. 

            This site is a credible source because the authors and developers are professionals and experts in their field, the purpose is not for profit, but for education, the site is current and is updated often, with constant new research and articles being added often.  The information comes from well-known educational professionals, scientists, researchers, and others who believe in the science of education.  The information is priceless because there are helpful strategies, lessons, informational articles, and countless other resources for those interested in the best that education has to offer.

            This site is definitely scholarly rather than popular because most of the articles and sources are written by educators or educational researchers for other educators, use the technical language of education, and include source citations.

2.         Media Smarts:

            This site is a fantastic site that allows students to learn how to protect their privacy on the internet, .  Not only do student learn through fun and engaging activities how to validate online information; they learn to differentiate between opinion and facts involving internet sources and online content.  This resource also has many helpful teacher’s guides and resources that give some background information for teaching and modeling authentication of online resources and identification of cyberbullies. There are lessons, movies, games, topics, and more for use by any age classrooms.  This is a great site and is funded by a variety of public and private partners.  Students can learn through games, videos, lessons, and activities designed for engagement and focus.  This was my favorite site and I have bookmarked it on Diigo.

3.  Web of Trust

WOT works in a very simple way - it shows website reputations as traffic lights next to search results when using Google, Yahoo!, Bing or any other search engine. They are also visible next to links in social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter and email like Gmail and Yahoo! Mail as well as other popular sites like Wikipedia. By clicking the traffic light icons you can find out more information about a website's reputation and other users' opinions. A green traffic light means users have rated the site as trusted and reliable, red warns about potential threats and yellow indicates that you need to be cautious when using a site.

Karen's Sites for Evaluation

Students can be taught to check for valid content, appropriate vocabulary, stereotypes or age-related attitudes, inclusion of diverse populations.  Teachers need to evaluate all sites when possible, however modeling and teaching students how to recognize valid sources is important.  Students are extremely capable judges of effectiveness of digital resource and should be taught responsible practices to determine if they can learn from the sources.  Share some of the sites bookmarked in this blog with students so they can go through some of the steps for evaluating resources.  Creating an evaluation from that can be used in the classroom in some template form might help get the learners started on using criteria for safely evaluating sites and resources. 

 

Participate 1.1.3 Ideal Digital Learning Community Quest

DIGITAL LEARNING COMMUNITY

In order to create an ideal digital learning community, clear guidelines should be established, with ground rules and modeling for postings, instructional goals, responding to posts and reflecting on these interactions.  Educators need to establish reliable social bookmarking and organizational sites that will help cut down on the overwhelming number or resources that often take students down an unlimited number of sidetracked roads...Several great bookmarking sites exist that will allow students to tag and bookmark favorites for sharing with others.  I love Diigo, which allows authors to annotate information on web pages where students can be directed easily to pertinent information.  LiveBinders and Symbaloo do pretty much the same thing by organizing information and allowing ti to be shared.  Teachers should start by connecting with others in education by following them on Twitter, check out other district sites, wikis and blogs.  Normally, things that motivate and excite us will do the same for our students and their parents.  Use lots of  problem-based learning activities that allow students to work through multiple goals and point them to fun and engaging ways to present and organize the information.  Sites like Voki, Animoto, group wikis, and google docs are ways to get the group started on creating and working in their own DLC.  And as always, model some great digital learning community examples and activities from the web to get everyone engaged and motivated.

Participate 1.1.2 Joining a Digital Learning Community Quest

Participate 1.1.2 Joining a DLC

 

I joined Diigo DLC at https://www.diigo.com and cannot say enough good things about it.  I have already participated in 2 different communities involving technology educational sites and web 2.0.  Diigo is open for anyone to join and there are hundreds of groups and communities that you can join for the purpose of sharing and collaborating about different resources. In addition to sharing the URL for a site, members describe the site and how it can best be used by the educator.  

Digital citizens can create and organize engaging and connecting class wikis,blogs,  podcast , discussion areas, and other forms of collaborative digital learning communities.  Allowing students to create their own pages or contribute to group pages will show them how technology can impact learning and make it real.  This will also help them in the future as they transition from being a collaborative student member of a learning community to being a collaborative team member in a company or workplace.

 

Participate 1.1.1 Character Traits Quest

KAREN'S TAKE ON DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP!

DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP QUEST

OUTSTANDING EXAMPLES LIST

OUTSTANDING EXAMPLES LIST

 

 

 

 

 

 

The three most impressive character traits of an exemplary citizen within a digital learning community are academic integrity, creating collaborative learning environments, and promoting equitable access for digital learning.

Academic Integrity:

First of all, we know that digital tools can create new challenges for educators in making sure that appropriate computer behaviors are taught, modeled, and enforced and made into the culture of the entire classroom. Teachers can use proactive steps to prevent plagiarism by the way they design activities and assessments that encourage higher order and critical thinking instead of text-based research and responses.Maintaining a safe internet environment for the class involves websites that are selected for the students, and proper consent from guardians.  Educate and model safe software and ways to stay safe on the internet.

Create Collaborative Learning Environment

Learning environments should encourage students to feel safe in expressing opinions, challenging other views, and knowing that they will not be reprimanded.  Teaching and modeling trust and open communication and allowing students to bring their own unique cultural attributes and experiences to the groups are necessary for successful collaboration that can be learner-centered and structured to support diverse students.  

Equitable Access

ISTE NETS Standard 4 also indicates that you will "address the diverse needs of all learners by ...providing equitable access to appropriate digital tools and resources."  Many people feel that this simply meant access to internet or hardware for online learning.  True components of equitable access are influenced by the teacher so cultural and individual needs of the students are met. Equitable access might mean access to content and the opportunity to respond to that content, and access to teachers who know how to use certain digital tools or resources.   

 *Some additional resources that address collaborative learning environments:

M.B. Tinzmann, B.F. Jones, T.F. Fennimore, J. Bakker, C. Fine, and J. Pierce. NCREL, Oak Brook, 1990
This article discusses basic characteristics found in successful collaborative classrooms: flexible relationships between teachers and students, new approaches to instruction, and composition of the collaborative classroom. New and multiple perspectives on issues and representations are discussed. The authors talk about the opportunities for students to participate in self-regulated learning and relate this to motivation for learning. The teacher’s approach to instruction changes as the instructor becomes a mediator and creates a classroom that allows students to hold maximum responsibility for learning. Classroom control, time management and individual student differences are discussed as challenges and conflicts.

 
Palloff, R., & Pratt, K. (2005). Collaborating online. San Francisco, CA

This book provides educators with direction and strategies for fostering student engagement through collaboration. The importance of learning outcomes, clear directions for completion, assessment, reflection opportunities, and learning cycles are discussed in detail. Using technology for collaboration, virtual teaming, and non-traditional methods for learning are an integral part of this book and the advise and examples are extremely helpful. In addition to the writing, the book shares quite a few resources for case studies, articles, and other resources as part of its composition. “ This book helps education professionals improve the practice of online teaching and learning by providing concise, practical resources focused on particular areas or issues they might confront in this new learning environment” (Palloff & Pratt, 2005).