Where to begin?! This was another timely topic and it worked well with the session I did on Search Tools, but, warning, it was vast. I spent hours delving into the amazing wealth of information provided. I selected this topic because, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I am often found on my soap box, expounding on the responsibilities of being a member of a democratic society. We talk about this as we do a lesson on evaluating the internet...but to me, news literacy is the next step in this lesson, and as members of a democratic society it is our responsibility to make sure that where we get our information from reliable sources...I know, blah, blah, blah! So...since the 2016 election I have been exploring the idea of an online news literacy lesson for students to work through. I have visions of this being a school-wide expectation and that all students will be held accountable for working through the steps of the lesson...on their own. I do not want to take class time to do this, but think they should receive a grade for either English or social studies. (Now that I have articulated this in writing, it seems I will have to follow through!). Next year our building will be going 1:1 with laptops so this might be the year to do it. Stay tuned...
But in the more immediate future, I am conducting a professional development session on an upcoming Superintendent's Conference Day related to databases and other library tools. I am sure some of the information I learned in this lesson will make its way into that session.
There was a wealth of valuable resources in this "thing." Starting with Joyce Valencia's article. This was the one label..."if you read nothing else...read this." And, indeed it was chocked full of resources. I especially liked the Stanford History Education Group's document titles, "Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online Reasoning." Not only was this important for the overview and big picture regarding the state of online reasoning, but it also contained excellent activities and lessons geared towards various grade levels related to online reasoning. What I think I liked best is that they also provided you with a rubric and sample responses at various levels- mastery, emerging and beginning. This was extremely helpful. I am planning to use parts of this for sure as I plan for my "online class."
As I worked my way through the Readings/Resources, Lessons and Tools, I found myself stopping to email various co-workers with sites/links I thought they might find helpful as well. I loved the link to the article titled, "Facticious" which offered the top 10 sites to help students check facts. This was from ISTE...great stuff. And I could not wait to send my ELA and ESL departments the links to Rewordify and Readable.io. I thought Rewordify would be extremely helpful to our many struggling readers, especially those learning English as a second language. There were a couple of articles that stressed the importance of digging and reading multiple sources.
Truthfully, the thing I think I will struggle with the most as I move forward, is assimilating all this great information. I would love to meet/talk with anyone else who might be interested in creating the type of assessment discussed above. Suggestions/Comments welcome.
You're so right, it's an overwhelming topic, sooooo much information available. Your online course sounds like a terrific idea. Hope you'll share it when you get it sorted out. Do you want to ask the folks in Cool Tools about collaborating? email me with a paragraph describing what you're looking for and I'll post it as an announcement. (pollyalida gmail com)
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