More on digital tools on this YouTube video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-wm3Hazx

Our Notes on Alan November's Presentation: September 2, 2009

Main themes: web literacy and potential revolution is the change in the culture of teaching and learning where children take a lot more responsibility in teaching and learning in class.

• Technology helps reconnect with and learn about kids. Learn their interests.
• Children have a developmental need to connect with other people
  
• What web literacy [web syntax and grammar skills] do our students need to know to be successful learners and producers in a global community/economy?
• Who should teach web literacy, how and when
• • Think of your class as one collaborative team!
  • Your students can help you apply and use technology. Ask them what they know. Ask them to help!
• Looking at change in the mission of K-12; how do you setup for change within an existing structure/organization
• Including different points of view - considering different points of view (e.g Pope's speech within Turkey)
• "Bad results" - misleading results - can be produced from google/search engines as a result of bad use of key words. Eg. use country code .ty to get turkish references vs. Fox news references.
• 
  
• search engine results reveal what has been searched e.g. Places in Lexington on Google Maps includes "Buckman Tavern" a British! landmark for that area. American Revolution - different points of view.
• With google docs in real time you can understand what your students are thinking. (Activstudio tools/skills can help teachers do this, too!)
• Goal: Prepare children to be globally competitive

• "The more technology there is in society, the longer it takes to move your kids out of your house".... the escape!:


• Teach children critical thinking in the web
• Do students know how the google algorithm works?
• Do they use skills to decipher web authors when they research for you
• Use students' technology knowledge and skills to assist you with what you don't know.
• Altavista is a good search engine for finding links coming to technology.
• link: martinlutherking.org host: .edu link:www.stormfront.org
• assessing the process along with assessing the product
• primary sources in the process of building a review of Number the Stars
• if you assess the product and not the the process - you may not be seeing/assessing how the students work or learn -- so can you change the mission to assess/work with students on the process [We can't give the same kind of homework we've always been giving.]
• Students are eager to be teachers, they learn as they teach and produce. e.g. Hours on a tutorial to help her class. Student told Aland - different/engaging for her to work to help others vs. to help just herself for "regular" homework2.
• • The real revolution is the change in the culture of teaching and learning where children take a lot more responsibility in teaching and learning in class.
  • Who should own the learning? The culture that the American education system is designed on is that teachers own the learning. Should this be changed

References

Books:
Web Literacy for Educators and
Empowering Students with Technology by Alan November

• Use country codes to search internet for points of view.
• Using Google Maps maps.google.com.
  
• Marshall McLuhan - "The medium is the message."
• Use Google Docs for classroom collaboration, as a team, in notetaking.
• Use kids to teach YOU how to use web tools to enhance learning!
• AltaVista search engine, limit search to host:edu (sites hosted at universities) to help students evaluate and sites on the web.
• YouTube is fastest growing site on the internet and kids need to socialize around the world. Number the Stars: book trailer from Copenhagen
• Use Podcasts of teachers' presenting lessons as homework.
• Have students make podcasts of a week's learning and kids have a record of what was learned.
• http://www.bobsprankle.com/blog/
• Mathtrain.tv about prime factorization - a student produced tutorial
• Jingproject.com for creating screencasts
• host:nasa.gov search in altavista - don't need www or http - to produce a quick video tutorial.
• Free tools on internet for producing all kinds of learning.
• Use Skype to teach similar units in classrooms around the world. Have debates.

Implications for Instructional/Assignment Design

• If students take notes using Google docs, teacher has the ability to see student notes - students can reflect on notes with teachers, classmates.
• Google docs essential tool for students/class collaboration
• With Google docs, students have access to material from any computer with Internet access
• link:www.martinlutherking.org (really white supremacist website)- go deep for web exploration, validation of sources on Internet
• One of the most powerful teaching techniques on the web is to show students the work of other children around the world - YouTube is a good resource for doing this (number the stars - book trailer created by an elementary school student)
• At High Tech High in San Diego they give students the 10 most difficult concepts in the curriculum to ask them for ideas on how to teach them
• assessment - we usually assess the final product and not the process for getting to the final product
• what used to homework probably should be class work & vice versa
• if a student makes a mistake on WH , mistake become embedded int he brain and any delays in formative feedback will further embed the mistake
• good HW - podcast of teachers presenting
• Wells, ME - Room 208 weekly podcast - "How to make a podcast" http://www.bobsprankle.com/blog/
• http://www.mathtrain.tv/

• relevance of homework?
• Classroom tasks for students: daily scribes, recording things going on for weekly review reflecting on learning, kids create tutorials, software:jingproject.com
• students who take notes from a pod cast do better than with live notes
  
• jing.com assists with development of lesson plans/ tutorials
• real revolution is not technology = it is a change in the culture of teaching & learning where children take a lot more responsibility for contributing to class ( collaborative notes, tutorials, etc.
• Who should own the learning??? currently - teachers (teachers work harder than kids in the classroom) - we underestimated what kids can do
• revolution - redefining literacy to be more than decoding paper
  
• use Skype to connect with students around the country and the world.