New To Me Technology

 

This week, I discovered https://inquirygroup.org/ otherwise known as DIG.  Starting with professional development for educators, this website really got me interested in how I could use this in my future, in my career.  What do we want these kids to know?  To learn?  We want them to be responsible about what they look at online and what they see online and how to interpret what they are being exposed to.  Groups out there have flashy signs and slogans and catchy vibes to draw us all in.  BUT... what are they really selling us?  Mothers of Liberty has an opinion.  There is an actual Hate Map out there!  There are several websites listing over 1,000 individual hate groups.  How can this be?  It just is.  We need to educate our students that they need to be thoughtful consumers of information.  They need to make informed thoughtful decisions about what they see on the internet.  We ourselves need to be well versed in this before we can expect the students to do the same.  This starts with professional development for the educator.  Once we know, we can help the students not only to understand the importance but understand WHY it is important.

For educators there is in-person training and online training based on an individualized solution for your particular education situation.  It helps the educator read like a historian approach gives the educator the ability to think critically and back up claims with evidence from original sources and trains you how to bestow this knowledge onto students so when there are those groups out there that want to erase history for one reason or another, you are empowering your students to go to the source and find the evidence to give them an educated view of history, not one that has been skewed by opinion and not fact.

There are curriculums and assessments available on this site to teach the students how to think and research rather than what to think and it helps the educator teach the students how to read like a historian and find the facts rather than go along with popular opinions.  The assessments are built to gage student's ability to interpret historical evidence.  There are hundreds of free downloadable lessons and there is training for the educator on how to use these lessons and help your students and other educators in your district.

Sign up is free and easy and there are printable handouts and prompts to help educators explain the historical critical thinking process and assess the student's knowledge after thorough use of the lesson.  As I am not an educator yet, going through this website gave me valuable tools to work with and even ideas to suggest to my administration on how we can use this program in our school with our educators and students and help students recognize that documents are products of particular points in time.  Students will be able to use this knowledge and way of examining and researching into the future with a great base started in elementary schools.  I will definitely being going back to this website and already signed up for their newsletter to keep myself in the know here because with the political battleground out there and hate groups and protests, history is being made today and tomorrow and we are in the middle of it all.  We have the ability to shape young minds and influence their way of thinking and researching.  All groups out there can be loud and flashy and get attention, but what our students do with the information given to them is where we come in and where we can show them how to think critically, get the facts from the information that is out there and not just follow along with what is being presented in a sparkly and eye-catching way.  We can teach the kids to stop and think before just agreeing with what is presented to them.  If we start this process with the students early, by the time they are leaving high school, they will be automatically looking for the facts and being thoughtful consumers of information that is out there.

One of my kids living their best life working this

summer in the Adirondacks.  This is one reason

why I am finding my passion.

                                                  This is my oldest with his dog who

                                                                                                         follows him everywhere.  This is my

                                                                                                        other reason why I am here.  He is my

                                                                                                        future YouTuber.

Week 4 Technology - Something I can use!!

 

I thought I would start my third blog with an app for students and educators that might be on the user friendly side.  Yet another rabbit hole with this one!  Easy to use?  Yes!  Fun while creating?  Yes!!

Flipgrid is my new favorite out there!  Yes I enjoyed learning on Wonderopolis.org, but now I have a platform where I could interact with the students and see how they are enjoying different websites or how their research is going on assignments through Flipgrid.  I can post a question and get responses.  I can ask for feedback and get answers  I can interact with students even when they are not physically in the library.  I could ask what they want more of in the library, interactive hands on or specific books to read for entertainment or even help with a classroom assignment.  Plus the ability to record videos gives that extra layer of almost being face-to-face with the student to read body language or other minor things that you would not have the opportunity to see without a video of the student.

Some students may like this while others may not.  The student can record a long or short video and the other students have the opportunity to view it or not.  It engages their creativity while getting them to interact even when not physically in the classroom or library.  There are different effects and editing tools they can use in the app to make their video as creative as they are.

Flipgrid is available in 180 different countries and it allows the teacher to create assignments, provide feedback and track the progress of each student invited to create in this class.  It seems very user friendly, especially if I found myself liking it and playing around with it, because even though this is week 4 in this technology adventure, I still consider myself very new at all this advanced technology that has come my way in the last few years, especially since virtual learning became a thing in 2020 more so than ever before!

So although I like to get back to nature and I actually climbed a mountain last week, I am still challenging myself technologically and trying new things.  I see myself in the future creating a virtual scavenger hunt in my library (when I get there) and having students create videos on Flipgrid sending me the answers to the questions and finding items in the library and being very creative with their videos to me and the class.  This is definitely on my future use list!!

Baker Mountain, Adirondacks New York

Umi, just because she is cute!

This Week's Adventure in Technology!

 

Wonderopolis.org

This week my exploration into technology for the library for my LIS 568 class took me to Wonderopolis.org.  What an experience!  I am so glad I started out EASY!!  This was definitely my speed.  This website had me hooked for HOURS!!  I'm not kidding, I lost sleep over this.  I'd click on one item that had me curious and an hour later, I was deep into a subject I didn't know I was curious about!  This website has been around since 2010.

User friendly?  Just point, click and be transported to a place where you can find answers!!  Shark week is coming up in July and there were 4 different questions on sharks!  Do they all live in saltwater?  Why do they have nostrils?  Which one is the slowest?  If I didn't have these questions before, I Do Now!!  So there went another 3 hours of my life.  The answer to the question is yes.  If my old self can navigate to these shark questions and yes I know the answers now!  But if I can navigate this site, so can you!  You can even submit a question.  It is a fascinating site!

Now I'm questioning if I cheated.  Did I cheat in my class this week?  No I don't think I did.  I clicked on a few different links that were offered in the readings and I chose Wonderopolis.org because I found it fascinating, interesting and I was not only able to use the site easily, but I could see myself putting the shark questions up to the class in a library and drawing them in!  You need a hook to catch their attention, especially elementary kids, so put a shark in front of them and ask them WHY do sharks have Nostrils!!???

So, big bonus points to wonderopolis.org for being user friendly and for pulling me in and I learned stuff and lost several hours of my life!  Worth it!!  So yes it was great for me to use, and gave me ideas on how to show this technology to elementary kids in school libraries.  Also good for use in high schools and integration into the classroom where teachers assign papers and students choose topics and this could be a fun resource for them.  They may not do reports on sharks and their noses, but it definitely put a smile on my face!  😊 

You have to check it out, copy and paste the link below!

wonderopolis.org