Info literacy
In his article, Teaching Tech Literacy to the MySpace Generation, Christopher Huen comments:
“In an era in which kids download music, publish their own blogs, and gossip via instant messages—all while juggling a treasure chest of electronic gadgets—the idea that schools should be teaching them to be technology literate seems almost silly.
David DeBarr, instructional technology coordinator for the Scottsdale Unified School District in Scottsdale, Arizona, hears that from parents all the time. “I cringe when I hear that the kids already know it all. The kids don’t know it all,” he says. “The kids know how to text message on their phones, but ask them to type a research paper and format it, they don’t know how to do that. Not many of those kids will be going into business and turning in a business proposal on a phone.”
DeBarr believes that teaching students how to use the Internet or specific software applications is simply a means to an end. “Technology literacy has to be technology as a tool,” he says. “Our approach is not to teach technology. Our approach is to teach it as a goal. It becomes infused in every classroom and becomes part of life. It happens naturally.”
I think this is part of the challenge for our committee–to identify future trends and then find ways the school and district can support the natural infusion of those trends into the classroom. I think we also have to remember that even if students can use gadgets easily, that we need to continue to teach them how to ask the important questions, how to gather information, and how to evaluate the tools they are using.
December 5, 2006 @ 10:25 am
DeBarr: “…The kids know how to text message on their phones, but ask them to type a research paper and format it, they don’t know how to do that.”
The passage from this Christopher Huen article that you posted really struck a chord with me. A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to an adult friend who has three successful children in college and a therefore a broader perspective on education’s efficacy than my own view. I told her about Vision Committee and asked what suggestions she would make that might actually impart a change in curriculum/technology usage at Westlake. What she told me echoed David DeBarr’s input. She said that there’s a gap between the technology skills that many high school seniors take with them, and the college freshman-level techniques that they should have already mastered. Using college- and professional-level programs/applications, as we discussed a little at the last meeting, would be indeliby useful, she said, in closing this gap we’ve identified.
We broadly characterize our youth as increasingly tech-savvy and computer-literate, a trend that we generally do follow, but I can say from personal experience that kids aren’t necessarily using technology to better their education. Verily, technology should be a method of broadening all kinds of horizons and experiencing new types of media, but many of my peers only take it to the extent that they aren’t enjoying a growth of “book” knowledge/research skills/developing educational projects – all of which their school wishes they’d push themselves to develop.
The present situation isn’t all as bad as DeBarr makes it out to be; I’ve blogged for my English class, used the portable Lab station – complete with laptop computers and a printer! – for Chemistry, and learned how to use a new program, PhotoStory, for Student Council. It’s heartening to see Westlake slowly embracing technology and providing our own solutions for the impediments to technology that we face. Hopefully we can talk more about identifying possible solutions/ideas for what this committee can provide at our next meeting.
December 5, 2006 @ 9:18 pm
This came up in our Vision committee meeting tonight as well…
I often find that it’s true that its assumed students have real literacy because they are gadget literate. Some do, but a lot of students aren’t necessarily information literate just because they can use the gadgets.
What we’re really talking about here is information literacy and critical thinking skills, which have always been a need for students. But it does seem to me with so much information available from everywhere, that it is very important that students graduate being discerning users of information and technology tools.
I predict the situation will only get more muddled–when anyone can make a website, wiki, google video, etc, how do we know who are the experts? Can an amateur researcher be an expert? (like on Wikipedia–maybe so….?) How can you tell what is real from what is fake? When you can merge two videos, or make Katie Couric look thinner by editing her photo, how do we know what represents what’s real? We do need to be teaching students strategies for determining the difference, since we have no idea what technologies they will be encountering in the future.
I think that skill of applied use of technology is what we are talking about-not just the ability to use it, but the ability to use it wisely and use it in different types of situations to solve problems.
Thanks for the interesting comments! Carolyn