Sonya's Teaching Blog

Students these days live in a digital world. They learn, play and communicate using computers and technology in ever changing and evolving ways. Unfortunately, many of us tasked with teaching children to safely and ethically navigate this digital world, including parents and teachers, were not raised with the use of these same technologies. So how are we to teach digital literacy if we ourselves are still, in many cases, learning these skills ourselves? Thankfully, there are many tools and lesson plans available for teachers and parents out there. Below, I have rounded up a few useful links and lessons for those wanting to help educate kids on how to navigate the digital world. If you're just looking for ready-made lessons, the most thorough and recommended ready-to-use resource I found was a program called My World . This tutorial set gives students tasks using tools they are likely familiar with - such as a search engine and a social media site - to help them navigate differ...

One of the great struggles in maintaining a reference collection is the struggle to keep reference materials current. Riedling (2013) recommends that many reference materials be replaced after only 5 years. As the type of person who never likes to throw things out, I struggled with this idea. But it boils down to a quote from Riedling on page 21: "A good reference source is one that serves to answer questions, and a bad reference source is one that fails to answer questions." If a source is out of date, it likely won't answer all questions or, even worse, may answer them incorrectly. Reference librarians connect people with questions to sources with answers. Image care of Careers 360 . The quote by Riedling above gets to the heart of the role of the reference librarian. Be it maintaining collections, educating students, or performing reference interviews with students, we need to do our best to make sure questions are answered. But how do we do this in the age of ...

Reading Dalton and Grisham's Love That Book: Multimodal Response to Literature , the authors describe using "glogs" as a response tool for students showing their learning from a piece of literature. Glogs are multimedia posters created digitally - they can contain images, graphics and text like a regular poster, but also video, audio, links or even 3D, virtual reality, or other manipulable features. A screencap of a glog that appeals to the geologist in me. Access the interactive version from Glogster here . They are meant to be interactive and give multiple ways to respond to an inspiration such as a piece of literature. More and more, teachers are incorporating student choice into projects they use to show their learning. I have particularly been inspired by author and educator (and one of my professors during my B.Ed), Jennifer Katz (2012) and her work in this area, as well as educator and advocate for inclusive education, Shelley Moore. Jennifer Kat's...

While researching the role that learning commons play in digital literacy, I decided to break the topic into several sub-topics. Those were as follows: What is digital literacy and why is it important? How can we teach digital literacy and what role can libraries and/or learning commons play in digital literacy education? What standards are in place for digital literacy education and how are we assessing students’ abilities compared with those standards? Of the three sub-topics, the most discussed appears to be the need for digital literacy and, to a lesser degree, it’s definition. There is no universal definition of digital literacy, but there seems to be a consensus that it involves two larger concepts, plus other peripheral skills. The main concepts are 1) how to use digital technology to find and use information and 2) how to use digital technology to create and share information (Heitin, 2016; ISTE, 2016; Media Smarts, n.d.). However, there seems to be a wide range ...

After some consideration, I realized that my previous research interest broke down into a few sub-categories. The first is on how technology is being integrated into libraries. The second is the definition of digital literacy. The third is on what are standards for digital literacy and how do we make sure students are reaching these standards. The following are just a few of the numerous sources discovered while researching these three areas. 1. Smith System (2019). Learning Commons: How Technology is Changing 21st Century Library Design.  Retrieved from  https://smithsystem.com/smithfiles/2016/01/06/learning-commons-how-technology-is-changing-21st-century-library-design/ Technology is already being incorporated into libraries and education to varying degrees. This article article discusses libraries are becoming learning commons and are incorporating more technology,  using a specific example of updating a library built in the 50’s. 2. Media Smarts (n.d.). Dig...