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Welcome to this hands-on workshop which is designed to give you experience conducting investigations with new information technologies.
Expected Outcomes
- Learn the importance of the Research Cycle and three types of literacy: text literacy, numeracy and visual literacy.
- Learn how to focus classroom investigations around decisions and problems drawn from the community and the global neighborhood.
- Learn how to engage students in making their own meaning (constructivism) from the vast new information landscape which is made readily and rapidly available thanks to new technologies.
- Explore the possibilities of Engaged Learning with technology - Information Power and Power Learning.
- Consider the best practices for professional development, assessment and planning related to information technologies.
- Explore these issues:
- How does the role of classroom teacher change in such a program?
- How do we provide structure?
- How do students cope with Info-Glut, Info-Garbage and Info-Tactics?
- How does information differ from Truth?
- How do students learn to recognize the difference.
Activities
Module One - Power Learning, Information Power
and The Research Cycle (PowerPoint slides available for downloading - very large file).Module Two - Visual Literacy - Go to the lesson.
How do we use photographs, drawings, paintings, and other visual material as information rather than mere decoration or illustration?
Module Three - Numerical Literacy - Go to the lesson.
How do we employ databases and statistics to understand the world around us?
Module Four - Text Literacy - Go to the lesson.
How do we use electronic text and search engines to discover new meanings and what does it mean to be "well read" in this decade?
Module Five - The Research Cycle and Choices - Go to the lesson
How good are the free information sources available to our students? It's a "mixed bag." See for yourself . . .
Module Six - Creating Online Learning Modules
Take a look at the Online Student Investigation Units
- at the Grand Prairie Independent School District
- at the Bellingham (WA) Schools - 5th Grade "Explorers" and 5th Grade "Planets"
- at the Baltimore County Schools
- at Bateman's Bay in New South Wales, Australia
- Slam-dunk lessons from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (scroll down page)
Another good example of a similar approach can be found at WebQuests.
Australian WebQuests at http://www.occ.act.edu.au/home/itpd/webquests/matrix.htm
What advantages do you see to providing such scaffolding? Disadvantages?
To see how teachers can learn to build their own online projects, visit the Module Maker or the Building Blocks for a WebQuest
In your learning log make a list of 3-4 decisions or problems which might serve students well as the basis for the type of online lesson shown here.
What can you do to prepare teachers to engage their students in Power Learning?
© 1996, 1997, 1998, Jamie McKenzie,
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