Getting There » ICT Skills

Idaho Falls 21st Century Skills Conference: Collaboration At Its Best

bjansen — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 03:11:05 +0000

Even though it was 16 degrees outside, participants were hot with effective and innovative ideas for integrating the Big6 and higher level thinking skills into their Idaho science standards. Groups of librarian and science teachers from around the state participated in a 2.5 day seminar: Critical Learning Skills in the 21st Century:Collaborating for Student Success sponsored by the Idaho Commision on Libraries. Julie Walker and Keith Curry Lance started the session Sunday night and Bob Berkowitz took over Monday with the Big6. On Tuesday, he led the group, with me assisting, through a writing session wit the parties collaborating to integrate the state’s databases into the science curriculum using the Big6 as the framework. In the afternoon, I facilitated their sharing session and closure. The dynamics of the teacher/librarian teams brought the best minds together to design units of instruction for middle and high school students. Questions they had to ask themselves as they planned were:

Does this instructional unit:

help students master Idaho science standards?
promote quality learning experiences?
promote knowledge use, creation, and production?
promote guided inquiry?
incorporates higher order thinking skills?
help students build knowledge?
move students beyond access & location to construction and assessment?
keeps student engaged with ideas?
gives students life-long learning intellectual tools?
teaches students to be good researchers?
help students manage information?

Those are good questions we can ask ourselves when we collaborate with teachers to integrate those 21st century skills and attitudes into their curriculum. And, a high level of engagement in the planning process should transfer to enthusiastic instructional delivery.

Promoting an ISP in the middle grades 5-9

bjansen — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 04:18:24 +0000

Why wouldn’t a technology teacher, classroom teacher, and library media specialist use an information search process (e.g. the Big6) to teach content and meaningfully integrate ICT skills into the curriculum? It makes good sense for the educators and students. Using the steps of the process to plan the lesson/unit and delineating the roles all collaborators will assume (who teaches what and when). Students get a transferable process they can take from class to class and grade to grade. They learn a common vocabulary and can be creative and intellectual within the process. Skills within each step can get increasingly sophisticated as students progress in grade and cognitive development. Many educational standards/objectives are covered within the timeframe of an instructional unit. Students practice those skills in a meaningful context. It just makes good sense.

Information Skills Tools Wiki

bjansen — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 23:07:03 +0000

For a preconference workshop I presented in Iowa, I created a wiki that helps students (and teachers/librarians) identify tools that can help in the various steps of the information search process, no matter which process model the student is using. It only contains a fraction of the available tools, as I didn’t even include software programs that students and school may have installed on their computers. Let’s all contribute to this wiki and identify those useful tools for working through the information search process.

http://isptools.pbwiki.com/FrontPage

Is the Big6 still big?

bjansen — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 21:33:53 +0000

Can the Big6 still help your students keep up with their information needs in a 2.0 digital world? In the world of Web and libraries 2.0, is the Big6 still viable? How have you integrated Web 2.0 tools into the Big6? Are you using blogs and wikis as part of the search process leading up to the final (Big6 1-4) product? Are you having students use these tools to present their results and evaluate their process (Big6 5 and 6)?

In discussions on LM_NET, I haven’t heard much about using an information search process with students. I am interested in how you are using, or why you are not using, the Big6 as a framework for students to interact with information and communications technology skills in a 2.0 environment. Here are the Big6 steps in case you need a review.