Answer: What were the three most useful tools or resources resulting from the web walkabout? How can students be taught to safely collect tools and resources that can help them maximize their learning? What policies or procedures might need to be in place to make this possible?
In this learning walkabout, I explored a number of different online learning resources. I bookmarked a number of tools that I found valuable for my classroom, and you can access that list of bookmarks at www.diigo.com/profile/jasonpurser/webtools. I also created a more visual grouping of these using Symbaloo which is a great way for you to take a quick glance at these if you'd like.
A few of these resources would be great embedded in my teacher website, namely the Evaluating Resources video and Khan Academy videos. They are great for both reinforcing content and for teaching digital literacy.
In this learning walkabout, I explored a number of different online learning resources. I bookmarked a number of tools that I found valuable for my classroom, and you can access that list of bookmarks at www.diigo.com/profile/jasonpurser/webtools. I also created a more visual grouping of these using Symbaloo which is a great way for you to take a quick glance at these if you'd like.
A few of these resources would be great embedded in my teacher website, namely the Evaluating Resources video and Khan Academy videos. They are great for both reinforcing content and for teaching digital literacy.
Some of these resources are very helpful webtools that would be great for lab/virtual learning. I especially like the Zooniverse Biology Projects as a way to involve students in real-world research.
And finally the Brainly and Discovery Education resources are great services for both students and teachers. I describe them as services, because parts of each require that users have an account. I think both make excellent study resources for students and preparatory resources for teachers.
My Favorite 3:
1.) Digital Citizenship/Literacy Resources
Ok... I know this technically isn't one resource, it's a set of resources. But I cannot wait to incorporate these in my classroom. The posters will make great additions to my classroom walls and will serve as conversation starters when we begin research projects and blogging, and they will also be a great way to periodically bring digital citizenship/literacy into our classroom discussions. I especially like the Legit-o-Meter poster.2.) Zooniverse Biology Projects
These live, ongoing research projects are a great way to involve students in real research. There are a number of topics that will be relevant to units throughout the year, so I know that I'll have no trouble finding something that fits. And even if we don't complete these as whole-group, classwide projects, this will be a great differentiation tool for my gifted students who are compacting a unit or students who wish to complete special interest projects.
3.) Discovery Education Young Scientists Interactives
I really like these online learning interactives. Often in my classroom I find that limited supplies and resources prevent us from completing labs that would really help my students connect with the content. Over the past few years, I've been trying to complete more of these labs virtually using tools like ClassZone's WOW BioLab. Though few in number, the Discovery Ed interactives go a step beyond the labs I've used in the past. They incorporate STEM activities where students develop and build tools like wind turbines, etc. From what I have been able to tell so far, they are accessible on desktop and mobile platforms (at least on my MacBook and iPhone, anyway) and I've stated in a previous post on ideal digital learning, all good learning resources should be accessible on any device and in any browser.
Student Application:
If you've read my previous posts, you may think that I'm beating a dead horse here, but I really think the best way to teach student to collect and use digital resources for themselves is modeling. We must teach and show students what to look for in online information. That process should begin with a teacher-facilitated (not teacher-centered) discussion or mini-lesson on digital literacy. The information in the posters above (Legit-o-Meter, etc) would be great content for a slideshow, supplemented with the YouTube video on evaluating resources. Then in collaborative groups, students would work through the process with others and with the input of the teacher. Finally, students would be released to work on the process themselves or with their research group.
I believe a few procedures would reinforce the importance of this task and to make sure that students are safely engaged. In my classroom, I plan to require that students must have their sources/tools evaluated at some point early in the process. I teach highschoolers, so I think it would be completely appropriate to allow this evaluation to be a peer-assessment, a self-assessment, or an assessment by me.
Peer-feedback would include students working together with a checklist (such as the Evaluating Sources Checklist above) and discussing where each source or learning tool would fall on a spectrum of reliability. Turning in the checklist would be optional, but documentation of the discussion would be required. Self-assessment would be a similar process, but self-directed. I would require the checklist be turned in on a self-assessment so that I can understand the students' thinking. And a teacher-based evaluation of sources may go along with the checklist, or it may be an informal discussion of the sources. Either way, the conversation would be documented in some way in the student's project.
I will also require a bookmarking aspect during the process too. I've really come to like the social bookmarking process, especially Symbaloo and Diigo. Because Diigo allows annotation, comments, and tagging, I believe it would be great for students to gather information for a research project and group the information by topic, sub-topic, etc. In situations where students are gathering learning tools, however, I think Symbaloo would be a better route. It would allow the student to gather and arrange websites and learning tools and then share them with me or others on a blog as I have here or via a link. I like that Symbaloo gives the user the ability to open resources in a new tab or open it in Symbaloo. Having students set their tiles to open in Symbaloo would be a great way for me to quickly and easily preview their resources all in one place.
I can't wait to incorporate these new tools and these new strategies in my classroom in the coming weeks!
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