What an amazing and
interesting book! What I found the most interesting was the author’s
description of choice. If you ask my children or friends of my children
and ask them what my motto is or my main mantra in life and they will tell you
without hesitation “it’s all about choices”. While that may seem very
obvious it is truly what I live by - both the good and the bad of it. We do not get to pick our consequences, but
we all have choices. And that pretty
much covers it all :)
As a librarian we are looking at ways our students use
information and should be a guiding force teaching them. I personally have spent many lessons on website
evaluation and being a digital citizen. While
I do go over that there is the good and bad out there in the information world,
I however, do not believe I have ever addressed what it means to have a “balanced
information life”. Maybe since I am in
elementary school students may not have as much freedom to be on devices than
their older counterparts. But students
to spend lots of time on devices with games and apps. We encourage online games such as Prodigy or
spending time on databases. Our school
just renewed its subscription to Myon – it is an online digital library with
over 6000 books and endless news articles.
It is amazing and it is my job to promote it (since it is super expensive)
but now I feel like I need to make sure that I am not pushing for use that
creates an imbalanced information diet.
The book really has me thinking of my role as a librarian and a teacher
that really focus on how to find the information the students and staff
need. My job is assisting in the finding
but now I see that I also need to advocate and model a good life balance.
Hi Angie,
ReplyDeleteI agree with your post about making choices. I work with my second grade students daily to make wise choices. When they don't make a wise choice I ask them to think about the choice they made and we discuss how they can fix it the next time. As adults we must also focus on the choices we make in life and be sure to make them wisely. I do believe in giving students second chances with their choices. Usually they can correct themselves the second time around.
Angie, you bring up a really valid point about our role as teachers and the push we feel to incorporate more technology into our lessons and thus into our students' lives. I wonder if there is a math in here somewhere with your students to gather actual data about their technology lives? You're right, as elementary students we like to think they don't have as much access and freedom, but are we right in that assumption? And maybe your school with your population could be very different? Just wondering if gathering data, even on one class could guide your thoughts and decisions going forward?
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ReplyDeleteAngie, I completely agree with the fact that we are expected to teach digital citizenship to our students and how to navigate the school's databases. However, we are not expected to teach balance. Schools want us incorporating more technology into our everyday learning, yet the balance is tough. As adults, we struggle to find the right balance of information access, so how are we supposed to teach our students those same skills?
ReplyDeleteAngie, from what I have learned about you during our classes together, I think that you are probably encouraging your students to make good choices more than you might realize. I think we often forget just how much elementary students absorb from the world around them. All the modeling and guiding we do is sinking in. We might not always "see" the results, but I wouldn't be surprised if many of your students hear your voice in their head when they are deciding what they are going to do with their next bit of free time. And sometimes they might even listen to it :)
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