TEACHERS AND ADMINISTRATORS: A Call for Collaboration!

Greetings to all SJ Prep teachers and administrators! Like the rest of you, we at McShain library are devoted to the development of students' information literacy and research skills. In order to increase the efficiency and relevance of students' learning we would like to call for your collaboration.  We ask that you post your lesson plans on this blog or email them to one of the librarians. Within a 48 hour time span we will respond to your post or email with an idea of how to incorporate Google or another form of digital media into the lesson plan. If you do not know how to use Google or the digital media resource recommended we will be more than happy to teach you or come to the class. WE ARE HERE TO HELP YOU! PLEASE USE US!

                                                                                                                                              

Moving Away From Textbooks

Tweets about "#beyondtextbooks"

Get Organized Online

I'm testing out a very interesting tool called If This Then That. I just created two "recipes": 1) when I add something new to Delicious it will automatically be tweeted on my Twitter account and  2) when I write a new post on this blog it will also be tweeted on my Twitter account.

There are many recipes you can create depending on the different tools you use (Dropbox, LinkedIn, YouTube, Tumblr, just to name a few).

Here she goes again...

I think about the 1:1 initiative a lot. You might say too much.  Here are some thoughts :

The focus of a 1:1 school should be the efficient and productive use of existing technology.  Every faculty member that has access to a laptop should be using it as a teaching tool.  This means more than just showing Powerpoints or YouTube videos. I believe an important first step to take is to require teachers to create a class webpage and use electronic submission methods for assignments (Google Docs).  (I know math is tricky). The next step is to rethink traditional writing assignments and projects by requiring the use of online tools and software.  Introducing e-textbooks would be useful, too, but in my perfect world the need for textbooks disappears.

Before new devices are handed out, teachers should have a better understanding of what they can already do with what already exists.

Information Literacy as Counter-Cultural: A Jesuit Perspective

The results of  the reports, "How Teens Do Research in the Digital World" and  "Children, Teens, and Entertainment Media: The View from the Classroom", raise some relevant issues concerning teens current use of technology.  In today's culture teens main use of technology is for entertainment and most will tell you they find it to be a pervasive distraction. For the majority of teens it is not viewed as a learning tool. They come by this view honestly since so few of them have seen technology and digital media meaningfully incorporated into learning and teaching.

The National Forum on Information Literacy defines information literacy as “...the ability to know when there is a need for information, to be able to identify, locate, evaluate, and effectively use that information for the issue or problem at hand.”  That sounds so simple yet it proves to be an incredibly hard literacy to teach because we have allowed the current digital media/entertainment culture to have a stranglehold over our children's time online.  It is time to make a change. 

Jesuit institutions pride themselves on being counter-cultural and rightly so.  We incorporate characteristics such as Religious, Loving, and Commitment to Social Justice into our curriculum because we strongly believe they will inspire young men and women to be agents of change in a complex, global world. 
We are counter-cultural because we raise awareness, have discussions, offer alternatives and encourage behavior modification to include new sets of habits.  We will be counter-cultural when we teach a new set of digital habits that apply to Intellectual Competency and  Information Literacy. Teens who can effectively manage the onslaught of information, find meaning and share new knowledge in a productive and efficient manner truly will be men for and with others. 

In order to form young men for the 21st century and beyond it is our duty to embrace the digital world and model positive online habits. To do otherwise is to fail in our responsibilities as educators. 

Perspective

Oh, those were the days......

New Things to Share

Figment 
Were you born to write? Would you like to publish your work for free?    If you answered yes to either question you need to check out Figment, an online community for young authors.
Read more here


Meograph 
A really cool presentation tool. Just answer three question: What happened, when did it happen, and where? The information is placed on a timeline where you can embed images, YouTube clips and/or narration to guide your audience.
Read more here


Awesome Apps and Enhanced Books

Frankenstein. Dave Morris (based on the novel by Mary Shelley). Profile Books.inkle Ltd. 2012.iOS, requires 4.3 or later. Version: 1.0.6. $4.99.

Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomy. Martin Clayton. illus. by Leonardo da Vinci. Touch Press with The Royal Collection. 2012. iOS, requires 5.0 or later. Version: 1.0.2. $13.99.

Minds of Modern Mathematics. Glen Fleck, MartianCraft in collaboration with IBM and the Eames Office. 2012. iOS, requires 3.2 or later. Version: 1.01. Free.

Tate Modern Art Terms. Simon Wilson with Jessica Lack and the Tate Staff. Tate Publishing. Aimer Media. 2012. Version: 1.1. $2.99.