Thing 1: Information literacy and web 2.0

As I sit around and count the last few hours of summer and mentally prepare for the 2008-2009 school year, I decided to distract myself with some MILI work.

I really enjoyed the "truth:can you handle it" article. The part about students getting impatient while they research especially resonated with me. If teachers plagarize-proof their assignments then they are asking students to do research that will take some time. Students live in a world where information is just a click away. but as the article pointed out we need to help students understand what to do with that information and how to form knowledge.

The article also made me feel better about asking kids to use book resources and limiting their use of websites while researching. I feel like understanding a variety of sources is part of the research process. I hope that when kids leave my classroom they understand a wide variety of sources and the benefits and burdens of each source. I believe this will help them discover the truth about research.

Another part of this "thing" was to look at some of the web 2.0 tools. I was overwhelmed by all the items listed on http://www.go2web20.net/ I got a big kick out of the description for getmooh.com: "Get me out of here....
Getmooh is an automated call back service. It is designed to help you escape a variety of situations by calling you automatically on your phone at a pre-specified time and playing you a recording which will either instruct you on what to say to elude your tormentor(s), or which will simply give a convincing sense of you being on an important call." Perhaps this is a tool for those difficult parent meetings...

I spent some time playing around with goanimate.com I thought it would be a lot of fun. I must admit that I got frustrated wih some of the features. It took me about 15-20 minutes just to do what you see here. I am sure students would LOVE doing this. I thought it might be fun to have my group of 17 advisees create a short animation about school for conferences. I think it would be a cool thing for them to show their parents. "Traditional" conferences are so obsolete with all the tools available to parents to look up grades online. So, coming up with creative ways for kids to express themselves at conferences is a MUST!