Literacy with ICT

This week we had the pleasure of having John Finch come into our classroom to discuss Literacy with ICT. We firstly got started off by discussing the technology we used in our elementary and middle years school experiences. I remember we used computers strictly for research projects. Today's schools, the students have the privledge of using laptops and ipads. I believe that in my teaching future, the technology usage is going to be that much more advanced. The main focus of Literacy wtih ICT is choosing and using ICT responsibly and ethically to support critical and create thinking about infromation. John made a very important statement which stuck out to me the most: "We need to teach the students HOW to learn and simply not the facts". This is definitely something that will stick out in my mind when preparing lesson plans and unit plans for my students. John had said if we teach students the facts they are never going to know because the facts can change on a daily basis which is something every teacher needs to take in consideration, especially teachers that use the same material from year to year.

Our class has started to design a wiki, I have never used the program before and I cant say that I will be a fan of it especially with my students. We had the opportunity to ask another class about the program and what they disliked about it so our class had an advantage before we started to create it. The problem with wiki is that if you have each individual group working on their part of the project and they end up writing on the same page and you refresh it it can delete someones part of the project. If I were to use this program with my students I would have them first write their information in a word document and then paste it on the the wiki page so we wouldnt run into problems of deleting each others information. The part of the wiki that my group is working on is about digital citizenship which I believe is to be a very important aspect. Digital Citizenship is a very important tool to teach to our children today especially since using the computer has become almost an hourly thing. Before I introduce my students to using technology we will be discussing digital citizenship which is the norms of appropriate, responsible technology use. There has been many recent cases that are affecting young children that have to do with digital citizenship. When we look at the case about Amanda Todd, her picture who was sent to a personal "friend" was leaked across the internet worldwide that haunted her forever and eventually ended up committing suicide. We have to teach our students the appropriate uses of the internet before we give them free range of using this tool.