21st+Century+Information+Fluency

 PowerPoint - Teacher Institute, November, 2008
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**Definition:**
Digital Information Skills include the ability to find, evaluate and ethically use digital information. When students are digitally literate, they can effectively and efficiently locate information that meets their needs. This ability involves specific knowledge such as knowing how digital information, or information on the web is different from print information. They must be able to locate relevant information among billions of websites. Once information is located, information about the author and or the publisher must be found in order to effectively evaluate the objectivity, accuracy, and credibility of the information.

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Internet sites mentioned in the presentation
Shift Happens Wiki - Watch the video created by Karl Fisch called “Did You Know”. It’s 2 years old but presents a compelling story about why its important to be aware of how our world has changed and why it’s important to be aware of the impact on the classroom. [|American Association of School Librarians Standards for the 21st Century Learner] - The presentation is based on the standards set out by this organization, to facilitate information literacy [|Wordle.net] - create a “word cloud” that visually represents source text, example: Illinois State Language Arts Standards [|ChaCha]- “Social Searching”: Mobile guides who answer questions by text message from users [|Yahoo Answers] - a place where people ask and answer questions on any topic, sharing facts, opinions and personal experiences. [|Answer Bag] - similar to Yahoo Answers [|wiseGEEK]- similar to Yahoo Answers [|Yedda]- similar to Yahoo Answers [|HowStuffWorks] - [|“]HowStuffWorks, a wholly owned subsidiary of Discovery Communications, is the award-winning source of credible, unbiased, and easy-to-understand explanations of how the world actually works. Founded by North Carolina State University Professor Marshall Brain in 1998, the site is now an online resource for millions of people of all ages.” (Quote from website) [|Wikipedia]- The Free Online Encyclopedia that anyone can edit [|Quarkbase] - Find complete information about a website including the author and the sponsoring organization, great way to evaluate a website [|Boolify]- use this search engine to illustrate the logic of their search and showing them how the manipulation of key words impact the results [|Resources for Teaching 21st Century Information Fluency] - Resources for teaching students 21st century research skills including articles, games, and assessment tools to enhance these critical skills [|Defining Literacy in a Digital World] - ReadWriteThink Lesson Plan to help student understand and be able to evaluate internet sites

Good places to start a search
These search engines offer suggestions based on your search words. When you put a key word in the search box, these search engines will give recommendations that will help you narrow or expand your search. [|Ask.com] - will narrow or expand your search When only reference sites like encyclopedias are required try…. [|Answers.com] - All results are reference resources [|RefSeek.com] - a web search engine for students and researchers, making high quality information easily accessible

Research Project Examples
Mrs. Cassidy’s Dinosaur Wiki [|Ben Franklin Voice Thread] The Shot Heard Around the World [|Colonization Blogs] Secret Life of Bees Wiki [|Bloom’s Taxonomy -Digitized] - Andrew Church took Bloom’s Taxonomy and revised the levels of the learning process to correlate with the digital tools, including web2.0 and social media. This document helps if one is looking for innovating ideas for projects that utilize technology.

Sources Cited
“AASL Standards for the 21st-Century Learner.” 17 Sept. 2008. American Library Association. 10 Oct. 2008 . Alpert, Jessie. “We Knew the Web Was Big.” Weblog post. Google Blog. 25 July 2008. 28 Sept. 2008 . “Internet Usage and Broadband Usage Report.” 2008. 16 Oct. 2008 . Lejnieks, Carly. “A Generation Unplugged.” 12 Sept. 2008. Harris Interactive. 15 Oct. 2008 . Salpeter, Judy. “21st Century Skills: Will Our Students Be Prepared?” Techlearning. 15 Oct. 2003. 30 Oct. 2008 . “Information Behavior of the Researcher of the Future.” 11 Jan. 2008 

Resources
[|21st Century Information Fluency] [|CyberSmart Free Student Curriculum]
 * What you'll find there:** Look at the Full Circle Kits which provide tutorials for all skills required for this topic. For your students, check out the Action Zone Games which provide specific examples and practice for doing searches.
 * What you'll find there:** free k-8 curriculum on safety, manners, advertising, and research

Professional Development Opportunities
[|21st Century Information Fluency Online Workshop] [|Cybersmart Professional Development] - facilitated on-line workshops over a period of 4 weeks - 2 hours a week, total of about 10 hour workshop in various topics including safety, ethics, and the challenges of teaching in the 21st century. It's taught using a customized Moddle platform asynchronously where the teachers keep up with the schedule but can go on at their convenience.

Professional Networks
[|TeacherLibrarian Ning] - What's a "Ning"? **Ning provides a social network for anyone interested in the topic - which in this case are the experiences of school librarians. Ning, which is simply a social networking site provides tools to facilitate collaboration which include blogs, discussion forums (the basis for group formation) video, photo, mp3, friends lists, profiles… the basics for making it easy to talk to each other.** Click "Sign Up" to belong to this group. Being a member allows you to post comments to others' questions, or to post questions on the forum. You can take advantage of the blog and profile feature if you wish, but it is not necessary.