Category:

Digital Literacy

Discover tools, tips, and strategies for teaching digital literacy. Equip students with skills to navigate and evaluate the digital world effectively.

Five Cybersecurity Tips for Newbies

by Miguel Guhlin October 24, 2019

written by Miguel Guhlin

A topic that remains evergreen is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month’s (NCSAM) “Own it. Secure it. Protect it.” While NCSAM offers this nice toolkit in portable document format (PDF) for you, I thought I might share a few more tips.

In this blog entry, you get access to two Wakelet documents full of information on encryption tools and cybersecurity concerns. Before I share those, let’s revisit one of the reasons why cybersecurity is so important.

Set Yourself Up

“I don’t take the time to change my passwords, filter through my subscription lists and my unused apps, etc. My degree has a focus in computer security, so it is a little disappointing that I do not take the time to have a better digital footprint,” shared one educator in an online forum. If you’re not taking the time to secure and protect what you own online, you are inviting malicious use of your data.

As educators, it’s easy to imagine that we safeguard student data. The truth is, we fail our students when our own practices fall short of modeling cyber-secure practices. Set yourself up for protected use of your data, not for theft by others.

Encryption Tools for Educators – https://wke.lt/w/s/FZz-UX

View Wakelet featuring Encryption Tools for Educators and Students

Tips for Securing and Protecting YOUR Data

Let’s review a few tips that you can take as an educator to better protect yourself, and in turn, model appropriate strategies to students.

Tip #1 – Switch from debit cards to protected credit cards.

“Where did you use your credit card, sir?” asked the bank attendant. “Well, I stopped to get gas in that small town south of the city.” His short nod confirmed that was the location where unauthorized purchases were made. Gas station fraud due to skimmers is on the rise. Don’t be a victim.

Make a decision to NOT use your debit card or write print checks with your routing and account number on them. A few short years ago, I had to close all my accounts at a credit union that didn’t offer me better protection. I would also recommend setting up a separate email for financial accounts. An encrypted email (e.g. ProtonMail) works even better. Never use the same Yahoo/Gmail account you use for signing up for Netflix or Disney Plus for banking and medical accounts. Keep that for common use, but rely on your encrypted account for financial and medical transactions.

You will want to set up two-factor authentication for all email, cloud storage, digital accounts. You will need to have your smartphone with you to receive text messages or run a simple, easy authentication app that will give you a number that changes every 60 seconds for the digital account. This works, as I’ve had attacks on my accounts and seen it action.

Tip #2 – Freeze your credit reports to prevent new accounts.

Want to stop new accounts being opened in your name? With the Door Dash, Equifax, and other data security breaches recently, it’s not hard to imagine someone having all they need to create an account in your name. Prevent others from opening new accounts as if they were you by freezing your credit unless a special PIN# is used. These approaches aren’t foolproof, but they do help.

Quick Alerts: Get alerts via your bank mobile app for all transactions. I love knowing when funds come out of my bank account. Even if it’s my wife buying me a gift for my birthday.

Be sure to check your credit frequently. Annual Credit Reports provides a free service, but you may need to pay to get that more often. Here are a few credit freeze sites:

You’d be surprised at the peace of mind you get from securing your credit report. Before you freeze your credit reports, you may want to sign up for Experian and Credit Karma apps on your device. What’s nice about these is that they give you quick updates on your credit report status. Also, be sure to notify credit agencies of potential identity theft if you know your personally identifiable information (PII) has been stolen.

Tip #3 – Online Social Security account.

Create the account before the bad guys do. Problem is, if you froze your credit reports, you’ll have to go in person to the Social Security Admin building. Be sure to file your tax return early, otherwise others may do it and get your tax return check.

Bonus Tip: Give the Password Checkup extension for Chrome a try. It will check your passwords as you use them against the list of passwords resulting from data breaches. Some may not want to do this because it means Google is checking every password you type. Fortunately, no passwords are sent out. Learn more.

Tip #4 – Manage your usernames and passwords.

You may be comfortable using the same password on all websites, but know that hackers are comfortable with your decision to do so as well. Here are some ideas to better manage your usernames and passwords.

Use secure passwords. I like to use secure password generator and then add my own twist to it. I end up with a secure password that I keep track of using a password manager (e.g. Keepass, Bitwarden).
Add a password or pin number to all bank account transactions. It takes an instant, but without it, it may make it difficult for bad guys to access your accounts. And, of course, change these from time to time.

If you are carrying a paper notebook with all your usernames and passwords, you’ve set yourself up for disaster. If you are trying to remember them and using cues from your life (e.g. middle name, birthdays, pet’s name), be aware that these are easy to get. Get Bitwarden and access your confidential data on the go.

Cybersecurity Concerns – https://wke.lt/w/s/OYHnn

Tip #5 – Encrypt confidential data.

If you’re not protecting medical records in a locked safe, then chances are you have yet to encrypt your cloud data. Make every effort to encrypt confidential data documents you have saved in cloud storage (e.g. Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox), as well as when they are “at rest” on your laptop, USB external drives, smartphone, and tablet. Doing so is easier than ever. Note that cybersecurity concerns often arise from unencrypted data (view Wakelet on Cybersecurity Concerns).

Another aspect involves encrypting data when it is in transit, that is, when you’re sitting at Starbucks working on your bank account or reviewing LabCorp medical test results. For goodness sake, use a virtual private network (VPN), such as Mullvad VPN. Take some time to secure your on the go connections.

Wish there was more you could do? Read the NCSAM toolkit and make securing paper and digital resources of your life and work a top priority. You can never do enough to protect yourself.

Updated with new password management, VPN tool, and new content on July 25, 2023.

October 24, 2019 1 comment

Digital Literacy

Celebrating Digital Citizenship Week with Powerful Resources

by Andrew Roush October 15, 2019

written by Andrew Roush

Digital citizens are critical thinkers. They carefully weigh evidence and sources and come to informed conclusions about what they encounter online. They are digitally literate, that is, they use information technology effectively and in ways that empower them to be lifelong learners. Creating an informed citizenry, one that can skillfully use ubiquitous and evolving tech tools, is a central goal of education, and the primary goal of digital citizenship.

What’s more, a good digital citizen is safe online. As we increasingly live our lives through connected devices, understanding the smartest and safest ways to use them, and the networks they run on, is vital to ensuring that students are well-prepared for life outside of school.

A Week of Celebration

Spreading awareness of these benefits is the purpose of Digital Citizenship Week, October 14–18, 2019.

Education nonprofit Common Sense describes the week as an opportunity to “amplify your students’ voices and give them ownership of their digital lives.” It’s a skill that today’s students will need not just in the future, but today. Want to bring digital citizenship into your classroom? Below are some resources that might help.

Digital Resources for a Digital World

Common Sense, mentioned above, offers a number of videos paired with lesson plans for elementary, middle, and secondary grades on a variety of digital citizenship and literacy topics. Best of all? You have access once you create a free account. Need resources in Spanish? They’ve got you covered.
Nearpod offers starter-pack lesson plans for K-12. Once you teach them, you can receive a limited edition Nearpod badge to use in your classroom or email signature. And they have day-by-day activities recommended, too.
For a day-by-day outline of digital citizenship, check out this post from curriculum developer AES Education. Written for last year’s commemoration, this piece lays out a progressive understanding of the topic, one day at a time.
If you’re willing to go the route of resources available for purchase, ISTE’s Digital Citizenship in Action, Empowering Students to Engage in Online Communities, written by high school librarian Kristen Mattson, is all about flipping old practices on their head. Instead of teaching what not to do, she explores what action students can take to be good digital citizens.
Those looking to dig into more detailed topics might want to explore the educator tools at DigitalLiteracy.gov, a joint project of ten federal agencies. Notably, the site’s powerful search and filtering function lets you find the right tool based on your interest.
Digizen, as the name implies, is a website all about digital citizenship, with pages specifically designed for teachers, parents, and students.
Be sure to scroll through Cyberwise’s massive trove of digital resources on the subject.
Find out what the fandom around the incredibly popular Korean pop band BTS can tell us about digital citizenship.

Photo: Tim Gouw

October 15, 2019 0 comments

Digital Literacy Libraries

Research in the Age of the Filter Bubble

by Heather Lister, Guest Author October 8, 2019

written by Heather Lister, Guest Author

We live in a personalized world. Everything from the music we listen to, the firmness of our mattresses, and the news briefings delivered to us online, it’s all personalized and tailored to our preferences. And who wouldn’t want to listen to a radio station that only plays music they like? Advances in technology have allowed companies to give a custom experience to each of its users — and those users include the students in our classrooms.

A Custom World

As educators, we typically hear the term “customized” or “personalized” in a positive light. Yet when seeking information, those customizations can actually translate to bias and ignorance. It’s what Eli Pariser termed the “filter bubble,” the algorithms used to provide targeted search results and tailored news feeds are creating a distorted and divided reality by only revealing one side of the story — the side you want to see.

Websites use massive amounts of data to create an experience that we’re more likely to engage and interact with. This data is often collected by “trackers” that exist on numerous websites. Google trackers can be found on the top 75% of the top million websites. These trackers do just what they say they do; they track. They track everything from the time you spend on a site to the type of computer you’re using to the time you typically wake up in the morning. All of this somewhat personal data is gathered and used without us being aware we’re even providing it. So for those of us that think we do a pretty good job of keeping our online lives private, unfortunately our actions and behaviors online can tell companies just as much, if not more, information about our lives.

For professionals dedicated to helping others search for facts and uncover the truth, this is obviously problematic.

Escaping the Bubble

Sadly, escaping this bubble is nearly impossible. Even methods that give the appearance of removing this bubble and putting the user in control of their data do very little. For example, private browsing such as Google’s “Incognito Mode” only prevents your browser history from being recorded on your computer and does not offer any additional protection such as preventing the websites you visit from collecting your information (e.g. your searches on a search engine). According to an engineer at Google, even when logged out, Google is still able to use 57 points of data to tailor your experience. Facebook’s privacy settings allow you to opt-out of seeing targeted ads, but they don’t stop the collection of data in the first place. This data and more is following us across the web, with vast implications.

So if the filter bubble is an issue, but there isn’t really a way to “pop” it, what do we do?

For better or for worse, customization is only going to get more precise and have a further reach. But unless you’re willing to go completely off the grid, we’re going to have to address this issue. This means taking a different approach to research and doing a better job of teaching students how the Internet actually works.

A Different Approach

For starters, if you’re giving students a list of “pre-approved” websites or databases, stop (for two reasons). First, by hand picking resources for students, we are robbing them of the opportunity to navigate the resources themselves. They aren’t always going to have someone there to hand pick articles for them and tell them whether they are credible or not. It’s a skill they need to develop themselves, and what better time to practice that skill than when in school? Second, there is no such thing as a 100% credible site. Even databases curate resources from the open web, so directing students to databases is a flawed practice as well. Several sites and authors that were once considered “trustworthy” and “academic” have been called into question due to bias, misinformation, or misrepresentation.

Additionally, students (and our colleagues) need to understand the existence of a filter bubble. They need to understand how companies are using data to tailor the results on nearly every site we visit. They need to understand that while their search results may have produced hundreds of “great” results, there are millions of other results they aren’t seeing. When we have students evaluate websites, encourage them to not only focus on what is in the article, but also what isn’t in the article. What perspectives are missing? What isn’t being discussed? Who wasn’t a part of the discussion?

Useful Resources

While librarians can be champions of this effort, it cannot be addressed by us alone. This is a societal issue and one that needs tackling by the community at large. While still limited, here are some resources to help teachers and librarians in this effort:

Checkology and The Sift from The News Literacy Project

Checkology is an online suite of tools aimed at making students better users of information. With lessons on algorithms, bias, identifying hoaxes, and more, it’s a comprehensive platform for addressing the many facets of media literacy. The Sift is a newsletter that shares current teachable news stories regarding misinformation, hoaxes, and other viral content.

Harvard’s Project Implicit

This resource includes a series of assessments aimed at identifying thoughts and feelings outside of conscious awareness and control. This is a great tool for your older students or your staff to help become more self aware of the biases they may have.

Mozilla’s Teach the Web and Google’s Be Internet Awesome

Both organizations have an education branch focused on teaching how the web works. Yes, I recognize the irony, but they both have some excellent resources and activities.

Choose Privacy Everyday from ALA

Each year, ALA and other organizations celebrate #chooseprivacy week in May. This website hosts resources to promote privacy and confidentiality year-round. The site includes programming and lessons for elementary school through adults.

Photo: Lanju Fotografie

October 8, 2019 0 comments

Coding/Computer Science Digital Literacy

Preparing Students with Digital Literacy Skills

by Kyle Ivey September 27, 2019

written by Kyle Ivey

Why Coding?

Our staff lives by the saying, “If there is a problem, how do we solve it?” One of the problems that came to our attention was that students were not mastering the digital literacy skills needed to fill the 500,000+ careers open in coding. So our goal was to create a solution to help our students be prepared and hopefully secure some of the well-paid technology jobs in the future. As our staff studied coding, we knew that our students would gain more than just coding skills and be able to think and communicate better as well, skills that are important for careers outside of coding.

The Central ISD Difference

Our district has a culture to see kids succeed. Central’s ISD goal is to create opportunities for our kids to be able to compete for careers. If we don’t provide our students with this opportunity, then they will not be able to compete for the career of their dreams. Therefore, STEM was an easy sell to our staff and community because of all the skills obtained through STEM learning. The ability for our students to solve real-world problems was something that our district wanted and needed guidance in how to obtain. To Central, it’s not about test scores. It’s about our kids and producing successful, business-minded individuals.

The skills students learn will be beneficial to any career they choose. Central feels that students learn the benefits of collaboration and communicating ideas when they work together to code. We also want students to learn and persevere through failure. Students who play video games often fail; however, they learn from that failure and develop a new strategy to succeed. This is how we want our students to view coding. Students must also be fearless when coding – not being afraid of experimenting and hacking their way around programs to solve problems.

How Does Tynker Fit in to Digital Literacy?

According to our district plan, goal 1 is to close the achievement gaps by preparing all students for success with 21st century college and workforce readiness skills. Tynker allows us to provide all students (both beginners and advanced) a curriculum to develop and/or hone the skills needed to be successful in 21st century learning. Tynker allows students to remain engaged because of the game-like atmosphere and enjoy learning. Students have to think and be creative while using Tynker because it is all about problem solving.

One of my favorite things I heard from a student who uses Tynker was after completing the STAAR test, the student said she was able to answer some questions on the STAAR test based on information she learned while using Tynker. This was worth all the money in the world for us as leaders. This is what educating students is about: giving them the opportunities and skills needed to succeed, not only on tests, but also in day-to-day life.

Kyle Ivey is the Instructional Technology Director in Central ISD. Central ISD is a 3A school district serving around 1700 students, 60% of whom are economically disadvantaged. Located in the heart of East Texas, Central strives to prepare youth to excel academically through positive relationships and quality instruction. You can follow Kyle on Twitter @1techydudekyle.

September 27, 2019 0 comments

Digital Literacy

Teaching Students How to Search

by Lori Gracey September 24, 2019

written by Lori Gracey

One of the most important skills educators can help students acquire is the ability to be a true lifelong learner. With the average student currently in school having five difference careers (not jobs, completely different careers!) during his/her lifetime, the ability to constantly re-learn and embrace new knowledge and skills will be crucial.

This goes beyond the ability to simply “Google” a quick answer, but includes knowing if the answer given is valid or not. Students must be able to judge what is returned to them after a search. Unfortunately, the only way to learn this is to practice.

Start with SweetSearch

To help secondary students see what “good” search returns look like, have them use SweetSearch. This tool searches only 35,000 websites that have been vetted by research experts, librarians, teachers to ensure that the information found there is reliable and valid. Although there are a limited number of websites that it references, it can return a large number of results from those websites which are educational in nature and “packed” with information.

Accessing the menu button in the top left corner of the screen will provide them with SweetSearch 2Day, a hand-picked compilation of educational resources, learning tips, articles, historical events, and biographies, gathered from the web and written by the SweetSearch team. There are also two buttons below the search bar that will help them hone in on news or history information.

Once they’ve used Sweet Search for a while, then ask students to do the same search using Google, their search engine of choice, and to compare the results that they get for the same search on both sites. Talk about why some websites are ranked higher in the search return with Google and what this might mean for the validity of the information.

Move on to Socratic by Google

When students fully understand how to pick out valid search results, then introduce them to Socratic by Google. This free app (currently available for iOS, but coming soon for Android) is designed to help students with homework, not just in completing it, but also in understanding it. When using Socratic, students log in with their Google accounts.

The app allows students to ask questions via their voices, by typing, or by taking photos of questions, worksheets, or textbook pages, and get answers based on educational content that the app finds on the web. Using artificial intelligence, the app looks at a student’s question and automatically identifies the relevant underlying concepts so that it can provide lessons that can help break down concepts into smaller increments. So it’s not just about giving them the answer.

Socrative also offers subject guides to help students studying for tests, containing visual explanations on 1,000 higher education and high school topics. Socratic presents concept overviews, explanatory steps, video walkthroughs, and more to help them better understand the topic. For math problems, Socratic provides direct links to step-by-step explanations from sites like Cymath and WolframAlpha.

searching

It’s important to note that any search engine or tool, regardless of whether it is designed for students or not, may return inappropriate websites and/or content. So encourage students always to be aware of this when doing any search.

Help your secondary students become better at searching for and finding answers and learning new things by teaching them how best to use and evaluate search tools.

September 24, 2019 1 comment

Digital Literacy Good Teaching

Blue Light Bad

by Lori Gracey July 30, 2019

written by Lori Gracey

There have been a number of studies that have come out over the past few years warning us of the damage that the blue light from our devices is causing, especially in terms of sleep. And it seems to be especially true for teenagers. Let’s look at some ways we can help students (and ourselves) to block out the light effectively without hurting our eyes or impairing what we are looking at.

What the Research Says About Blue Light

“Blue light from screens can delay the release of sleep-inducing melatonin which interferes with the natural body clock.” (Source: National Post article) For adolescents who use a device in the hour before bedtime (and what teen doesn’t?), they are three times more likely to get less than five hours of sleep, which can be greatly detrimental to their mood and learning. A lack of quality sleep can lead to serious health issues down the road, such as obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. In addition, “teenagers who used screens before bed needed an extra 30 minutes to get to sleep compared with those who did not.” So, to bottom line it, our devices are not good for getting enough sleep and are hurting us.

How to Filter Out Blue Light

Now that we know how bad the blue light from our phones and computers and tablets is for us, the question comes up of how we block it out. The good news is that there are lots of free solutions available, depending on your device. These solutions change the color palette of your display so that you can still see to use it, but the blue light does not shine through.

Windows – Microsoft added a blue light limiting feature to Windows 10. Called “Night light,” this feature shifts the Windows 10 display to show warmer colors that reduce the amount of blue light that’s emitted. It’s easy to turn the Night light feature on:

Open up the settings menu by searching for it in the Windows 10 search box, or press the Windows key and X and then click Settings.
Choose System from the menu.
Select Display from the left-hand menu if it isn’t already.
Toggle the Night light switch to on.
Click on Settings to configure the Night light. Schedule when the feature will turn on and off to match your sleep schedule or leave it at the default, which will turn itself on at sunset and off at sunrise based on your location.

Mac – Apple introduced Night Shift in 2017. To turn it on: blue light

Open System Preferences.
Select Displays, then click on the Night Shift tab.
You can set when it comes on and off by selecting Schedule.

There’s also a great, free third-party program that has a few more features if the standard operating system options aren’t enough for you. F.lux is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, and is what I use on my laptop.

iPhone – Introduced in iOS 9.3, the Night Shift feature in iOS allows you to filter out blue light and adjust the warmth of the colors in your display. To turn it on, go to Settings and then Display& Brightness and then to Night Shift. The options here are similar to those offered on Windows and Mac computers.

Android – The fastest way to turn on the blue light filter on most Samsung Galaxy phones on is to pull down your notification shade and swipe down again to access quick settings. One of them is called Blue light filter and you can tap to toggle it on and off. If that’s not an option on your phone, look at Settings and then Display and then Blue light filter.

This is probably good information to share with your students at the beginning of the school year. Be radical and have them all get their devices out in class one day and change their settings to filter out the blue light. Helping them get more and better sleep will result in big wins in the classroom, and isn’t that what we all want?

July 30, 2019 0 comments

Digital Literacy Good Teaching

Helping Students Ramp Up Their Tech Skills

by Lori Gracey July 3, 2019

written by Lori Gracey

You’ve heard the talk about digital natives, about how this generation of students who were born with technology in their mouths know everything there is to know about devices and software. You’ve heard that they don’t really need any practice in using tech because it’s embedded in their chromosomes somehow. What you may not have heard is that is all just a bunch of hooey.

The Facts About “Digital Natives”

As EdTech Digest reports, “They use it a lot, to be sure, but their range is quite narrow, and not very deep. They’re okay at the basics (email, texting, surfing the internet, etc.), but when it comes to using technology to learn, it’s mostly passive consumption of information.” The EU Kids Online Report found that “… only one in five [children studied] used a file-sharing site or created a pet/avatar, and half that number wrote a blog … While social networking makes it easier to upload content, most children use the internet for ready-made, mass-produced content.” And a survey from the Pew Research Center found that children probably know a lot about social media and usage convention, but are unaware of the difference between the internet and “World Wide Web” or what Net Neutrality means.

What that all means is that it is even more important today to teach students how and when to use technology than it has ever been. And that’s not something that can be left to the “tech teacher.” For most students, there is no technology teacher for them until high school. That’s way too late to learn best practices in hardware and software use.

How Prepared Are You to Teach Tech Skills?

With that in mind, how ready are you, regardless of the subject or grade level you teach, to show kids the best uses of technology? If the honest answer is “not so prepared,” then consider attending the Technology Acceleration Academy this summer. Held July 25-26 in Austin, the academy is a hands-on answer to teaching today’s students. Led by accomplished educators from around the state, participants will gain great expertise in both their own use of tech and in helping students use Adobe, Apple, Google, and Microsoft software and devices. Bring your own device and practice the skills that are shown, ensuring that you leave with all of the knowledge and skills that you will need to prepare your students for future careers.

Registration is just $239 for both days and includes lunch and a complimentary membership in TCEA for one year, which will help you to continue to hone your skills. Check out all of the great sessions available here. A few of them include:

Solving Problems Together – Looking for projects and ideas that will get your entire class engaged and working together? Then facilitating G Suite-based collaborative projects is for you. Explore technology in the context of problem-based learning (PBL).
Global Communication and Collaboration – Challenge yourself to use apps such as Flipgrid, Skype, Google Hang Outs, and Zoom. Experience real-world examples of how students can create connections with different cultures to develop a better understanding of our world.
Show What You Know Using an iPad – Bring your iPad and prepare for an interactive, hands-on session that will get students sharing and showing what they’ve learned, and how to apply it. You’ll leave with resources for your classroom.
Keeping Your Students Active and Engaged in a Google Classroom – Learn how to ensure that your students are active and engaged in an online environment using Google Classroom. You never have to sacrifice quality instruction when teaching in a virtual classroom.
Knowledge Management with OneNote and G Suite – Struggling to keep track of … well, everything? Wish you had an easy way to setup virtual meetings with others and share status reports by project? Let me introduce you to Microsoft Teams and OneNote. These tools work on all devices. Teams is a digital hub that brings conversations, content, and apps together in one place. OneNote is a digital notebook, whiteboard and scrum board rolled into one. Want to learn how to do the same with G Suite tools? We’ll also explore that!
Ten Research-Based Practices That Accelerate Student Learning – Learn how technology can accelerate learning, especially when it’s used with ten teaching practices that are research-proven to help students achieve more.

So grab a colleague and register today for the Technology Acceleration Academy. Your students will thank you!

July 3, 2019 0 comments

World map with pushpins through-out. a human hand with finger pointing to a pushpin appears.

Digital Literacy Good Teaching

Shift Perspectives with Global Collaboration

by Miguel Guhlin June 26, 2019

written by Miguel Guhlin

“Bring a lesson plan that you love, then we’ll blend technology into it.” I’ve heard this request a thousand times, a way to assist low-tech teachers plan a lesson. As a veteran educator, lesson planning remains a simple way to shift teachers’ focus. Often, the focus of the teacher is on the activities. But good lesson planning forces one to step back and look at the big picture. In this blog entry, we’ll shift our perspective through the use of the ISTE Standards for Students and move from local to global collaboration.

Lesson Planning: A Work of Fiction

Since lesson planning is writing and organizing ideas, I had a lot of fun with it. You might say lesson planning was my first introduction to an idea. The idea? Creative nonfiction, defined as “true stories well told” (source). Lee Gutkind describes it in this way (revised):

“Creative” doesn’t mean inventing what didn’t happen. It is not reporting and describing what wasn’t there. The writer’s pledge to the reader is the anchor of creative nonfiction. That pledge? “You can’t make this stuff up!”

If you wonder, why bring up fiction or non-fiction at all, that’s easy. Lesson plans are works of creative non-fiction. Some go so far to say, they ARE fiction, a waste of time. According to them, the purpose of lesson plans is for some authoritarian administrator to review them. Then the admin will provide helpful suggestions. This supposes that lesson plans are those acts of creative nonfiction. I would argue they are not. And I’m not alone. Consider this perspective:

If you work for a district that doesn’t trust you to plan your own lessons and instead requires you to follow a scripted program with fidelity, then why in the world would you have to write down your lesson plans? They’re already written in the teachers’ guide that you’ve been told to blindly follow. If principals want required lesson plans, then a reasonable question is why. Why should teachers need to rewrite plans that they’ve been handed and told to use?

With the ISTE Standards for Students in mind, how can we shift these perspectives on lesson plans?

Start with the Standards

When you start with the standards in mind, you are stepping back to find greater significance in a lesson. One of my favorite student standards is that of Global Collaborator. In this standard, students use digital tools to broaden their perspectives. They seek to enrich their learning via collaboration with others. This means working in teams at the local and global level. The indicators for Global Collaborator include:

Student use of digital tools to connect with learners from various backgrounds
Using collaborative technologies to work with others and examine issues/problems
Collaborate and contribute in a constructive way as part of a project team
Investigate solutions to local and global issues

How do you work at the global level? Consider the expectation second grade students might encounter in an actual lesson plan. For example in Fig19F, second grade students must make connections to:

Their own experiences
Ideas in other texts
The larger community and then discuss textual evidence.

How do you make connections to the larger community?

Facilitating Global Collaboration

Ready to make global collaboration possible? In the past, we may have relied on websites like iEARN. While teacher-to-teacher, class-to-class connections are possible, even more opportunities exist. Here are some resources that may assist you in facilitating global collaborations.

Resource #1: GlobalEdGuide

Teachers’ Guide to Global Collaboration: This website encourages the skills students need. They offer rich resources that will give you ideas on how you can bring global collaboration into your classroom. They offer project ideas such as:

GlobalSpeedChat: #GlobalSpeedChat is a curriculum that includes digital activities to use with your students to build an awareness of others in our world.
One Day in the Life: This project involves a student image exchange. Students exchange photographs/images describing days in their lives. Then they make cross-cultural comparisons.
Classroom Conversations: This project matches registered classes with a global partner class (or classes) of the same grade range for an asynchronous VoiceThread conversation.

There are many more projects available at the GlobalEdGuide.org website.

Resource #2: ISTE Connect Global Collaboration Network

It may come as no surprise that ISTE Connect supports global collaborations as well. ISTE Connect seeks to support network and collaboration year-round as a platform for ISTE’s Global Collaboration Network (GCN). The GCN seeks to:

Promote digital technologies for connecting and collaborating beyond the classroom walls. The Global Collaboration Network offers best-practice curriculum design. The design embeds global learning experiences into everyday teaching. The community shares tools and methods, curriculum developments, and opportunities for collaborations.

Connect with Amy Jambor, Anne Mirtschin and Makisha Rogers and see their ISTE 2018 presentation. They encourage the use of Twitter global hashtags, Flipgrid, Voxer, and Voicethread. One example they share is the Winter Around the US slides. See a list of global projects via this Google Sheet:

global

Shift Perspectives with Global Collaboration

The more connected our society becomes, the more essential global collaboration becomes. It goes beyond building cultural understanding and empathy. Teaming and problem solving with remote collaborators is essential. When you start with the ISTE Student Standards, you can take a broader view of lesson plan activities.

To learn more about how to best use the ISTE Standards, consider becoming ISTE Certified. Our next cohort will begin July 11 and others will be be scheduled in the fall. It’s not too late to register for the ISTE New Zealand cohort, if you happen to be in Queenstown on July 2 & 3rd. Register now.

June 26, 2019 0 comments

Digital Literacy

Resources to Teach Students About News Validity

by Lori Gracey June 12, 2019

written by Lori Gracey

A critical part of digital literacy skills for everyone today is the ability to discern what is true and what isn’t. Discerning news validity is especially crucial in this age when photos and videos can be faked so easily. Here are some resources to help students develop these skills.

Media Bias Chart

Start off your discussion with students by having them examine this chart showing how potentially biased common news sources are. Ask them to discuss the following:

What might influence a news media to take one side over another?
What are the potential dangers of a biased news media?
Are there any patterns to bias in the chart?

TED-Ed

TED-Ed has released an excellent lesson plan and video entitled “Can You Spot the Problem with These Headlines?” The lesson is aimed at secondary students and includes a five-minute video. Once the students have viewed the video (perhaps in small groups), they then think about what was presented by answering five multiple choice and three open answer questions. They are then encouraged to dive deeper into the topic by exploring provided resources. Finally, there is a guided discussion for them to take part in.

A second video lesson that fits this topic is “This One Weird Trick Will Help You Spot Clickbait.” For other resources to help students (and adults) learn about clickbait, check out this blog.

Checkology

In the free plan, Checkology offers access to four foundational Checkology news literacy lessons for one-to-many delivery. Each of the modules is comprised of between 20 and 47 instructional video clips and interactive comprehension checks. As students move through the content, it becomes progressively more difficult. A free teacher account is required to access the materials.

Factitious

Factitious is an online, game-based, free activity designed specifically for students. There are six different articles for them to read through. Once they read one, they click the source listed at the bottom and then select either the green check mark or red X to indicate if the article is a real news story or not. Once a students responds, they get instant feedback and an explanation of how they can tell if the article was a real or fake news story. The articles start out easy and move to the hard level. No account is required unless students want to have their scores saved.

Discussions, Not Arguments

One of the big ideas that we need to help students grasp is the importance of having healthy discussions, and not arguments, about current events and issues. This is best done by actually having discussions on somewhat controversial topics in the classroom, with the teacher acting as “referee” to help students distinguish when their discussion becomes too argumentative.

Additional News Validity Resources

You can find 15 more resources for helping students develop strong news literacy skills here.

June 12, 2019 0 comments

Advocacy Coding/Computer Science CTO/CIO Cybersecurity Digital Literacy Professional Learning STEM/STEAM Technology Applications

86th Texas Legislature Wrap-Up

by Jennifer Bergland June 5, 2019

written by Jennifer Bergland

All good things must come to an end, but only someone who loves politics would consider the legislative process a good thing. I’m one of those people. I love every minute of it, even the ones that go past midnight! Looking back over the past four months, I am happy to report that TCEA was able to move our vision of education forward through legislation and have some promising opportunities to help shape the future of Texas schools. I have created a 2019 Bill Analysis document that include the specifics about the bills that will impact digital education, but below is a quick summary of the more important bills.

Computer Science and Coding

Legislature We had some huge wins in the area of computer science and computational thinking this session. Our six-year goal of providing weighted funding for the 9-12 Technology Application courses has finally been achieved. In HB 3, the school finance legislation, the weighted funding for CTE was changed from grades nine through twelve to grades seven through twelve. In addition, the bill specified that CTE courses and programs include Technology Application courses. This means that Technology Application courses from grades seven through twelve will receive the same weighted funding as CTE courses, which is 1.35 (instead of the normal 1). HB 963 requires the SBOE to consolidate the 9-12 Technology Application courses with similar courses found in the CTE curriculum. The goal is to eliminate duplicates and identify the purpose of each of the courses. Finally, HB 2984 requires the SBOE to update the K-8 Technology Application standards to ensure that they include coding, computer programming, computational thinking, and cybersecurity. It also establishes a committee to create a strategic plan for K-12 CS education to increase computer science instruction and participation in public schools.

Broadband

Legislature There are two pieces of legislation that are going to impact educational broadband. The first is HB 1960 which creates a Governor’s Broadband Council that will advise the governor on issues related to broadband access to unserved areas. This is progress, but not as much as we hoped for. There are few, if any, areas of Texas that are unserved. The original bill included underserved areas, but heavy lobbying by the large telecommunication companies eliminated that language from the bill. However, we consider this progress because we finally have some entity at the state level that will look at the state’s needs for broadband from a strategic perspective. For too long, all state entities have tried to provide affordable, scalable broadband for their own purposes when it would be much more cost efficient to survey the needs across agencies and entities and design a plan to meet all the needs. HB 1960 at least establishes a council that could do this in the future, if given the authority.

The second bill that may help with broadband is HB 3906. This is an assessment bill that requires online testing by 2022-2023. The bill requires TEA to evaluate the availability of Internet access for each school district and identify changes to state law or policy that are necessary to improve the availability of Internet access. This may open a door for more aggressive action in parts of the state that are “served” but are underserved.

Digital Learning

HB 3 established a Blended Learning Grant program and then funded it at $6 million a year. TEA’s Math Innovation Zones are how the agency is fulfilling this requirement. It is good to know that the agency has funding to continue these types of grants.

Legislature

I have already mentioned that HB 3906 requires TEA and the SBOE to implement online testing by 2022-2023. Before this can happen TEA and the SBOE must devise an implementation plan that is approved by the legislature. The planning for this type of implementation will require heavy district input, which will largely come from their technology departments. This has the potential to finally focus some much needed light on what the state must do in order ensure that all students have access to technology, not just for assessment, but for learning throughout the year. In order for students to be successful on an online assessment, they must first be technically proficient and familiar with the type of device they will be using when taking the assessment. This translates to more access to digital tools for all students.

Funding

HB 1 is the budget bill for the 2020-2021 biennium. Listed below are some of the appropriations that were made that will impact digital education:

Technology and Instructional Materials Allotment – $1,101,430,204
OER curation – $20,000,000
Blended learning teacher training – $2,000,000
Blended learning grants – $12,000,000
TxVSN administration – $800,000

HB 396 allows districts to use their TIMA on software that will help manage instructional resources, including the usage and effectiveness of digital materials. HB 4611 stipulates that 50% of the funds that the Texas General Land Office sends to the legislature for education must be appropriated to the TIMA. If this had been in place this biennium, there would have been $3 million more placed in the TIMA. In addition, the budget stipulates that the SBOE should restrict instructional material proclamations to 75% of the TIMA and should consider school district’s technology needs when determining the size of the percentage of the Permanent School Fund sent to the legislature. 50% of this distribution goes into the TIMA. In translation, this means the SBOE should be sending the legislature enough money from the PSF to fund both the instructional material needs of school districts and also their technology needs.

Cybersecurity

SB 820 requires each school district to establish a cybersecurity policy that determines the cybersecurity risks to the district and a plan to mitigate those risks. The district will also be required to designate a cybersecurity officer who will oversee the policy. In addition, the district will be required to report to TEA any cyber attack that breaches the system security and notify the parents of the students whose information has been compromised.

Professional Development

There are several opportunities in the bills mentioned above that will provide professional development in digital learning. The Blended Learning Grants are largely designed to provide professional development for educators in blended learning, not to mention the funding provided to UTeach to continue to provide this type of training to Texas teachers. Also, this is a good chance to remind districts that the TIMA may be used to provide professional development on the use of technology. In addition to these bills, the legislature passed HB 2424 that requires the SBEC to establish rules to create microcredentials in fields of study related to an educator certification class. This was one of TCEA’s legislative priorities, so we are excited to see this bill pass.

What’s Next

The legislative session has come to an end, but the hardest work is ahead of us. Enacting legislation is the first step in changing things. Now we begin the process of working with the different agencies and entities to ensure they are enacted well. Stay tuned for more blogs about many of these legislative initiatives and how you can provide input.

Credits

Photo of the computer code taken by Sai Kiran Anagani on Unsplash. Photo of cables taken by Jordan Harrison on Unsplash. Photo of teacher interacting with students taken by Mimi Thian on Unsplash Photo of teachers taken by Kylie Haulk on Unsplash.

June 5, 2019 0 comments

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