Reflection

Lesson  Implementation

Lesson goal: Students will be able to independently evaluate any website for credibility.

Instruction ran from April 3 to May 19 and included 6 40-minute sessions.

Activating background knowledge

Before beginning the actual instruction, we activated background knowledge by answering 3 essentials questions: What is credibility? Why should I assess the credibility of a website? How can I assess the credibility of a website?  The students seemed to enjoy this activity, and it led to meaningful discussion.

Student projects

In order to better understand and remember the elements of website evaluation for credibility, the students chose to either participate in the production of a rap video or create an infographic.
The projects were evaluated with the checklist below.

Assessments

The students took a Google survey about website credibility using a website of choice at the beginning and end of this project. I compared the survey results to see if the students' analyses improved as evidenced by more references to the elements of date (currency), author (authority), purpose and accuracy when assessing web site credibility.

Although all the students received instruction and practiced evaluating their website using the DAPA Website Evaluation form, the results were mixed. Predictably, the students that either narrated the rap or worked on infographics (and thus reviewed more often the elements of date, author, purpose and accuracy) did better than the students who mainly danced, etc., as their part of the video. Also, our instruction was interrupted due to testing which did not aid retention.

Impact of Technology
The students who interacted with technology for their projects retained the most about the four elements of website credibility evaluation. The narrator practiced his script and recorded it many times before the final product was just right. The students who created the infographics with Canva also reviewed the elements and saw them in writing as they worked on their projects. The students who performed for the rap did not see or hear the words repeatedly. However, I plan to use their rap video every time I teach this unit in the future, and their work will help other students retain these elements!

CLC Experience

The best part of this CLC for me was the opportunity to learn from and support my colleagues. I think it was good to have this take place at just one school and to emphasize reading and commenting on other members' blogs. Even though we are in the same building, we come from varying grade levels and areas of specialization. This was a great opportunity to see what our colleagues are doing in their rooms.

Thank you, Mr. Hill, for all your work on filming and producing our rap video! More thanks also go to Thea Delehanty and Eileen Kalbfus for working in Canva with the students who chose to make infographics.

Implementing technology is time-consuming, but taking part in a CLC forces me to focus on a topic and a technology and new lesson plans which can then be used again with future classes.

I think the students were more engaged in the topic because of the technology and choices, and it let them shine in their area of interest and expertise.

Technology and Student Learning

Are the students better writers because of using Google Docs and researching online? 

There are some advantages to the students using Google Docs and researching online such as the ability to store everything online and thereby work on a writing project from any computer with Internet access (classroom, library, home) without having to carry papers or a thumb drive. Multiple teachers (classroom, librarian, etc.) can have simultaneous access and leave comments that enable formative assessment. Students can easily change a document without "starting over." They can collaborate with other students and use tools such as Google translate or voice typing.

*See attribution below

Conversely, using Google Docs and researching online makes it very easy for students to plagiarize by copying and pasting. Students have a hard time recognizing the containers for their information when they research online. Students think everything they find is from Google. It is difficult for them to find and recognize the actual source of their information and assess whether or not that source is credible (as opposed to using a print book or magazine or encyclopedia). Also, students with poor keyboarding skills get bogged down at the typing stage.

How do I know when to use the technology or not use it?

If I think about using technology, I must consider the SAMR model and ask some questions: Is the technology only substituting for traditional tools? Will using the technology improve functionality and design? Will it facilitate publishing to an authentic audience?

Can looking at the data and analytics improve student learning?

While the learning goals should remain the same for all students,  looking at the data and analytics can help tailor the learning process and outcome for individual students.

via Deester @Pixaby

How do you keep in mind the academic goals when choosing an app or website to use with your students?

According to the Understanding by Design framework, I should have the learning goals firmly in mind first and foremost. Then I can brainstorm the best ways to teach the content as well as show and assess student learning.

How do you feel students learn best? Does it include technology? 

I believe that students learn best when they use multiple ways to engage in content - by hearing, seeing, touching, moving, singing, discussing, writing, gaming, etc. Technology can sometimes enable those forms of learning (e.g., gaming (Quizlet), discussing (Skype), moving, singing, seeing, hearing (Flocabulary), etc.).

*By Alejandrocaicedo (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

Planning and Goal Setting

https://flic.kr/p/b7T49Z

Why am I doing this lesson?

Both the Common Core and Empire State Information Fluency Continuum (a  K-12 framework for library instruction) include standards that require sixth-graders to be able to assess the credibility of information sources. In this time of "fake news," the need to teach this skill seems relevant and perhaps even urgent.

What materials, devices, apps, websites do I need for the lesson to be successful?

1. Camera for recording a rap
2. Movie Maker for editing rap
3. Google Slides to make infographic
4. Computer with Screencastify extension and microphone to make screencast of live website evaluation
5. SeeSaw blogging platform
6. DAPA Website Credibility Evaluation Form
7. Student computers for viewing websites 
8. Laptop and LCD projector to evaluate a website as a whole group
9. Posters and markers for World Cafe small group discussions
10. Checklist for evaluating student projects
11. Website Credibility Student Survey

Which teaching strategies will be best to facilitate my student's learning?

• Based on my pre-assessment, I understand that the students have not done a lot of critical thinking about assessing information sources. They will need to have the analysis modeled for them before striking out on their own.
• Using a World Cafe method, the students will participate in small group discussions about the essential questions: What is credibility? Why should I assess the credibility of a website? How can I assess the credibility of a website?

What are the academic, social, physical, emotional needs of my students for this lesson to be successful?

I think the choices of projects to show the students' learning (see below) will appeal to a variety of learning styles. In addition, because learning is social, the students will do the majority of the learning activities via whole group discussion, working in pairs, or as a small group.

How is this lesson motivating and engaging for your students?

We'll begin with small group discussions about why we should care about website credibility. Hopefully the students have heard about fake news enough to realize that it is important to know how to judge the credibility of information sources.

By Institution:IFLA [CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons 

Who is the intended audience for your students work?

http://web.seesaw.me/blogs/

The students will be embedding their finished products into their SeeSaw blogs which Mr. Hill set up as part of Project-Based Learning. I plan to tweet about any exceptional products that I think other educators would be interested in seeing and include the blog post URL.  Also, I want to use their projects as examples to future classes and as a way to teach website credibility (e.g., post an infographic in the library and 6th-grade classrooms, play the rap video, etc.). So the intended audience is other educators and students.


The students will be able to choose how they want to show their learning about 4 criteria for evaluating website credibility. I will be discussing several options with them:

1. Write, perform and record a "DAPA rap" that talks about 4 elements of website credibility - date, author,  purpose, and accuracy.
2. Do a screencast of a live analysis of a website of choice.
3. Make an infographic clearly illustrating the 4 elements of website credibility using in Google Slides

SMART Goal:

As a result of learning about the 4 criteria for website evaluation, 100% of the students will be able to restate, illustrate, or demonstrate the use of those criteria via infographic, rap, or screencast. The goal will be measured via a rubric used to evaluate the student product (rap, screencast or infographic.) The students will see the rubric before they begin creating the rap, screencast or infographic.The teacher and students will assess the projects via a checklist. Students will also re-take the pre-assessment Google survey, and I will compare to the students' original analysis to see if they have included more of the 4 DAPA criteria than in the original pre-assessment survey.

PLN: Personal Learning Network

What social media do I use?


I have accounts in Google+, Pinterest, YouTube, LinkedIn, FaceBook and Twitter. I also follow select blogs (e.g. The Unquiet Librarian - Buffy Hamilton) and online communities such as the K12 Library Media Specialist group on edWeb.net.

LibGuides also recently added a Community feature that allows me to "search for LibGuides content and librarian authors, and find great examples of guides from our worldwide user community."

How do I use it in my professional teaching life?

When I get email notifications of blog posts or online webinars,  I scan the titles to see if the topic interests me. Otherwise, I mainly seek information on an as-needed basis. I use the information to create or improve lesson plans or library programs.

Have my habits changed any?

If I just "hang out" on social media, I have a hard time choosing the most important ideas to pursue without going down time-consuming rabbit trails. There are always so many new ideas and technologies to explore!

My strategies are to be very selective with whom I follow and use the search feature on the various social media websites to drill down to information that I am seeking.

Am I finding good things that will help me in my classroom?

As usual, more things than I can use. Here are a few I found on the topic of website evaluation from Twitter and Pinterest:

• A Web Evaluation Game that teaches students how to evaluate websites.
• An Edutopia article on the WWWDOT method of website evaluation with a brief overview of four 30-minute lessons.
• A Website Evaluator Tool developed by EasyBib.  Just plug in the web address and a sidebar pops-up on the right side of the web site you want to evaluate, leading you step-by-step in a self-evaluation of the website according to criteria such as author purpose, accuracy, relevance, etc.
• 10 Hilarious Hoax Sites to Teach Website Evaluation.
• But I Read It on the Internet, by Toni Buzzeo - a read-aloud book to teach about website evaluation.
• Google vs. Database - a series of videos explaining the value of databases in comparison to Google searches.
• Cybrary Man's Evaluating Information page
• How Savvy Are Your Students? 7 Fake Websites to Really Test Their Evaluation Skills
• Google Search Techniques and Strategies: Believe it or not

Am I sharing things that I find? How?

LibGuides, created by and for librarians, is one of my main curation tools. I have created LibGuides on the topics of Black History Month Resources, Coding / Computer Programming, Images for Student Projects, Safer Internet Day Resources, and Website Evaluation. They are public, so anyone can access them.

Also, I share via blogging, adding content to Pinterest or YouTube,  participating in online webinars or chats, etc.

https://www.pinterest.com/carolsatta/5th-6th-grade-suggested-reading-lists/

Collegial Learning Circle Introduction

Carol Satta
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., School #9
Library Media Specialist, K-6


Experience using technology in the classroom

I've dabbled in a variety of technologies. Here are a few samples:

• A tutorial about how to use the EasyBib Add-on to cite sources and create a bibliography.
• A quizlet to review 3rd grade solar system facts.
• Student Google slides presentations on the topic of their choice with samples posted on my School #9 web page.
• A LibGuide about Coding/Computer Programming.
• A book review blog.
• Digital storytelling with Storybird (see sample below).

What I hope to gain during this Collegial Learning Circle

Watch via Google Drive

Watch via Google Drive

It is difficult to find time to collaborate with classroom teachers on projects. I hope this collegial learning circle will afford me the opportunity to work with one or more classroom teachers in similar ways to how Miss Turner and Miss Coakley collaborated with me last year.



Passions/fears in using technology

I like to use technology when it increases our efficiency such as in the case of Google Classroom where the student work is stored in one place and can be accessed by multiple teachers. Technology sometimes helps tailor instruction to individual students such as databases that read text aloud, offer multiple reading levels or languages, increased text size, etc. I think technology can help unleash student creativity as students make videos, create projects with coding, etc.

I fear dabbling in too many devices, platforms, apps, extensions, add-ons, forms of social media, etc., to the point that I do not have the time or energy to utilize the ones best suited for my purposes as I should.

Outside of school

In my free time, I love to be out in nature--especially near the ocean. I took this photo while on a sunset cruise at the Outer Banks in North Carolina.

Productivity Tools

I looked at Evernote and Zotero because my greatest need is to find a way to quickly capture, store, organize and retrieve information that I run across on the Internet or social media.  There are so many great ideas, but who has time to stop and read or implement everything right when you learn about it!

Evernote

Evernote is intuitive and easy to use. The search feature is great because it looks at the contents in all of my notebooks simultaneously and highlights the searched term in each document like a CTRL+F search. 

Another cool feature is that my tags are automatically organized like entries in an index.

Zotero

I had dabbled in Zotero before but recalled that it functioned best in conjunction with Firefox. I mainly use Chrome, so that was a drawback. However, Rosie Castle alerted me to a new Chrome extension that makes it easier to save PDFs and webpages from Chrome.

Zotero is commonly used by college librarians to teach citations. I teach my students about using Creative Commons licensed images which we use a lot in student projects but citing them is laborious. I found a YouTube video (created by a librarian!) that shows how to quickly save an image to Zotero then drag the description into a word processing document where it magically transforms into a citation. To choose the citation style (MLA, APA, etc.) in Zotero go to Settings>Preferences>Export. This works with both Microsoft Word and a Google Document!

How will I use them in the future?
As part of another professional development opportunity (Cool Tools for School), I read an ALA Technology report about how librarians are using curation tools to teach critical thinking.  Students think critically as they gather and filter information sources for research. So, I might try using Evernote with upper level students. I think that Zotero may be a little advanced for my K-6 students.

Personally, I think that I will use Evernote as my primary curation tool but use Zotero for research purposes so that I can easily cite sources and create a bibliography.

Lesson Plan Implementation

Danielle Turner and I collaborated on a project with her combination first/second grade students using FaceTalker and Book Creator.

1. Danielle chose 4 women who were influential during the Civil Rights Movement and divided the students into four groups.

2. To provide background knowledge, the students listened to an article on their subject (Ruby Bridges, Rosa Parks, etc.) read to them from World Book Online. 

3. Miss Turner worked with the groups to read to the students and have them list facts learned about their courageous woman.

4. I came to the classroom to talk about plagiarism and citations. The students created human citations with the bibliographic information from select books.

5. Miss Turner worked with the students to turn the facts into a narration to be read.

6. Miss Turner chose images of the 4 women and created talking faces in FaceTalker.

7. The students recorded their narratives using FaceTalker.

8. I used the Google Doc EasyBib add-on to create a bibliography.

8. Danielle and I worked together using Book Creator to make the book. Enjoy!