Hello Everyone,
Back in September, for one of my Fall 2015 Library Media Education graduate classes, I viewed a fantastic webinar related to Digital Citizenship and thought I would share my reflection.
The webinar I viewed was titled “RU Ready 2 Trust ‘em? Why Access is Essential to Developing Citizenship Among Millennials” by Michelle Luhtala, the head librarian at New Canaan High School in Connecticut. It was exciting to participate in one of her online presentations, since I had just read the article “Teach Kids To Be Their Own Internet Filters” on the blog “Mind Shift: How We Will Learn;” it details New Canaann’s view “student mobile devices are … considered learning tools” which “works because of a culture of trust and responsibility the school has developed” (Schwartz, 2013, ¶ 7).
“RU Ready 2 Trust ‘em?” was very informative and dealt with various topics, including the characteristics of millennials, how 21st century skills empower students to become independent learners, online resources that can be used with students, and statistics which show that students are growing up as digital natives. One of the points, Ms. Luhtala discussed was myths about millennials. She stated that millennials are often perceived negatively, yet that is most likely due to an incorrect lens. Rather than seeing millennials as “coddled” and “narcissistic” with one lens, adults can use another lens and seem them as “resourceful” and “transparent,” respectively. Ms. Luhtala referenced Chelsea Clinton’s article “Four Myths About Millennials They’re All about Money and Mobile Phones, Right? Wrong,” which I would like to examine. Ms. Luhtala advocates that teachers, library media specialists, and administrators need to trust students with eighteen different complex tasks. The one task which really stood out to me from the list is that we need to trust students to: reflect. Ms. Luhtala said that trusting students to reflect means giving them time. Students need time to grapple with concepts or tasks, time to be messy and work on something. She also discussed how the library media center at New Canaan has a Google voice number, where students can call or text in questions. Since the beginning of this school year, they have interacted with students using over two hundred text messages, most of which happen outside of school hours.
Two resources Ms. Luhtala discussed for engaging millennials that I found particularly intriguing were PowToon and ReciteThis. PowToon lets users create five-minute animated videos for free and can be implemented into the classroom in several ways. I did a little research on this tool and found an informative YouTube video that shows five ways PowToon can be used in the classroom. I also looked into ReciteThis, which is advertised to turn quotes into masterpieces, which can be downloaded, emailed, linked, and shared via social networking sites. Using a quotation from educator and writer Mary Ellen Chase, which I found on the website for the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), I created this image:
If you would like to view the archived “RU Ready 2 Trust ‘em?” webinar, please visit edWeb.net and create a free account to access the PowerPoint presentation with the audio recording, additional resources, and the chat log.
Enthusiastically,
Ms. Tyler
Reference
Schwartz, K. (2013). Teach kids to be their own internet filters. Mind shift: How we will learn. Retrieved from: http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/10/04/teach-kids-to-be-their-own-filter/