Barbara
Stripling begins her article with a definition of “digital literacy” by
discussing that there are many different definitions for it, but no matter
which definition you use, it involves a student being able to gather digital
information and make sense of that information (Stripling, 2010, p. 16). For students today, there is such an inundation
of information that bombards them from the minute they log onto a
computer. Students need to be able to
decipher the “junk” from the relevant information, factual investigations, and
legitimate sources. And while Stripling’s
article describes six distinct phases of inquiry, she describes the inquiry
process as being “recursive and cyclical, with learners going back and forth
between the phases of inquiry to resolve new questions and complexities as they
arise” (Stripling, 2010, pg. 16).
As a science
teacher, I was naturally drawn to the “investigate” phase. My collaborative group has chosen a life
science SOL for our project, and its main focuses (food webs, food chains,
interactions between species) cover many different areas of life science. Sourcing, one of the areas of investigation,
is an important topic that my students don’t typically consider when using the internet
for research. They see a slick website
with “science” words and catchy graphics and assume that it is a legitimate
source. Stripling points out that “the
criteria for evaluating digital sources include authority, purpose, currency,
credibility, and perspective” (Stripling, 2010, pg. 18). My group will be working to create a list of
resources that give students access to credible sources all located in one
place.
Another part
of the investigative phase is connected meaning. It’s difficult for students to find the
connections between all of the information they are digesting from the
internet. I hope to create different
groups of resources that will help my students make those connections between
the material, such as cultivating resources that show interactive simulations
of food webs in action along with websites that have quiz games on key
vocabulary terms, such as producer, consumer, and decomposer. Until students are old enough to make those
connections between the meanings of information, it is our job to help bridge
that gap.
Media
literacy is another crucial part of the investigative phase. “Media literacy, the ability to ‘read” and
interpret information presented in visual and oral formats, must be nurtured
and taught explicitly” (Stripling, 2010, pg. 19). As a middle school teacher, I often see that
my students haven’t developed the ability to scrutinize websites for
superficial information. I use a fun
assignment for my students where I have them look up an online article about
Velcro crops and how they are dying out.
The website has lots of slick data tables and graphs and explains that
the “loop” crops aren’t keeping up with production like the “hook” crops and
soon, the world will face a Velcro shortage.
The students have a worksheet and have to answer all sorts of questions
from the information on the website. It
usually takes a while, but eventually a student will look up from the laptop
and ask if the article is real. They
will make comments like “I didn’t know we grow Velcro!” and a savvy student who
has caught on early will respond with “We don’t! She’s tricking us with this article!” And then we have a great discussion on how
websites can look legitimate and students will have to dig deeper to find
reputable resources.
I plan on
incorporating this part of the phase into our curation project by finding the legitimate
sites for my students and collecting them in one place. I want my students to be able to use the
curation project to find a plentiful list of resources that have already been
scrutinized by professionals (the members of my group).
Stripling,
B. (2010). Teaching students to think in
the digital environment: Digital
literacy and digital inquiry, School
Library Monthly 26 (8), 16-19.
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