 | Book - Digital Literacy lesson plans and support materials |
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Click on the following link to download a copy of this e-book (275p, 9Mb) http://digital-literacy.syr.edu/data/From_The_Creative_Minds_Book.pdf This e-book, published by the Center for Digital Literacy located in the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University, has a goal of providing teachers with freely accessible lesson plans and linkable support materials. As technology is now such an integral part of teaching and learning, you will find a substantial number of lesson plans that include innovative use of technology. Lesson plans were collected over a one-year period. The e-book effort was developed in conjunction with a project designed to update the information literacy standards for Information Literacy database (http://informationliteracy.org), a resource which received recognition from the American Association of School Librarians in 2009 as one of the 25 Best Websites for Teaching and Learning. From the Creative Minds of 21st Century Librarians Foreword Learning in the 21st century is not merely the accumulation of knowledge. Learning is developing the skills and dispositions to make sense of information, build new understandings, and create and share new ideas with others. The publication of Standards for the 21st-Century Learner by the American Association of School Librarians (AASL, 2008) confirmed this vision for learning. Teacher librarians know that students must acquire literacy, technology, critical thinking and inquiry skills to gain knowledge and understanding. Librarians join other educators, business leaders, and community members in responding to the critical mandate to produce graduates who are empowered, flexible thinkers and creators who will flourish, both academically and personally, in the world. The challenge for teacher librarians is to figure out how to empower students to be 21st-century learners through our school library programs. Our best path to meet that challenge can be framed from the wisdom of Mahatma Gandhi: “You must be the change you want to see in the world.” We must become 21st –century learners and teachers ourselves first. The librarians and teachers who created the instructional lessons and units in this electronic book are the embodiment of Gandhi’s wisdom – they are 21st-century thinkers and creators. Their examples, which can be adopted or adapted across all grade levels and content areas, help us to think about effective collaborative instruction by teacher librarians and classroom teachers and the essential characteristics of 21st-century learning: active and empowering; creative; thoughtful; authentic; collaborative; shared; information-rich; and technology-based. Certainly, every lesson in this book engages students in active learning. Students are expected to find and use information, create their own stories, read and respond to favorite books, evaluate web sites, and even write poetry. The outlined activities are carefully scaffolded by the arc of the lessons themselves, from Direct Instruction to Modeling and Guided Practice, to Independent Practice, and finally to Sharing and Reflecting. Accompanying the lessons are lists of resources and, available through links, actual handouts and rubrics. Many of the lessons are designed to empower students to make informed choices – about which information offers the most value for their projects, what books they most want to read, or how they will portray ideas visually. The lessons are replete with creativity, often capitalizing on opportunities available through technology for students to design and present their own ideas through movies, wikipages, and podcasts. Students are invited to blog and glog, to explore the world through Google Earth, and to combine multiple formats into powerful presentations of their work. Just as teacher librarians and classroom teachers collaborate to produce effective instruction, so many of the lessons are designed to enable students to collaborate with each other in asking wonder questions, finding high-quality information, developing products, and reflecting on their learning. Students are expected to use technology to share their own work and provide feedback to their classmates. One last characteristic of 21st-century learning embedded in these lessons deserves special mention. Several of the lessons/units lead the students to find and use information for authentic purposes, from finding out about the human body to creating class books to planning a business trip to Japan or buying Spanish real estate. Much educational research shows the power of authentic learning for producing high levels of understanding and engagement. Teacher librarians are in a prime position in the school, as connectors to the community and collaborators with teachers across the curriculum, to foster authenticity and creativity in all students. The editors are pleased to offer this publication to share the creative and collaborative ideas of 21st-century librarians with teacher librarians everywhere. Together, we can ensure that all of our students develop the skills and dispositions to learn and fulfill their own dreams. |