Blog Post #2

After reading and watching the resources for this blog post I really came away at first feeling a little bit overwhelmed myself. After reading resource 2, "My Daily Info-Wrangling Routine" I definitely felt overwhelmed. While reading his article, I found myself thinking "What is Pinboard, Diigo, etc.?" The resources really got me thinking about how students these days have unlimited access to all the information in the world, sometimes they just have no idea how to tap into it. After reflecting on this fact, I remembered a day in my own class that my students were allowed to use their phones in class for research. Our school has a BYOD policy. This was one of the first times this particular class had them out and I was astonished at how many of them had no idea where to go to look for information. The video Infowhelm and Information Fluency alluded to the same fact. At the end it asked if we were doing all we could as educators to teach our students how to use sources. That particular day in my classroom when my students were all over the place on the internet researching abolitionists I was totally taken aback!

After reading the articles I also felt as though I still have a long way to go before I am even digitally literate, as Karen Lienman likes to put it. I especially felt behind the times when I read "My Daily Info-Wrangling Routine." I found myself thinking, how on earth could anyone do all of that in one day!?

My favorite resource was "8 Ways Into Inquiry Learning." It might have been the fact that Diana Laufenberg teaches history and so do I. I found her comment on kids not wanting to come into class burning to learn about the War of 1812 totally relatable. I felt  as though I could relate to this article a little bit more because she discussed how kids won't take risks for you/themselves unless they know you have a vested interest in them. It reminded me of something my very first principal told us at a faculty meeting. He said "Kids don't care what you know until they know that you care." That statement stuck with me and I have found it to be entirely true throughout my first 3 years of teaching. I also liked her article because it gave me an idea I could use in my own classroom when we discuss immigration also!

I feel as though all of these resources are very similar in discussing how broad the world is now. We have information at our fingertips if we can just possess the skills to "weed" through the overwhelming amount of information that comes at us all day long through the different avenues of social media. I also feel like they all hinted to the fact that in order to truly give our students the skills they need, we (as teachers) will have to loosen the reigns of control and allow students to get there on their own. We will have to let them fail, as Diana Laufenberg said. Failure is good, as long as you learn from it.

These resources definitely are related to my learning goals. I have already had two great ideas I could use in my classroom by reading these 3 articles and watching the video. These articles also made me feel ok about not being digitally fluent. At first I felt overwhelmed, but after reflecting it made me realize that no one can 100% keep up with all of these educational and technological trends. As long as we are trying to utilize and learn more we are doing ok (in my opinion)! As Karen Lirenman stated, "Things are changing so quickly these days that it pretty much is impossible to keep up. That's not a bad thing, but it is what it is."