Blog #2: Article Reflection on "Students Learn Cyber Skills At a No-Tech School"

Article Highlights: 
The article emphasizes on how a chartered middle school does not implement technology of any kind in the classroom until students reach 6th grade; instead students focus on hands-on or art-based activities, such as knitting gardening, music, storytelling, etc. It discusses its technology program called the "Civics Program". The program builds skills in technology starting at the 6th grade level with digital citizenship (netiquette), research and information literacy in the 7th grade. Finally in the 8th grade students learn about media literacy, conducting research and correctly citing online information, as well as learning the parts of a computer and how a computer works.

Discussion Questions:

  1. Do you think that PSS should adopt a similar curriculum?
  2. What do you believe are the benefits and disadvantages of this program?
  3. Do you think that these skills are already embedded into the current Computer Literacy curriculum or Technology Standards and Benchmarks? If not, at what grade level would you recommend we incorporate these skills? 


 Personal Reflection on Information and Media Literacy:

Information and media literacy are essential to be successful in the digital age. I feel that these skills need to be explicitly taught as a whole or separate curriculum rather than try to incorporate these skills into minor lessons. I feel that if we teach it as a whole separate course then maybe students will be able to use the resources appropriately and correctly the first time rather than having to be hassled or reminded about these skills constantly or when an issue should arise. It is not enough to give the students access to this information; we need to also emphasis how to use this information and resources the correct way.




Comments

  1. Unknown8 November 2013 at 03:16

    After this Tech. Cohort, I really would not mind teaching a course on these tools. Thanks for the idea.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lauren Francis8 November 2013 at 17:17

    I think having a "Civics Program" like the one in the article would be very cool! It would be an opportunity to continue to remind our students of the value of creating concrete products. Limiting ourselves to only using technology in my opinion can be just as bad as using no technology. Not all students can access one or the other. As such we must find a happy medium.
    However, I do feel we need to teach bits and pieces of information and media literacy earlier than 6th grade. Perhaps starting as early as second or third grade when students are showing the undivided attention to a task and the gross and fine motor skills development needed.

    ReplyDelete

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