Carl Heine is developing a series of online learning games to teach elementary students the essentials of search. We’re looking for feedback and suggestions as we begin the development cycle.
We have an Information Fluency group on Joyce Valenza’s Teacher Librarian Ning where we are asking for feedback on our new elementary age games.
Please join the Ning and our group so you can participate in our beta test?
Tags: Learning Games · Technology Integration · information fluency · research
I’ve been researching and writing about Information Fluency since the turn of the century. My work is published on the 21st Century Information Fluency Portal: http://21cif.imsa.edu You’ll find modular online learning content including games, micromodules and assessments on the portal. (Free for all educators.)
I include information fluency training in all of my online classes. I introduce power searching and website investigation to the graduate students studying in the E-Learning and Online Teaching Certificate Program at UW-Stout ( http://www.uwstout.edu/soe/profdev/elearningcertificate.html ) because I believe that Information Fluency is a foundation skill for all online teachers and learners.
What continually surprises me is that most educators (including those with advanced degrees) lack formal training in this field. Unless I’m working with a Library Media Specialist, most have little experience in searching, evaluating, and ethical use of digital materials.
Curiously, most educators think they are competent searchers and evaluators, when they are really just beginners. Their disposition is to ask for help rather than search for answers. With simple instruction many radically improve their ability to search, and evaluate. This is empowering and greatly increases learner satisfaction. Instruction in copyright and fair use is also part of the program.
At the same time I push the idea that it is everyone’s duty to teach website evaluation and ethical use as part of any online curriculum. Too often educators assume someone else should have done the job by the time their students walk through the door. The application of information fluency to all curriculum areas is profound. Students given even rudimentary instruction in Information Fluency immediately benefit.
As online teachers and learners we work in a computer where information is just a few keystrokes away. I hope we can promote the disposition in all online teachers and learners that skilled use of Internet resources is the essential learning skill of our times.
Dennis O’Connor
Program Advisor
E-Learning & Online Teaching
School of Education
Online Professional Development
University of Wisconsin-Stout
Wisconsin’s Polytechnic University
oconnord@uwstout.edu
530-318-1145 (Cell)
Skype: wiredinstructor2
Tags: 21cif · Course Design Reflections · IMSA · Learning Games · Top Posts · UW-Stout · Web 2.0 · e-learning · ethical use · evaluation · information fluency · virtual high school
Search Help, Evaluation and Digital Ethics for School, Business and Home
Courses Starting Soon…
Use our modular content to snap together your own unique training course.
Next session starts Aug 4 (4 Weeks $99)
Login as guest: Moodle Classroom| Course Description
Next session starts Aug 11 (2 Weeks $68) Login as guest: Moodle Classroom | Course Description
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Tags: 21cif · Learning Games · Web 2.0 · e-learning · ethical use · evaluation · moodle
Long standing slow conversation hosted my Susan Manning. This is a learningtimes.org discussion (free membership required). Good ideas on game based learning!
(tags: games e-learning)
Tags: Learning Games · Web 2.0 · e-learning · links · podcasting
We’ve redesigned our website. Please drop by 21cif.imsa.edu and check out the changes?
You’ll no longer have to login to access our resource kits.
We’ve added a direct link our Information Fluency Group on the Teacher Librarian Ning to our main menu.
We’re developing an integrated blog and wiki.
We’ve added an online store that will streamline Moodle course registration.
The conversion process to our new server has been a long and interesting road. We’ve still got a few bumps to smooth out. If you notice a problem let us know.
In the meantime, take a look and them let us know what you think of the new design?
Dennis & Carl
Tags: 21cif · Connections · IMSA · Learning Games · Web 2.0
The ning of virtual worlds?
Right now we’re focusing on helping developers understand our tools through a private beta community. During 2008, we’ll be opening it up so that anyone can download the tools. If you have your own IP and a large online community then talk to us about the benefits of using VastPark as your virtual worlds platform. Own your own virtual worlds and re-brand the software for your community!
Tags: Learning Games · Web 2.0 · e-learning
A visual search engine for kids? This feels like a ‘closed search engine’ developed for kids that uses an advanced tag cloud to make searching along pre-established paths easy to do. Great way to introduce search to the little guys.
(tags: Search)
Tags: Learning Games · e-learning
Sloodle Presentation » SlideShare
Sloode (Moodle) on Second Life Presentation.
Moodle Modules Daniels » SlideShare
TESOL- Teacher working in Japan using Moodle for his language classes demos interesting media blog installation
results of searching for moodle on slideshare
Compilation of articles about efficacy of E-Schools
ISTE NETS e-Portfolio Templates
Variety of templates in a number of different formats. Solid stuff
Teaching Styles Self Assessment
Teaching Styles for online teachers?
Resource page… lots of links to graphic goodies…
Tags: Learning Games · e-learning · moodle
MA309 Power Searching: Information Fluency at Your Fingertips
Click Through to register for a half day workshop!
[Workshop: Hands-on] with Carl Heine & Dennis O’Connor, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, 21st Century Information Fluency Project.
Monday, 6/25/2007, 8:30am–11:30am; (location available mid-May)
Search more efficiently and evaluate digital information more effectively. Learn digital research techniques that return better information more quickly using the Internet.
Purpose & Objectives
This session strengthens participant’s skills in using the Internet to find credible information. Since 2004, Power Searching workshops have been presented to over 1,000 Illinois teachers, librarians, technology coordinators and administrators. Participants report that they learn many new search and evaluation techniques and, as a result, are better able to find high-quality information they need for instruction and better equipped to pass these skills along to students.
Digital information fluency is a necessary 21st Century skill for all teachers and learners. A statement issued this year by the American Association of School Librarians underscores the importance of teaching students to “access up-to-date information from around the world, to evaluate its relevance to the questions at hand, to assess its authority and reliability, and to apply it to information problem solving.” (American Library Association, 2006). To fail to do so, the report contends, leaves students at risk, “inadequately prepared for the workplace and adult life.”
This workshop approaches the need by training the trainers, giving them strategies and tactics they can use to enhance their productivity and pass along to those they teach.
As a result of this session, participants will…
1. Become more efficient Internet searchers:
• Knowing when and how to use search engines, subject directories and browsing optimally;
• Building powerful queries with the right keyword and operator strategies;
• Finding the best databases to search for the information they need;
• Searching the Deep Web;
• Analyzing search results for important clues;
• Overcoming common information “dead ends,” such as “page not found” and finding relevant information buried in millions of returns (and raising it to the top).
2. Become more effective digital evaluators:
• Credibility criteria: Authorship, Publication, Date, Accuracy, Links To and From, Bias, Evidence, External Support and Expert Reviews;
• Red flags: domains, un-endorsed pages, links.
3. Practice with tools for teaching these skills to students:
• Instructional tools for advanced searching, evaluating digital information and citing it accurately;
• Interactive tutorial games that provide instruction and feedback in search and evaluation techniques
• Self-paced MicroModules on strategies and techniques;
Outline
Introductions, 21st Century Information Fluency, and identifying the need (15 minutes)
Searching Efficiently: (1.5 hours)
• Five minute search: find today’s workshop materials online*
• Analyzing what went right and wrong in the first search (discussion)
• Digital Information Fluency process (presentation)
• Turning questions into effective queries: The Buffalo Search*
• Keyword selection: Keyword Challenge Tutorial*
• Keyword power: Professional vocabulary, synonyms, hyponyms and hypernyms*
• Search Engine Strategies, understanding literal matching (demonstration)
• Keywords, operators and special operators (demonstration)
• Choosing the best database for searching (demonstration)
• Deep Web searching: Broadway Search, Page not Found Search*
• Recognizing relevance: Find command and scanning: Gold Rush Challenges*
• Finding better keywords: Great Wall Challenge*
• Learning cycle: Live Internet Search Challenges and MicroModules*
Evaluating Effectively: (45 minutes)
• Credibility criteria: What do you use? (discussion)
• Digital Information Fluency process and the Revision decision (presentation)
• Analyzing author, publisher, and links To: Truncation, browsing, searching with special operators (demonstration)
• Encountering red Flags: domain, ~ (unendorsed pages)
• Three Live Evaluation Challenges*
MySearch and Questions (30 minutes)
Fifteen minute search on an individually selected topic*
* the asterisk represents an online activity for learners
Tags: Connections · IMSA · Learning Games · Web 2.0 · e-learning · moodle · research
Tags: IMSA · Learning Games · e-learning
NECC 2007 Five Obstacles to Information Fluency (and How to Remove Them)
Five Obstacles to Information Fluency (and How to Remove Them)
NECC 2007 Teaching Information Fluency: IMSA’s Full Circle Resource Kit
NECC 2007 MA309 Power Searching: Information Fluency at Your Fingertips
Carl Heine, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy with Dennis O’Connor
Monday, 6/25/2007, 8:30am–11:30am; Hands on workshop, moodle based, 1/2 day hands on workshop. Filling Fast! Click through to register.
(tags: NECC 21cif imsa information-fluency)
Tags: IMSA · Learning Games · Web 2.0 · e-learning · moodle
This is a new course I wrote for IMSA!I use a modular game based approach. The games provide guided practice to back up the readings and discussion. It will be offered via Moodle to educators in Wisconsin and the world. Give it a look! ~ Dennis
This new six-week on-line course empowers participants to search efficiently, evaluate Internet and Web 2.0 information effectively and use it ethically incorporating the full range of 21st Century Information Fluency skills and resources.
This course, developed by 21CIF and sponsored by Wisconsin CESA 6, is open to all adults who desire to become fluent in searching and evaluating on-line resources. Anyone who intends to teach 21st Century Information Skills to students and staff should complete this training.
Details:
Objectives:
Write: BARB BOHN, PROGRAM ASSISTANT, P.O. BOX 2568, OSHKOSH, WI 54903-2568 OR EMAIL TO BBOHN@CESA6.K12.WI .US; QUESTIONS CALL 920-236-0552
Or
See the announcement on the 21st Century Information Fluency Site!
Check it out! ~Dennis
Tags: Course Design Reflections · IMSA · Learning Games · Web 2.0 · e-learning · moodle
Librarians Rock
I’m at the Wisconsin Educational Media Association conference. It is inspiring to be with folks who have the vision. The energy born of optimism is sometimes a rare thing to see at an educators conference. The hard working library media folks from all over Wisconsin clearly understand what’s going on. The trainers I’ve met from CESA are true believers too. During a standing room only presentation by John Pederson on lesser known Google tools, John asked how many Library Media specialists there were in the room. All those hands went up. It made the need for what we do real for me. (Remember, as wiredinstructor, I spend a lot of time up in the little room researching and writing. I don’t get out enough… that’s clear. 
Power Searcher &…?
I’m here to present the Power Searcher Workshop with my IMSA partner Carl Heine. We’ll then follow up with a hybrid presentation of a new course for the CESA trainers from around the state.
The new online class is presented in Moodle and weaves the skills of Information Fluency in a Web 2.0 environment into a 6 week facilitated fully online course. I’m pleased with the beta design. I’ve woven in many of Carl’s games as interactive hands-on practice of the concepts. The learning games and the collaborative tools available in Moodle make for a dynamic experience. This is a chance for me to work live with a very sharp group that will be teaching the course in Wisconsin. I’m looking forward to just watching how folks interact with the content. It’s rare opportunity for an online guy to see interactions with a new class.
Carl and I are toying with a name for the course: Power Searching says it, but we’d like something that catches the critical thinking aspect. Digital Investigator, WSI-Google (WebSite Investigator-Google), Internet Forensics? For now it’s just called the Survey Course… ah well, we’ll find something.
Dennis@Madison
Tags: IMSA · Learning Games · Web 2.0 · e-learning · links
evaluate.swf (application/x-shockwave-flash Object)
Flash version of Evaluation Wizard– Walks you through website evaluation in a game based environment. One of the capabilities of a power searcher is the ability to evaluate digital resources efficiently. IMSA has had a 10-step online evaluation wizard online for years. Now Carl Heine has built a flash based game that helps you manipulate the criteria in unique way. Free and online!
Tags: IMSA · Learning Games · Web 2.0 · e-learning
The Education Arcade explores games that promote learning through authentic and engaging play.
ACM Computers in Entertainment
Computers in Entertainment
A premier online magazine on entertainment technology with an editorial board of more than 100 industry and academic leaders, ACM Computers in Entertainment features video interviews with leading professionals and research pape
Social Impact Games :: Entertaining Games with Non-Entertainment Goals
Welcome to our revised site, which now boasts an index (see left). All the content on this site (except comments) is available without logging in. We have now identified over 500 serious games, which we are in the process of adding to this list.”
How to get super hi-rez out of google maps.
Tags: Learning Games · Web 2.0 · e-learning
