Transforming Information Literacy for NowGen Students: The Media 21 Project
The Collaborative Process
In March 2009, I approached Susan Lester, one of our school’s tenth grade English teachers, with an idea for a collaborative project grounded in connectivism and participatory librarianship. For my Media 21 Capstone project (please see
http://portal.cherokee.
k12.ga.us/departments/technology/media/ default.aspx) , I wanted to create a semester long experience that would help students learn how to use social media and cloud computing for learning and as a means of cultivating a personal learning network. In addition, I wanted students to engage in learning through
collective 14
knowledge building and inquiry. After sharing the resources and research I had collected to support this vision of learning, Susan agreed to take a leap of faith and join me on this journey of teaching and learning. Together, we outlined content based and information literacy performance standards we wanted students to master. We collaborated to draft a list of learning activities and tools we wanted to implement, and we developed a master list of materials (books, databases, hardware) that we wanted to purchase with local school and Media 21 program funding.
by Buffy Hamilton, Ed.S
I fielded questions from students via email and provided feedback on the class blog and individual student learning blogs.
During the first semester, we engaged in units of inquiry about ways people can use social media and then actually used social media and cloud computing tools as tools for facilitating learning and creating content as well as actual information sources. Highlights of our first semester learning experiences included:
“I wanted to create a semester long experience that would help students learn how to use social media and cloud computing for learning and as a means of cultivating a personal learning network.”
• An eight week unit in which we explore the use of social media for educational uses and as a form of authoritative information. We also explore the use of social
Media
Over the summer, we collaborated in person and via email to fine tune our plans. Once the school year began August 3, we hit the ground running together, with both of us providing the first day orientation of the course to students. For two periods a day for an entire semester, I served as co-teacher of the course on a daily basis, creating and facilitating mini-lessons, providing group and individual instruction, designing lesson plans, co- creating assessment rubrics, facilitating the course blog, course website, and course wiki, and assisting with the formative and summative evaluation of student learning artifacts. Along with Ms. Lester,
media for social good, exploring examples of real world uses of social media for social justice and charitable causes; in addition, we participated in the blogathon for the Louisville Free Public Library at the end of August. Please see http://www.
theunquietlibrary.libguides.com/wikis-media21,
http://www.theunquietlibrary.libguides.com/ google,
http://www.theunquietlibrary.libguides. com/socialmediaforsocialgood, and http://www.
theunquietlibrary.libguides.com/media21home for the research pathfinders that supports this collaborative effort.
• The design of a ten week unit in which students engaged in inquiry about issues in Africa. We designed the structure and learning tools which focused on student literature circles and individual research on an issue in Africa depicted in the literature circle reading. We incorporated the use of research reflection blog entries and reading reflection posts as well as literature circle group wikis with Google Sites to encourage sharing and for students to see research and reading as forms of deeper inquiry and learning. Learning artifacts included a traditional research
www.mimame.org
Spring 2010
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