ROSYTH THINKTOT

If IT is it, what is IT?

Just read the article on RGPS's IT literacy skills development and I thought I would like to give my 2 cents worth (together with the help of some learned friends/sources) on what IT literacies are, and how we can help our pupils achive excellence or high comptencies in these areas.

It has been more than 10 years since IT MP1, and with the commercial world and the world outside school embracing and working, playing and learning with IT's many manifestations( look at monile phones, online gaming etc), we in school are still grappling with ___?

If we acknowledge that we are entering or already in a new era with our definitions of literacy being reinterpreted or redefined (with the accompanying increases in demands and stresses!), then what are we doing in school to prepare our pupils for this new world or more importantly what are we doing with the kinds of literacies they are engaged with in our mediacentric society.

Let's start with a simple programme like MS PowerPoint. A wonderful and seemingly heaven sent 'tool' that evntually became a more dynamic OHP/chalkboard. (Or am I being overly presumptious?)

Read this positive and negative articles about PowerPoint and an article in the LA Times titled "Making a (Power) point of not being tiresome" which led me to read Cliff Atkinson's work with PowerPoint, which led me to rethink how I should use PowerPoint in my presntation and how I should teach my pupils to use PowerPoint and of course, how Ishould assess their presentations.

One person who I always look forward to reading is Jaime MacKenzie and his website "From Now ON" which offers these two articles examining what would constitute powerful and engaging, or what he calls 'slam dunk' lessons. In 2000, he wrote an article "Scoring PowerPoints" which still has much needed relevance in our use and assessmnet of In his latest article he examines the idea of "The Deep Web", which offers much food for thought, especially when it comes to understanding what it really means to do effective research. This site is a treasure trove of articles and ideas which provoke, challenge and force us to reflect and possible rethink our asumptions , beliefs and eventually our practices.

The one thing I come aways with after reading many of Jaime's articles is that there are no ready, easy answers to what and how we should incorporate, integrate or teach IT in school, but we should be working on what IT literacies can and should mean and what can we do in school, to ensure that we develop a rich, meaningful and purposeful artculation of what teaching and learning IT can be in school.

posted by William Grosse @ 8:34 AM