Assume Nothing

My first question about the course’s text, Reading the web, was how difficult is it to read web sources. Why devote an entire course to reading and interpreting the content of web pages? How does reading web sources differ from text-based materials? I quickly learned not to take anything for granted. This course introduced me to the new literacy skills; skills directly applied to web and digital resources. The new literacy skills, the 21st century fluency skills, teach students to apply speaking and listening skills, to evaluate the accuracy and usefulness of information, to draw from their prior knowledge, and to take organized clear complete notes. In addition, these fluencies help students to enhance their technical abilities, to become more fluent with digital tools and to collaborate with others by exchanging ideas and opinions in a social learning environment (Jukes & Mac Donald, 2007).

I found that an amazing, but disquieting discovery is the existence of hoax websites, in particular, “The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus” site. I still haven’t determined the reasons for creating a hoax site; however, I’ve learned that the REAL procedure will help both my students and I evaluate a site’s validity and reliability. In addition, I learned how to use a screen cast. This is a great and convenient digital tool that I can incorporate into my instructional practice!

As a literacy teacher, I am always interested in incorporating new additional reading comprehension strategies into my classroom practice. Eagleton & Dobler (2007) offer excellent strategies and handout examples for students to use to summarize and to synthesize information. The CHoMP is an excellent strategy to help my students to determine the main idea, important details, and to develop summaries of reading passages.

I plan to continue to develop my scaffolding and questioning skills and techniques that will encourage students to think deeply and critically. I have found that essential questions help to focus and provide rigor to instructional objectives. I want to add more questioning approaches and strategies to my instructional “tool box”.

References

Eagleton, M. B., & Dobler, E. (2007). Reading the Web: Strategies for Internet inquiry. New York: The Guilford Press.

Retrieved December 20, 2009, from http://web.mac.com/iajukes/thecommittedsardine/Handouts_files/twca.pdf