Letting Go

Inquiry based learning is the learning of today and of the future. With the information available to the students today and how instantly they can find out anything they want to know, it is the only way to teach children effectively. Through the last century life, history, education, and technology have changed and multiplied to much that there is no possible way for teachers to load the students' brains with everything there is to learn in the thirteen years we have to teach them. Teaching children to find reliable information for themselves is going to set them up to be able go find the information they need throughout their lives.
Inquiry based learning puts the students in control of their learning. It takes learning to the next level. We all teach by standards that are written to cover a range of depth of knowledge. Teaching inquiry based, the learning taking place is going to take the depth of knowledge to a three or four. The student is not just memorizing information but using information in a real world situation.
Wiggins talked about his athletes being able to "transfer" the learning and applying what is learned to a whole situation (game) as opposed to being able to do only one move at a time. The basis of his article tells teachers to use a more performance based way of teaching. The students learning through performance using inquiry based learning are working and learning to function in the real world as they would if they were learning a sport and learning through game-like situations.
Being and art teacher, all of this makes perfect sense to me, as I teach this way. Art is learned through doing and making mistakes. Mistakes, in fact, makes for better learning. Nothing teaches a lesson better than making a mistake and figuring out how to fix it.

Reflective Searching

Although I am not technically of the "google" generation, I am one to go straight to my phone to search for information. I remember the days of asking my mom a question and her answer would be "look it up, dear". I would go to our set of encyclopedias that we had in the house and look it up.
I now go straight to my phone, much like my students, when I have a question to answer.
This week I have found that I am not as savvy at searching and I always thought myself to be. I was the one in my house to first learn to use the computer and search engines. AOL was my first experience with information seeking digitally. I took the challenges this week and did my best, but I found that some of the time the content would slow me down. The more I knew about the topic the better my searching was.
Based on the information from "The Information Behavior of the Researcher of the Future, I am a squirrel. I take information that I find interesting and relevant to my needs and I download or take a screenshot, and save it. I have tons of files saved on my external hard drive that I use all the time. I am the first to fill up my user drive on the school network as well as my desktop there. I invested in the external hard drive last year to have more space and keep it organized.

Blog Post #2

Whether it is digital literacy or digital fluency, teaching using technology, or using technology for yourself, these resources are all interconnected. Technology is the present and the future. Our students need the digital fluency to make it in the world and be a successful human being. In order for our students to be digitally fluent, we the educators of those students need to be digitally fluent. Using technology for the classroom is the first step. Teaching students about information literacy and how to find reliable information from the many digital resources available is going to bring the infinite information to our students. We need to teach our students how to find out for themselves instead of just telling them the information. The information comes to life when they are the ones to discover it.

Blog Post #1

My goals for my Information Fluency and Inquiry Learning class are: 

Goal 1: I would like to learn as many new technologies as I can throughout this class. I have been in school now for a year and I have been introduced to several new Web 2.0 tools. Some I fell in love with and some not so much. I figure the more exposure to these tools then the more I will have in my tool box to use in my teaching and experience as a media specialist in the future. 

Goal 2: I would like to discover even more ways to get and give information. Throughout the last year I have discovered some ways to get new information and have been using more ways than just Google. However, the more tools I am exposed to the more tools I have for future researching.