Upon reflection on what I have learned throughout this course I think the most striking revelation is that being literate in the 21st Century involves much more than just being able to use a computer. It involves being able to navigate, evaluate, question, communicate, collaborate, and synthesize information that is found using the Internet. In that past I have taken it for granted that students would be able to determine the authenticity of a website and to find relevant information on their own. The thought of embarking on an inquiry project was overwhelming because I was never sure where to start. My eyes have been opened to some important aspects of what I need to do to help my students be literate in the 21st Century.
I think the QUEST model (Eagleton & Dobler, 2007) will help me in future inquiry projects because I now have a much better understanding of how to break it down into pieces that will create learning opportunities for students to not only practice the 21st Century skills, but gather and construct knowledge on topics that are relevant. I have learned the importance of allowing students to create their own questions to be answered. By teaching them how to find the answers to these questions I am instilling some valuable tools that my students will use for the rest of their lives.
My own personal goal includes taking the steps to be involved in creating an Internet usage, plagiarism, and copyright policy for our elementary school. Currently the policy that was adopted by our school board is very generic and outdated. After talking to fellow colleagues I am not the only one that wasn’t aware that there was one. I think there is a strong need to develop a plan that is not only clear, but shared, understood and followed by all the teachers, students, and parents in our school. Using what I have learned from this course I will develop a committee of parents and teachers to develop a plan that will outline what is acceptable Internet usage. We will also develop a plan that outlines the steps and guidelines that teachers and parents should follow to teach students how to be 21st Century literate.
Eagleton, M. B., & Dobler, E. (2007). Reading the web: Strategies for Internet inquiry. New York: The Guilford Press.
