Prior to the 21st century, literate defined a
person’s ability to read and write, separating the educated from the
uneducated.. Today the word literate has taken on an entirely
different meaning. Today employers do not want employees that are
merely literate. They want someone who is digitally literate.
According to Wikipedia, digital literacy is the
ability to locate, organize, understand, evaluate, and create
information using technology. However, this basic definition is
still not adequate. Digital literate people are adept at
communication and networking. They understand how to problem
solve. Being digitally literate means using skills teachers have
desired for students to understand for centuries—analysis, synthesis,
and evaluation. Current research shows that students allowed to
demonstrate and use digital competencies will out perform other
students on standardized assessments.
Our students are natives of cyberspace—they
are digitally savvy. No longer does it suffice for a teacher to retype
overheads into PowerPoint or SmartBoard and have students take notes.
No longer is it enough for a teacher to talk about another country and
point to a given city while holding up a map. Now teachers can do
a PowerPoint presentation with streaming video,
instant Internet access, and real-time audio-video interaction.
By choosing the right tools, students can converse with a student far
away while allowing satallite maps to close the distance between them
and the person to who they are engaging in conversation. Our
digital natives are asking for more of a constructivist approach to
learning.
As an ITRT I am commiteed to helping you in
any way to reach your goals of equipping our students to reaching the
goal of becoming digitally literate. I will be tounching base
with your gradelevel at least once a month. Please share with me
ways that I can be of assistance. We can go over test data and
determine the best ways for technology to support you and your
students.
While I will still create or locate resources
for you, I would love the opportunity to aid you in building your own
library of digital resources. Please tell me. . . How may I help
you?
Melanie Lewis, ITRT
AES, CES, MHES
mlewis@amherst.k12.va.us
My
Schedule
AES: Monday
Fridays: 9/4, 9/25,
10/16, 11/20, 12/18, 1/22, 2/19,
3/12, 4/2, 4/30
CES: Tuesday
Fridays: 9/11, 10/2,
10/23, 12/4, 1/8, 1/29, 2/26,
3/19, 4/16, 5/7
MHES : Thursday
Fridays: 9/18, 10/9,
11/6, 12/11, 1/15, 2/12, 3/5,
3/26, 4/23, 5/14
Wednesdays are ITRT Planning Days.
The last two
weeks of school are by appointment only. During the next two
weeks, I
will come around to speak with each grade level in each building.
I
will also set up SRI so that testing can begin as soon as
possible. I
will also check on Accelerated Reading and Accelerated Math.
