Web Literacy For Educators

Full of new ideas and lots of texts from ISTE, I began with Alan November's "Web Literacy for Educators". It seemed the most appropriate place to start. I went into it thinking "What should I know before I can teach my students"..This is what I walked away with... in short, of course.

Anyone can author a web page.
The most important thing in web literacy is to know the Grammar of the Internet. Things teachers take for granted, such as how to read a URL, how to find out who published the web site, or who paid to have it published,and how to evaluate sites that are linked to a website.

If you can't explain:
IP address
Domain Names and the Top Level Domains
subdomains
country codes
and URL's.

This book is definitely for you. It is written in easy to understand terminology for a beginner. It provides activities for the educator reading it AND for the students that you are working with (little activities to prove a point).

Even though I wouldn't consider myself a beginner, I found alot of new information that made me stop and say "A-Ha".

For Example-
I always thought that if a site was an .edu it was safe and factual... NOT TRUE!!!! if a ~(tilde-didn't remember that was what that symbol was called either) is in the URL then it is stating the opinions of the author of the page and not necessarily that of the University or any of its affiliates.

Using the internet is ALL about critical thinking. If you can Google the answer to a question and get it right away, then you are wasting your students' brain cells. They MUST evaluate websites, confirm sources (just like we used to in the card catalog days-3 sources= factual), and put the new knowledge together to make judgment calls.

Also, he uses the acronym get "REAL" to help students remember how to evaluate sites and sources.

I honestly would not have picked this book up and read it by choice. I had never heard of Alan November before and was vain enough to believe I was web literate. This was a good read with valuable information that has truly made me rethink the way I am going to approach computer research in my classroom this year.

FMI-