Becoming+Network-Wise.

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__**Article: Becoming Network-Wise _ J. LaBrie **__ I was excited to have been given this article to review. The author Will Richardson is a very credible source and surely knows his stuff. Last year I had the opportunity to hear him speak. He was invited by my district to speak about the topic of media literacy and how social media impacts our students. Although this article is peer-reviewed and serious in nature, I can attest that Will Richardson is a talented and entertaining speaker. He often reminded me of a stand-up comic whose routine was pertinent to teachers and the needs of our students. His article reminded me much of his presentation and I was happy to be reminded of our responsibilities as educators to educate our students about global and digital citizenship.

In his article Richardson discusses the different facets to education. Of course there are the traditional necessary subjects and curriculums that may be divided. Yet, regardless of subject area, there are certain skills that all of us educators should implement within our diverse classes. Richardson mentions a few obvious ones like self-direction, self-motivation and life-long learning skills. The one aspect that should also be embraced (which many, but not all, teachers are beginning to do) is that of network-literacy. Students cannot solely be literate in the physical world anymore. There is a digital and technological literacy need as well. The amount of facets related to this is immeasurable; yet we as teachers should not throw in the towel because of the wide breadth of responsibility. As I see it, if we accept this role of responsibility and if we all as educators are relentless in our search for “network-literacy” or students can be exposed to digital media in a variety of ways through a variety of perspectives.

The section within the article that especially caught my attention was entitled “Critically Reading Information.” Although I wasn’t surprised, it is mind-boggling that students believe nearly everything they read and count many sources as credible solely on the basis that it is on the internet so it “must be true.” Upon reading this section I was also enlightened to some of the course work from previous weeks in this class. The two group projects we’ve had so far required us to do webquests. One of the most important actions we were to take was to judge its credibility and worth, motive, political leanings etc. Had we not done this, the websites we would have reviewed would have been less than stellar. Granted, we are graduate level students, but this is an important key to keep in mind when we are creating webquests. I especially appreciated the provided source (Whois.net) and consider that I will use this in the future as well as encourage my students to do the same. I now know that I will ask my students to check for credibility in order to determine, as Richardson puts it “veracity and relevance of information.”

This article discusses the ways that literacy has moved in the direction of technology. Learning is no longer strictly occurring in a classroom. Anyone can learn from a variety of sources especially when the sources are online. With the great amount of information available to students online it is important to provide them with the information to determine if a source is accurate and teach them to use editorial traits to determine if the source is trustworthy. This article discusses a concept that many of us faced as students. I was a part of the beginning generations that began using social networking sites in high school. Our school’s responses to the vast numbers of students joining such sites were to ban them from school and block them from computers. I could not agree more with the article when it suggests that today’s generation needs to not only learn to read and write but to learn to use technology effectively. As I am learning to use Wiki spaces for educational purposes, I would encourage my students to do the same. Networking sites, blogs, and wiki spaces can be used for a positive purpose but the users should be provided the information regarding them to ensure they are used effectively.
 * __Article: Becoming Network-Wise J.Zumwalde __**
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