First Blog - Top of the First

Let me be the first to welcome all who read this to my first attempt at blogging. This also serves as my reflective essay for one of my current classes that I am taking through Walden University as part of my Masters program in integrating technology into the classroom.

As part of this class, I have been made aware of the importance of becoming literate with regards to the web and the internet. I have realized that being a reader of high quality when it comes to books and other printed texts does not necessarily mean that someone will be of the same quality of reader when it comes to the internet. Also, I have realized that the internet brings along with it a whole new set of difficulties, and students who have difficulty reading printed text could very well have twice as much trouble when it comes to reading and evaluating the internet and various web pages. Until now, I assumed that if a student was a high-level reader that he or she would also perform well when reading the internet for information. Finally, the act of reading the internet also involves the same skills that a reader of text uses. Among others, it involves activating prior knowledge, predicting, determining important details, synthesizing, monitoring, and repairing. The use of the internet to locate information involves the New Literacies Perspective and its functions - generating important questions or problems to be solved, locating relevant information, critically evaluating the usefulness of that information, synthesizing information to address the questions or problems, and communicating information to others. This involves successfuly "surfing" the internet and navigating with a topic in mind, finding the needed web pages, deciding if the pages offer accurate and relevant information, and then determining how to express your results to the rest of the world.

Because of this course, I have realized that being able to read and evaluate information on the internet is just as important as being able to read and evaluate information from a text. In the years to come, it may become more important, especially in this quickly ever-changing world where the need for information and to send information as quick as possible is a necessity.

A professional goal of mine will be to make the internet and the use of technology more of a major part of the education of my students. Up until now, I have viewed the internet as something to make use of when my students and class had the time and if we didn't have the time, well, it would be all right. I also felt that my students would learn how to navigate and use the internet on their own or from dribs and drabs in class. I now see my responsibilty as and educator to make sure all of my students are not only literate when it comes to printed text, but also when it comes to the world wide web. I will need to incorporate the internet into my classroom on a regular basis. To do this, I will have to take a close look at my curriculum and see how to make the internet fit. I will definitely make use of the QUEST model of inquiry in my plans.