8.+Resources

=Overview / Description:=

According to the ISTE Nets Standards (2011), “Simply being able to use technology is no longer enough. Today's students need to be able to use technology to analyze, learn, and explore. Digital age skills are vital for preparing students to work, live, and contribute to the social and civic fabric of their communities.” The new literacies of today are at the heart of how our students are learning to read, write and communicate. It has become essential that teacher librarians and literacy leaders take the reins in guiding our students in the right direction, particularly when it comes to comprehending and decoding what they read online. Currently students are observed in numerous online habits such as “super-squirreling” and “website kangarooing” (Jaeger, 2011). “Internet technology has had a significant impact on reading strategies, resulting in a need to reshape our thinking about classroom reading practice” (Sutherland-Smith, 2002, p. 662).

In order to prepare our students with “digital age skills” we need to make the teaching of online reading skills an imperative in our schools and classrooms. Sutherland-Smith (2002) reminds us that “the internet can be an intimidating and difficult medium to manage, with its constant rapid changes, but technology skills are essential for survival in the 21st century. Therefore, students and teachers must be competent and more important, comfortable with the medium” (p. 663). Clearly as literacy leaders today, we need to develop the building blocks of working in this digital environment and ensure our students are reading effectively online! Teachers need to be reminded that developing readers today means more than just preparing them to read fiction or non-fiction in printed form, we must prepare them for an increasingly digital world. By no means is this an easy task, as the speed and development of new technologies is changing as we speak, but ignoring the need to incorporate these new literacies into our instruction is only to the detriment of our students and their future in this information-rich society.

=Links:=

1. The following website is an excellent rundown of the basic workings of the internet for students just starting out, each lesson explains the various concepts we have covered in our workshop in detail. Follow the bee! []

2. Teaching Critical Evaluation on the internet: Blending Strategy instruction with Collaborative Inquiry (Coiro, 2008) []

3. [|"Deconstructing Websites]" guides students as they evaluate a website. This website promoted through the Media Awareness Network provides a simple to understand approach to website evaluation using the 5 W's.

4. New Literacies of the Internet (Donald Leu, 2012) []

5. This video entitled "[|A Family of Readers]" was shared by the NY Times alongside a series of articles regarding the changing landscape of reading amongst generations. The accompanying article can be accessed here and gives food for thought regarding both fiction and non-fiction reading differences within a family setting. []

6. This slideshow was presented in person by the director of the Pew Internet, Lee Rainie, at the SLJ summit conference in 2011; the information, statistics and thought-provoking questions definitely make one think about the importance of adequately equipping our students with the necessary literacy skills to engage in all these forms of reading online. []

7. Online Reading Comprehension with Dr.Coiro is a podcast about how students read online. media type="custom" key="13415478"

8. [|Exploring Literacy in Cyberspace] provides a lesson plan that teaches students to compare their online reading with offline reading. During this process, students use critical thinking skills and meta-cognitive skills to identify the strategies they are able to transfer from print to online reading and vice versa. This lesson is recommended for students in grades 9-12, but we believe that students in grades 6-8 would also benefit from a lesson like this one.

9. This blog post offers an interesting look at opposing arguments regarding the effects of online reading on the amount of reading that is happening. []. Arguments have definitely evolved as we have broadened our definition of reading.

10. This is an absolutely amazing and thorough slideshare presentation by Julie Coiro that sums up the skills and strategies our students need to read and write with these new literacies. Check it out: []

=Recommended Reading List:=

1. Coiro, J. (2005). Making sense of online text. //Educational Leadership, 63//(2). Retrieved from [] //This article was the basis for this presentation. The author talks about four aspects of reading online: analyzing search results, navigating within a website, evaluating information and synthesizing.//

2. Koechelin, C. & Zwaan, S. (2006). //Q tasks: how to empower students to ask questions and care about answers.// Markham, ON : Pembroke Publishers. //This is an amazing resource for the inquiry classroom. It is full of ready-to-go lessons and blackline masters to get your students creating the best questions for inquiry and research.//

3. Leu, D.J., Jr. (2002, February). Internet workshop: making time for literacy [Exploring Literacy on the Internet department]. //The Reading Teacher, 55//(5). Retrieved March 20, 2012 from: [] //In this article, Leu introduces teachers to the idea of “Internet Workshop”. It is designed around how literacy and is similar to the principle of a readers’ or writers’ workshop.//

4. Donald Leu edits the book, //Innovative approaches to literacy education: Using the internet to support new literacies//, written by Rachel A. Karchmer, Marla H. Mallette, & Julia Kara-Soteriou. (2005). // This book looks at various way that teachers have used the internet and online reading strategies into their instructional practices to address the new literacies of today. //

5. McKenzie, J. (2009). __Beyond Cut and Paste: Engaging Students in Making Good New Ideas__. FNO Press; Bellingham, Washington. McKenzie provides many practical examples and suggestions for modifying assignments so that students are required to synthesize information in new ways rather than just cut and pasting from one place online to another.

6. Sutherland-Smith,W. (2002). Weaving the literacy web: Changes in reading from page to screen. //The Reading Teacher//, //55//(7), 662-669. //This article gives an excellent overview of the development of reading literacy from print to the web; from students' perceptions to implications and strategies for reading on the web.//

7. [|New Literacies for the 21st Century- Lisa Z's Resources for Teaching New Literacies] //This is a google site full of excellent resources for teaching online reading comprehension among other new literacies associated with higher order thinking skills.//

8. Check out our Scoop.it of articles, blogs and further readings regarding online reading! [] // Our own little 'newspaper' of online articles, blogs and further readings about online reading. //