Monday, July 23, 2007

NoodleTools and 21st Century Literacies

NoodleTools has a new, cleaner, friendlier, brighter look, and it also has a new logo! Check it out at http://www.noodletools.com/!

This week, after our weekend work on literacy in IST 668, I decided to explore NoodleTools 21st Century Literacies, which can be found under Teacher Resources on the homepage. Coincidentally, Debbie Abilock just updated the site yesterday 7/22/07. According to Abilock, there are eight literacies that learners must develop in order to fully navigate the world in the 21st century:
Basic Language Literacy
Visual Literacy
Historical Literacy
Cultural Literacy
Information Literacy
Political Literacy and News Media Literacy
Scientific Literacy
Mathematical Literacy.
Under each of these literacies she has sample lessons, ideas for lesson, projects, and resources that are aimed at developing skills in each area.

I explored Information Literacy. Here information literacy is defined as "a transformational process in which the learner needs to find, understand, evaluate, and use information in various forms to create for personal, social or global purposes." What do you think about that definition? How does it compare to others that we have learnt? In addition, Abilock has what she calls "building blocks" for developing information literacy. These are Engaging, Defining, Initiating, Locating, Examining selecting comprehending assessing, Recording sorting organizing interpreting, Communicating, Synthesizing. Under each block, she has the skills and strategies that students should demonstrate, student outcomes, and curriculum and teaching design to build competency in each area. Click on any of the blue words in these categories and you will be taken to other links that can help you when teaching these skills. I could go on and on, but you can take a look for yourself at http://www.noodletools.com/debbie/literacies/information/1over/infolit1.html and tell me what you think.

3 comments:

Janine Henry said...

Thanks for another great resource. I have so much informatin that I want to share with my teachers in the fall.
As far as the building block are concerend I feel that these correlate with the comprehension skills we learned about this week. All of these aspects are crucial to teaching our students to become information literate.

Anonymous said...

Ahenryst,

Each time I visit Noodletools I find something new to explore. It's such a useful resource which only makes it more valuable. The eight types of literacies explored at this site including the "building blocks" for developing information literacy skills are a good read and very much in tune with our residency class. Perhaps at our next class you can spread the word about this site.

Melodee

www.makingwaves said...

I like the definition of information literacy because I am learning literacy is a transformation process. The definition can no longer be a neat package, it must be a defintion that is out of the box.
I just realized after last week class the person whole being defines his/her literacy behavior