Providing+Support+-+Instructional+Technology+Essential+Standards

=Digital Literacy and the Information & Technology Essential Standards=

Overview
Reading and writing across the curriculum have taken on a new look thanks to social software. The literate individual uses a broader range of strategies and tools to create knowledge in a global environment. As educators, we share in the responsibility to model digital literacy strategies and appropriate use of digital tools. This session demonstrates how the North Carolina Information and Technology Essential Standards addresses the major goals of digital literacy.



Session Goal
This session will develop a foundational understanding of the alignment of the North Carolina Information and Technology Essential Standards with the goals of digital literacy. Participants will explore strategies for integrating and modeling digital tools for teaching and learning.

By the end of this session, you will:

 * See and understand how the major goals of digital literacy serve as the foundation for the North Carolina Information and Technology Standards.
 * Possess a firm understanding of the major goals of digital literacies so as to be able to communicate what it means to be digitally literate to others.
 * Learn to use a web-based tool for facilitating, collaborating, and sharing in discussion.
 * Explore and understand when to use common 21st century web-based tools for creation, publication, and collaboration.

I. Do you know the N.C. Information and Technology Essential Standards? (15 minutes)
What do you know about ITES? Go to socrative.com and enter room 12126 with the //**student login.**//

Reading is not the same as understanding. While we may have seen the Information and Technology Standards, do we understand their scope, sequence, and integration into daily instruction? To set the stage, for this session, we'll form collaborative groups to create a Twitteresque statement for each of the five strands that define these standards. Each of the five groups will post their statement to a collaborative document using [|Titanpad.com]. Click the following link to access this document: ITES Strand Summary Statements

**Your task**
> as follows: "**Strand name** - This is the summary statement" where you replace "Strand name" with your assigned strand, followed by the statement.
 * 1) Identify someone to **facilitate** your group's discussion.
 * 2) Identify a **recorder** to write and post your group statement to the collaborative document.
 * 3) **Compose a statement** of no more than 140 characters that summarizes your assigned strand from the N.C. Information and Technology Essential Standards.
 * 4) The group Recorder will **post your summary statement** to the collaborative documenthttp://titanpad.com/nUwf1nuMtq

If you would like to refer to the Information Technology Essential Standards (ITES) here is a great livebinder resource developed by NCDPI.

II. What is digital literacy? (10 minutes)
Digital literacy is a concept that is not uniformly understood by any group of educators. In certain subject areas, it may be interpreted more narrowly than others. When discussed globally, as it applies to K-12 education, digital literacy holds certain goals that apply across subject areas and grade levels. Let's begin by checking our collective understanding of the concept through a group brainstorm. We'll use the web-based concept mapping tool, bubbl.us, a digital tool that we'll use in away that exemplifies the application of digital literacy. The focus of our brainstorm is simply: **//What is digital literacy?//**

** Part I **
Now that we have collected a group brainstorm on the concept, let's explore a more formal definition of digital literacy. The content for this section has been organized using a free web-based publication tool called Livebinders Click on the link below to access the content for this session:

Improving digital literacy at the school and district level
We'll devote ten minutes to review the first tab of the Livebinder labelled "Introduction" as a group. This tab houses the definition and goals of digital literacy.

** Part II **
In order to further develop your understanding of digital literacy, you'll explore individually the goals of digital literacy, example tools, and resources for helping you further understand the depth and breadth of each goal. These resources include tutorials that you may want to use or borrow from as you lead professional development workshop and in your general work as a professional.

Before you begin, we'll learn as a group how to use the bubbl.us tool so that you can capture your personal understanding of digital literacy as it pertains to your content area. We'll devote 15 minutes to learning the tool and spend the balance of our time creating our personal digital literacy concept maps. Your final product should include the following elements in addition to any others you feel are relevant for capturing this concept for your content area:


 * The major goals of digital literacy
 * Associated tools related to each goal
 * Relevant/associated topics to each goal

See the following bubbl.us tutorial to refresh your memory on how to use it: Bubbl.us Tutorial

IV. Reflection and Conclusion (15 minutes)
Let's take a gallery walk to view each persons' work. As you walk around keep this question in mind: //What are the key elements of digital literacy for your work? For each element identified, state why this is so important in your area of work.//