Selecting Digital Texts for Students: A Conversation with Valerie Lewis
Recently Valerie Lewis, teacherpreneur, technology fanatic, forever learner and disruptor of normalcy in education, came on the EdTech NOW podcast to talk about the topics of being appointed Fine Arts Academy lead at her school, the challenges of discovering and assigning digital texts to her her students, and the challenges involved with validating online sources.
Listen to the podcast at this link.
Students may want to use the first information that pops up on their screen, but copying that Wikipedia reference into their paper may not be the best choice. As Valerie puts it, a Wikipedia entry might be written by the boy next door. Fast, easy access to an online reference doesn’t always yield the best information. How do students make the best decisions?
The solution for Valerie, and so many other educators, is to teach about sources, helping students to understand the differences between first-hand and second-hand accounts, and to dig into the origins of sources cited. Examining a writer’s point of view is also important. Is the writer trying sway the reader one way or another?
Facebook presents a challenge. “Some people that are on Facebook …are really putting great content out there,” says Valerie. Yet, students have to be aware of sources that are trying to push their thinking in a positive or negative direction. “You’ve got a lot of news sources and sites on Facebook that put their content out there and they pay for their content to be advertised. And it’s not credible,” says Valerie. Checking for citations from not just one source, but multiple sources, will bolster the credibility of a source.
In Valerie’s school, they often require just one unit of research at the end of the semester. Students have one research paper to do, and that might be the only time the student does research. It’s not really enough, Valerie says. To get good at research required repetition, practice, and the knowledge that everything you discover online is not gold. Everything that comes quickly, says Valerie, is not always the best.
What might come to the rescue are OERs — online educational resources. Curated by companies such as MackinVIA, they can provide a wealth of information for educators to share with their students. Carefully vetted, they can be trusted. Yet, there is another problem — there is so much information to sift through. This is where collaboration can help. A group of grade-level peers can sift through the resources, and divvy up the process of choosing appropriate digital sources. Valerie uses curikki.com to help with the literature that she works with in the language arts course for her high school students.
The takeaway for students and educators? Sometime you need time — time to soft through research sources, evaluate them, check sources, and determine which are best to use. The first thing that pops up on your screen isn’t always the best.
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Show Transcript
Lee Schneider: This is EdTech now a 10 minute podcast about education technology and how it’s used in the classroom. Ed Tech NOW is sponsored by Stackup, a Chrome browser extension that tracks reading online for teachers and students and delivers metrics to administrators.
Here’s our host, Noah Geisel, Education Director at Stackup.
Noah Geisel: Thanks Lee, great to be here with you today. Our guest today is Valerie Lewis, she’s a teacherpreneur, technology fanatic, forever learner and disruptor of normalcy within education. Valerie welcome to the podcast, and thanks for having probably the best bio of anybody we’ve had on.
Valerie Lewis: Thanks for having me, Lee and Noah.
[00:00:35]
Noah: Now, you’re known for creating innovative approaches to education. When we were last talking on the show you were working on pass the scope EDU, which was a periscope channel for teachers, and EDobstacles an immersive learning adventure using obstacle courses.
What has you excited that you’re working on right now?
[00:00:55]
Valerie: Well now we’re kind of working on some things dealing with students in the fine arts. This year I have been appointed Fine Arts Academy lead at our school in Gwinnett County. And so now what we want to do is go beyond the classroom and expand opportunities for students to have real, authentic opportunities with actors, screenwriters, costume designers, music engineers from major cable and television networks, to give them that that pathway that extension that we know schools aren’t capable of doing within a 50-minute period or block or financial situations may restrict them from doing. Now we are bringing those opportunities to kids at the school, After school, with the parent buy in.
[00:01:44]
Lee: Is that, is the focus there predominantly performance, or predominantly written stuff or scripting, in other words, or a bit of both.
[00:01:55]
Valerie: It’s going to be a combination of both. So you’re going to have some things where students are going to be learning the applications of the skills that are necessary to acquire jobs in that industry. But then at the same time you’re going to have the buy in of teachers that can cover in a sense and help us align the program to the standards in which they need to cover during the day. So you’ll see a combination of performance-based assessment, you’re going to see student creation projects. But ultimately the end goal is that students come out of this program with certain certifications that at 18 and 19 will prepare them for at minimal $50,000 entry level job before entering college.
[00:02:41]
Noah: That sounds amazing. We’ll have to keep track of that and be back in touch with you to see how that’s going on a future episode.
For this season of EdTech NOW, we’re focusing on digital texts and reading. So in your view, what’s the best way for educators to select appropriate online assignments?
[00:03:00]
Valerie: Well I think when it comes to you know selecting those assignments and things we are going to need to take a look at the source. And with those credible sources you’re going to need to be able to look at where they’re coming from who’s writing it, the expert behind that — is this person knowledgeable, is this person just putting together some thing because it’s trendy. It’s catchy. You need to be able to know that Wikipedia and the first thing that comes up on Google is not always going to be reliable. And then obviously is there research based behind it. And so if you look at those components I think you’ll be able to make a really good decision on what works.
[00:03:53]
Lee: Yeah you kind of answered the next question which was you were talking about credibility. The question was: How can educators help students with fact checking. So is really the answer to that: Go to the source or learn about sources?
[00:04:09]
Valerie: You need to learn about sources, so there are several different ways where we learn about first-hand accounts, second hand-accounts. I like to teach students when doing research that they need to be able to look at — as I mentioned before — the source from which it’s coming from from. We know that databases are going to be some places where you may find scholarly articles or things that are peer reviewed or want to come from people that have some “skin in the game” so to speak. I think a lot of times when you’re trying to check the facts for students are, you know, they don’t know how to discern that firsthand information from he-say-she-say type of information and they’re wanting to look at whatever the pops up first on their screen and use it as fact. I think databases are going to be a really really good place to help students understand. This is the reason why we may go to maybe an ABC Clio, or a MackinVIA, not just “OK, let me type in some keywords pull up the first thing on Wikipedia.” Because Wikipedia could be written by the boy next door.
[00:05:19]
Lee: Right. That’s so true. Something you said that’s so interesting to me. Skin in the game. Skin in the game is a very interesting concept to think about with this because if the person putting that information up online has skin in the game, well that could be a positive or a negative. You know they could be biased or they could be their interest could be in not being biased.
Valerie: Absolutely.
Lee: That’s — skin in the game is a good thing to think about.
Noah: So many students and even families are using Facebook as a primary news source. How do you think Facebook is working as a news delivery system and what are you telling students about Facebook if they are using it for any kind of research?
[00:05:59]
Valerie: So with Facebook it does get tricky because you do have some people that are on Facebook that are really putting great content out there. So I think once the students are having multiple opportunities to practice research, they kind of start to learn to look for those things. So one thing that you mentioned there is teaching them how to look at author’s point of view, perspective, how to, you know, use your discernment to identify negative bias. You know, maybe it’s positive but maybe it’s just neutral, maybe that person has no opinion either way and they’re not trying to sway you one way or another. That practice and continued practice of rhetorical appeals, and are they trying to persuade me to do something or think one way. So Facebook can be tricky because we know you’ve got a lot of news sources and sites on Facebook that put their content out there and they pay for their content to be advertised. And it’s not credible.
But then you do have those individuals that yes, that information that they’re putting out there you know what — I can trust their citing their sources. They’re using research they’re not just citing from one source but there are multiple sources that are included. So I think it is very tricky when it comes to Facebook and social media and people are putting content out there.
I don’t know that there is one way to do it, but a lot of times we hold that one unit of research at the end of the semester, we’ve got that one research paper and that’s only time a student has done research, and that’s not going to be enough. The biggest thing is going to have to be repetition, multiple sources multiple formats, giving students that opportunity to look at things with an eagle eye.
[00:07:49]
Lee: How do we find balance? is my question. I know you believe in tech a lot, and with EDobstacles you show that getting away from the screen is also important, but how do we get to balance? How do we know in the online world is working and when it’s not? One idea I’d like to throw into the mix there is how instant is it and maybe instant isn’t so terrific all the time. Especially when you’re trying to do research, when you’re trying to teach people or yourself really what is a credible source — instant may not be the best result even though instant feels really good in the tech world.
[00:08:25]
Valerie: You’re absolutely correct. And so I think it goes back to the previous question. You know that discernment and you know knowing that everything that glitters isn’t gold, then so everything that comes quickly isn’t always the best. You know you can’t just jump at the first opportunity. Sometimes you do need to take a step back and think and reflect and weigh your pros and weigh your cons, and that all in itself is a life lesson and a life skill.
[00:08:54]
Lee: Agreed. Sometimes fast is terrific. But in a lot of times in research it’s not so terrific.
Noah: Thinking more about these OERs — open educational resources What are the opportunities and challenges schools and teachers should be thinking about with OERs?
Valerie: Well, the opportunities that exist is that you have a bank of information that has already been filtered through for you. So these sources and things that you’re pulling — it’s not just that instant that someone found that first link that popped up on Google. But these things are licensed out, you kind of know that where they’re coming from, you can kind of trust those sources. The challenges that exist is, now do I have the time to kind of go through those thousands and thousands of resources and be able to put together something in my lesson plan or my unit — collaborate with my team, to be able to provide something that is of quality.
[00:09:54]
So I think there are, there are those pluses that I don’t have to go through the World Wide Web on my own trying to find those things and put them together. But at the end of the day I need to be I need to be able to go through and say, hey I found these sources now I need some time that I can plan and maybe that’s where administrators support us. Maybe that’s where having the team of my same grade level peers that can kind of go through and maybe we can divvy that up and come together and put it together on some type of resource like a blend space. You find something, you find something, you find something let’s dump it in blendspace and let’s build out a unit and that way I’m not doing it all by myself, but I love open educational resources. One site that I use in particular for some of those things are http://curikki.com — c u r i k k i dot com — and I find that that helps me a lot with the literature that I work with in the language arts piece with my high school students.
[00:10:50]
Lee: When I think about the takeaway here — it’s really a combination. The takeaway for me from this conversation is collaboration can help especially when you’re filtering through a lot OERs — resources that are out online. Collaboration can help. And also when encouraging students to dig into sources, sometimes you need time. Sometimes it’s more about — it’s not how many but it’s the quality of — quality over quantity. That’s kind of what I’m getting out of it as a takeaway from this.
[00:11:25]
Valerie: We’ve all heard that saying sometimes less is more. So to say hey the depth in which I’ve researched this particular article or two or three has given me a really well-rounded perspective that I might be able to put something out there myself, create. “I think that that’s going to work.” And obviously sometimes we need those outside lenses and perspective to help us see something that perhaps we missed before. So I’m all about the collaboration piece, and I think that that is something to help us our students to learn as well. Look at your peers, collaborate with your peers. Turn to your elbow partner. Ask them what they think about the source. Is this something that they would use or maybe why wouldn’t they use this, to help you decide if there’s something that I need to cite that I need to use in my paper. So collaboration, definitely; quality over quantity, absolutely.
And then just know that you need to be patient with things it’s not always going to be insta-quick, insta-good but it’s going to take a little bit more depth and sometimes that means a day or two, or more.
[00:12:37]
Lee: That’s a great wrap up of that, of all those ideas. Valerie, thanks so much for being on the podcast today.
[00:12:45]
Valerie: Thank you Lee, I appreciate having me. Thank you, Noah as well.
Noah: Thanks so much for joining us on the EdTech NOW podcast, Valerie.
Lee: This has been the EdTech NOW podcast, sponsored by Stackup, the only tool that unlocks the learning benefits of the entire web, while providing the accountability educators need to measure progress and engagement. With Stackup, you can measure and report online reading and learning for your entire district, in less than two minutes. Got to Stackup.net. I’m Lee Schneider. Thanks for listening.
