Take-Aways from Digital Reading Ch 3-5 #cyberPD

#CyberPD is an online professional development learning community where teachers read and discuss a common professional development text. Visit Reflect & Refine for more details and links to connect with the group. This year’s book is Digital Reading: What’s Essential in Grades 3-8 by Franki Sibberson and Bill Bass.

The three chapters this week—about authenticity, intentional decision making, and connectedness in digital reading—focus on using technology “when it makes sense for [our] learning”—not as an assignment and not to check off a curriculum requirement box.

Here are a few takeaways from each chapter:

Authenticity:

• What’s authentic will vary from person to person. Making a book trailer was not an authentic way for Franki to respond to her reading, but it was an authentic way for one of her students to respond.
• If we can give up our need for control, so “many possibilities open up” for learning (37)—our own and our students’
• Focus on the literacy, not the tool
• There are far too many tools available for any teacher to be fully knowledgeable
• Integrate and embed digital texts and tools in larger lessons
• Rely on student experts

Intentional Decision-Makers

• “Our responsibility is to show our students what is possible with online reading” (49)
• Share a variety of sites so that students develop a repertoire of reliable sites to search for information
• Again, we’ve got to give up control of our students’ learning and teach the strategies and ways of thinking that will enable them to make meaningful decisions about their learning for themselves
• Share a variety of tools so that students can make intentional choices based on need

Connectedness:

• Global Read-Aloud, World Read-Aloud Day, Slice of Life Challenge, and Skype visits with authors offer opportunities for short-term connections
• Ongoing opportunities includes blogging, Twitter, Goodreads
• Connection isn’t only about networking with others online. It’s also about connecting reading (pairing texts with digital texts and videos) and using tools that enable students to make connections across texts