John Finch

"It is critical that our students think critically"! John Finch

As expected, we had another great session with John Finch last week about ICT! There's so much to learn and I'm sure John could have kept us all day sharing his knowledge and experience. As always, John provided us with a jam packed hour full of great tips and pointers when talking about ICT in our classrooms. As the title suggests, John discussed the importance of getting our students to think critically about what they are posting on the internet as well as all the information they are finding! As we all agreed, the most popular form (almost the only form) of finding useful information for research projects, etc, while we were in middle school was heading to the library. Students now have the opportunity to jump on the internet and browse millions of websites about any given topic that they are interested in. So, in acknowledging this, we also need to be teaching our students how to filter through what they find.

John says that in order for a student to be ICT literate, they should have the ability to find internet sources that are valid, reliable, and current. This might not seem logical to some of our students as they are most likely to click on the very first set of links that come up when they use any search engine. One way to help explain the importance of finding recent, relevant information (that really helped us get on board too) is to talk about today's doctors. Would you want them using the original practices and medicine that were used years and years ago? Or would you want them using the most effective, recent, and logical practices and medicine that they come across? It's an easy answer when looked at from that angle!

John provided many reasons why it is so crucial to have your students using the internet and technology in a safe and educational manner. One of the most important reasons to me as a new teacher will be to use ICT to help generate an audience for my student's work. To our students, it will surely prove to be of greater importance having other peers and students their age acknowledging their work than just us as their teachers!

Thanks, John, for another great discussion!