The Importance of Digital Literacy: Preparing Students for Learning and Life

We are surrounded by technology in more ways than ever before. Students growing up today are considered “digital natives,” meaning they have experienced life with a vast array of technology and digital media at their fingertips. While this reality presents exciting educational opportunities, it can also be overwhelming for many teachers who are not as comfortable with the numerous apps, games, and digital platforms in use today.

As educators, our challenge is to use technology effectively for teaching and learning. According to Mike Ribble, Digital Citizenship in Schools, “Just as you teach your students the rules of society, it is imperative that you teach them the rules of the digital world, and how to be safe and responsible with technology.”

If you are unclear or want more information on what Digital Citizenship is all about, check out this video from one of Pepper's partners, Common Sense Education: Digital Citizenship Video.

To help educators teach their students how to use technology safely, respectfully, and responsibly, Common Sense Education and Public Consulting Group (PCG) have partnered to offer digital citizenship courses through Pepper, PCG's online professional learning platform. These courses (tailored for elementary, middle, high school, and for school leaders) will build teachers' understanding of eight core digital citizenship topics, provide a guided, interactive experience with our high-quality instructional materials, and provide access to Pepper's robust online community of educators. Courses for middle and high school educators are currently available; the course for elementary educators is scheduled for release soon.

Course Features

• Designed to address internet safety, appropriate online behavior, and cyberbullying topics that E-rate recipients are required to teach to students
• Pepper's professional learning platform built on powerful technology developed by Harvard University and MIT
• Flexibility to work through the self-paced course independently or in small groups to promote an authentic, personalized learning experience
• Opportunity to collaborate with peers, access resources, and share best practices through Pepper's online community
• Learning activities provide foundational knowledge for teachers to become Common Sense Certified Educators in digital citizenship

Continuing education credits are available.

Courses Currently Available

• Digital Citizenship: Preparing Students for Learning and Life (Middle School Educators)
• Digital Citizenship: Preparing Students for Learning and Life (High School Educators)

Coming Soon

• Digital Citizenship: Preparing Students for Learning and Life (Elementary Educators)

You can find more information about Digital Citizenship on the Common Sense Education website, by visiting the Digital Citizenship tab from their main page, or by clicking here. You can learn more about these courses and others available from Pepper on their Courses and Workshops page. 

February 17 is Digital Learning Day!

The advancement of technology has provided unprecedented access to information and has allowed people to research, learn, and share like never before. Digital Learning Day celebrates the use of digital technology in learning, and in particular, highlights the innovative and forward-thinking use of technology for learning in the classroom. Created by the Alliance for Excellent Education in 2012, Digital Learning Day (DLDay) is a nationwide celebration that highlights great teaching and demonstrates how technology can improve student outcomes.

There are a variety of ways that you can participate in DLDay. Ashley Cronin, a Digital Resource Curator for Edutopia, notes of several ways teachers and schools can get involved:

• Conduct digital-learning activities and share these with the world. Go paperless for the day, participate in a Google Hangout, get students coding-- the options are endless!
• Set up showcases of digital student work.
• Share information about digital-learning resources, tools, and strategies.
• Get online and on social media to spread the word about digital learning.

Cronin also encourages interested teachers to visit the Digital Learning Video Gallery on the website for the Alliance for Excellent Education. Here educators can "view real-life, practical stories about how district and school leaders are improving learning outcomes through effective use of technology."

The Alliance for Excellent Education has planned a full day of of live digital events that will explore the state of digital equity in schools and communities across America. A complete schedule is below. Click on a session to access additional details.

February 17, 2016: Digital Learning Day Schedule (All Times Eastern)
10:00 – 10:30 a.m.	Digital Equity and Access: Connecting Students Beyond School
11:00 – 11:20 a.m.	Digital Equity and Leadership: Creating a Culture of Equity and Innovation
12:00 – 12:20 p.m.	Digital Equity and Teacher Preparation: Improving the K–12 Teaching Pipeline
2:00 – 2:20 p.m.	Digital Equity and College/Career Readiness: Diversifying Students in STEM
3:00 – 3:20 p.m.	Digital Equity and Instructional Quality: Transforming Teaching Through Technology
4:00 – 4:20 p.m.	Digital Equity: The Road Ahead

Schools and educators can also visit the Digital Learning Day website to sign up their event and find out more about what educators are doing across the country to celebrate DLDay. Here you will find contests, videos, and online resources.

Pepper Professional Development Courses and the Resource Library can help you create a more engaged and active classroom that includes digital learning - for you and for your students. We’re adding new courses and resources regularly, so be sure to check them out.

Open EdX: the Power behind Pepper

Pepper, the easy-to-use online learning community is what we see. But, behind the fancy graphics and text is a powerful piece of software. Pepper is powered by OpenEdX software. So, what does that mean? What is EdX? According to their website, “EdX is a non profit online initiative created by founding partners Harvard and MIT and composed of dozens of leading global institutions, the xConsortium. EdX offers interactive online courses and MOOCs (Massive Open Online Course) from the world’s best universities and institutions.” EdX code is available freely to the online community which allows institutions to offer their own classes. Educators can also use edX to build learning tools that will meet their needs. OpenEdX allows education developers to create courses that include discussion capabilities. It also provides the capability for users to register for and receive certificates of completion for courses they complete. Course creators also have the ability to collect data through the program, but that data is solely controlled by the organization that produces these programs.

Pepper developers use OpenEdX to bring you a vibrant place for online professional development. Pepper has used the software to add a social aspect to the program where users can search for people, add them to their professional network, and send notifications to other users. Other new components that Pepper has added include the use of portfolios for tracking course work and  “My Chunks”. The goal of the “My Chunks” functionality is to create a bank of “just-in-time” chunks of learning that can be bookmarked and accessed at a later visit. Content can be “flagged” during visits to the course and stored in a single location for access and sharing.

Pepper’s use of OpenEdX software allows you, the user, to be part of a cutting edge learning community that is growing - and will continue to grow and add new features. We hope these features will make your online professional development the best that it can be.

Also, as you explore Pepper's professional development, be sure to visit all of our course offerings on our website for great learning opportunities.

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STEM: Why it Matters

STEM is an education curriculum based on teaching students in four specific disciplines — science, technology, engineering and mathematics.  What makes STEM unique, however, is that rather than teach the four disciplines as separate subjects, STEM integrates them into a cohesive learning program with ties to real-world applications. According to the STEM Coalition, by 2020 there will be a demand for STEM professionals with over 1 million jobs in STEM-related fields.

STEM education is different from traditional math and science teaching in that is uses a blending learning approach. This approach shows students how science, math, engineering, and technology are central to everyday life and integrated into all that we do. According to an article from Live Science, “What is STEM education?”, the goal is to gain student interest in these fields so that they will want to pursue them as careers. STEM education begins in the elementary school with introductory courses and subject awareness. In middle school courses become more rigorous and students begin to explore career opportunities. By high school, students are focused on application and are exposed to career pathways and exploring post-secondary options.

According to the US Department of Education, “all young people should be prepared to think deeply and to think well so that they have the chance to become the innovators, educators, researchers, and leaders who can solve the most pressing challenges facing our nation and our world, both today and tomorrow.”

(US Dept. of ED)

Go to the Pepper Resource Library and visit STEM Builder for STEM curriculum resources. Be sure to check out all our Pepper course offerings.

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Keeping Creativity Alive in Your Classroom

Even with a set curriculum, you can foster creativity in your students. You don't have to resort to worksheets and practice tests to help kids master skills. Nicholas Provenzano, high school English teacher, shares three spot-on strategies to make learning the required skills in a creative way. "Creativity should not be relegated to English class or the art room. There are places for all teachers to add creative elements to their school days," Provenzano insists. You may have a framework to work within, but you CAN be imaginative within those boundaries.

Check out Provenzano's three strategies and visit his helpful website at www.TheNerdyTeacher.com

A Simple Swipe Can Change a Life

Many nonverbal students also exhibit behavioral issues because they can't communicate their needs and desires without great effort. Recently, a Fort Worth, Texas school district tested a new program in an effort to break the silence. Simply providing nonverbal students with an iPad with special software and a bit of simple instruction, students were able to swipe symbols on the pad to convert text to speech. For many, this was the first time to communicate in their lives. Those who exhibited poor behavior due to the frustration of not being able to communicate had great success and their behavior (in some cases) made a 360-degree turnaround. Read about a few of the students and the tremendous results of the study.

Game Over? Not When it Comes to Student Learning Through Games!

In the age of video games and mobile devices, young students seem to learn better when their instruction combines virtual reality and real world application, according to Carnegie Mellon University. Researchers came up with a study that tested how technology could best contribute to learning through a testing platform called, "NoRILLA". Testing 92 children ages six to eight, researchers wanted to see if they learned better in a mixed reality or a screen-only educational game. They tested before and after the game to retrieve sound results. The end result: Students learn up to FIVE times better combining virtual reality with the real world. Read more about the results here.

Short on Technology Options in Your Classroom?

Teacher are agreeably some of the most resourceful professionals. When they don't have a homework tray, they might make one out of a file folder box decorated with wrapping paper. However, what happens when a classroom has only one laptop or iPad for the entire class to share? Read about how Kristin Weller, educator in Gainesville, Florida, uses one iPad, a fantastic iPad app, and her white board to project lessons for which all of her students can benefit. She mastered the "Show Me" app initially, using it to create podcasts for her students to view at home when working on homework or when they were absent from school. Then, she brainstormed ideas of how to use the one iPad she had for the classroom and the "Show Me" app in even more creative ways. Check out her innovative ideas at: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/blended-learning-working-one-ipad.

FREE WestEd Webinar: A Curriculum-First Approach to Technology and the Web

Many educators have concerns about the way that technology can seem like a haphazard element of instruction--something that gets added into the classroom because it seems important and on-trend, but isn't necessarily integrated with the curriculum.

This free webinar from WestEd helps present ideas and strategies for making technology a central, integrated, transformative part of the learning environment, and not merely something added on in an ad hoc manner.

Take a look at the webinar (roughly 1hr and 15 minutes) to get a better sense of how everything from technology infrastructure to stakeholder readiness can impact the way technology is integrated into the curriculum.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH!

The School Librarian and Common Core--A Critically Important Role!

In the information age, the school librarian is arguably one of the most important roles in any school. Because Common Core has the goal of helping students become intelligent, engaged, critically aware readers and interpreters of information, the library can be a fantastic hub where students can make connections across subjects and deepen and broaden the concepts and learning tools they get in their classrooms.

This paper, a joint effort of the education reform organization Achieve and the American Association of School Librarians (AASL), aims to help school librarians think about how they can play a transformative role in their schools as part of the transition to Common Core State Standards.

Classroom teachers also can benefit from the information in this brief, since it is through meaningful collaboration with librarians that schools can "cooperatively break the isolation of the traditional classroom."

CLICK HERE to download the full PDF text of the brief!

Digital Learning Activities and Educational Games -- Free!

As every teacher knows, not all educational games are created equal! Some have genuine value and can serve as wonderful reinforcements for student learning, or can expand student learning beyond the classroom. Yet how do you find educational games and digital learning activities that have been vetted and curated without spending hours of your own time testing them, or paying for memberships?

Check out this fantastic website: Powermylearning.org! It's a free digital learning platform with resources for teachers, students, and parents alike, and was developed by the well-respected national education nonprofit CFY. If you're looking for games, videos, interactives, and other digital resources to incorporate into your Common Core lesson plans for the classroom, then this is the website for you.

Each resource in Math and ELA is aligned directly to a Common Core standard. Plus, there are countless resources for science, social studies, the arts, technology and more. You'll need to create an account to access all the material on the site, but once you do, you'll be able to tap into hundreds of carefully-vetted, free digital resources.

Depth of Knowledge, Critical Thinking, and Common Core -- Free WestEd Webinar!

This webinar is full of information about integrating technology appropriately when planning tasks and assessments, and helps answer questions you might have about how "rigor" really translates.

If you've been wanting a closer look at how you as an educator can understand some of the central elements of the CCSS and what they will mean for the way you think about assessments and curriculum alike, then this webinar is for you.

Click here to check it out!