I enjoyed working with my sixth graders this week as we discussed online information evaluation, search tips and techniques, web safety and explored some Google features. We held the lessons in the library's computer lab enabling students to have hands on practice. The students favorite part of the lesson is usually the "funny" or bogus websites. I compare these sites to the amusing pet videos found on YouTube. They are not meant to harm, they are just meant to be entertaining. Unlike the pet videos, without critical thinking, some of the information on these sites could be misunderstood.
Here is a sampling of the sites we visited:
- Dog Island Free Forever - this is my favorite site, probably because I love dogs.
- Save the Pacific Northwestern Tree Octopus - with the ocean temperatures rising Octopus are adapting, evolving and finding new homes in trees.
- The Republic of Molossia - very entertaining and amusing. Years of work have gone into this.
We talked about the vast spectrum of information available online. We looked at sites with informative facts, extremist information, and some that were just plain silly. I encourage students to use resources that can easily be determined reliable, such as DISCUS, and to take the CAB. Look for Currency, Authority and Bias to help decide if a site is worth using for research.
Did you know Google is a dictionary, and a calculator among many other things? Students quickly found out how many days, hours, minutes and seconds they have been alive using Google. What time is it in Japan? Google. If I have $12 how many euros would I get? Google. (This is not new, but it is new to my students.)
Books
I was thrilled to give away posters, bookmarks and a free copy of Cabin Fever on Wednesday. All five copies of the book are out, but you can stop by the library and put one on hold. We even held a drawing for the promotional book display. Awesome! Congratulations to the winners!
I was thrilled to give away posters, bookmarks and a free copy of Cabin Fever on Wednesday. All five copies of the book are out, but you can stop by the library and put one on hold. We even held a drawing for the promotional book display. Awesome! Congratulations to the winners!
I always look forward to our Hunger Games book club meetings. Our monthly meeting was Friday. A seventh grade book club tribute even brought some lovely artwork which I will be sure to post on the blog. Our eighth grade rocked it with a big turnout. Six new eighth grade tributes were welcomed to the club. A new Hunger Games Movie Trailer was released. We watched that. The discussion that students had after viewing the trailer was fantastic. Most of us had a darker more dismal and primitive view of District 12 than what we saw on the screen. We played Hunger Games Jeopardy as well as some other entertaining games and ate cake, cheese and crackers and cocktail weenies! Mmmm! The next meeting will be held in January. (The refreshments probably won't be that awesome again though, so don't be disappointed.) At this meeting everyone will start with a clean slate and prove themselves in the "arena" once again, only this time the focus will be on book two: Catching Fire. As always, new members are welcome. See Mrs. Taz to pass the feats of strength for book one to get your invitation to the meeting. Remember, if you cannot correctly answer questions about the book, you will have to leave the meeting and try again in February.
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