More about NCTE's 21st Century Literacies Framework

      Throughout the book, NCTE's 21st century literacies framework is mentioned. Since it was mentioned in more than one chapter, I figured it played a strong role in new literacies. So, I checked out the NCTE's website (www.ncte.org/governance/21stcenturyframework). The NCTE defines 21st century literacies as the evolution of curriculum, assessment and teaching practice. Today, readers should be able to: develop proficiency and fluency with tools in technology, build international cross-culture connections and relationships with others so to pose and solve problems collaboratively and strengthen independent thought and so forth. The framework centers on English language arts, the website gives a checklist with questions that pertain to each framework. For example, here are some questions that pertain to development of proficiency and fluency with tools in technology:

•  Do students use technology as a tool for communication, research, and creation of new works?
• Do students evaluate and use digital tools and resources that match the work they are doing?
• Do students find relevant and reliable sources that meet their needs?

         The NCTE also mentions that frameworks should use traditional and elements to enhance the learning experience of the 21st century student. Some of these elements include: 

• extent of students’ access to 21st century tools both in and out of school
• range and depth of information readily accessible to students
• extent to which tools can make artists, musicians, and designers of students not traditionally considered talented in those fields
• extent to which tools can make artists, musicians, and designers of students not traditionally considered talented in those fields

         Also, assessments of 21st century learning need to be flexible and meet technological needs such as:

• students’ greater proficiency with tools or formats than the teacher, which may generate outcomes not anticipated in an assessment rubric
• technology glitches beyond students’ control that negatively impact the quality of the final products
• scope of collaboration, in the classroom and globally, leading to a greater need for processes that assess progress and achievement of individuals and groups 

Find out more on the website!!

Diigo: A website that organizes your learning

       Diigo (www.diigo.com) is a website that serves as an annotation tool. What is annotation exactly? Annotation is a scaffolding skill in which students mark up the text that is being read by highlighting and underlining and making notes in margins. Annotation is especially helpful for close reading, which is a thoughtful and critical analysis of a text that focuses on understanding details and important parts of the text to create meaning. Diigo allows users to highlight, annotate, save and share information on websites and PDF documents. Students and teachers can easily return to any bookmarked page and see their highlights and comments or extract annotations to include in a different document. I like Diigo because it allows you to access tags and online sources anytime and anywhere! This website is very convenient and organizes notes and learning. To use Diigo you have to install an extension. It also comes in four plans: free business, standard and professional. The free plan includes: unlimited image storage, importing Kindle highlights and notes, unlimited PDF storage and so forth. The standard, professional and business plan are not free but have more features such as unlimited cloud bookmarks and unlimited webpage and PDF highlights. Anything free is always good, but if you use Diigo often and use it to do collaborative work choosing another plan such as the business plan ($10 a month per user) might be worth it. Diigo is one of the many websites that is changing the way we synthesize and gather information. 
      I also browsed Diigo's blog. One feature that most people are unaware about is "focused research." This feature allows you to re-use your saving preferences. Once you are in research mode, the tags, outliner and group are automatically applied to every item you annotate or save! This can save you time, especially if you are doing research on a certain topic. Checking out Diigo is worthwhile, it may change the way you work and learn!