My Reflection on Information Literacy and It's Use

This has been an interesting class. Revelations have occurred, but more frequently than not it was confirmations of what I had believed in for quite some time. As a technology teacher for nine years, I have seen quite a few changes in not only the material that is taught, but also the use or lack their of which homeroom teachers have been willing to invest into linking technology into their primary lesson plans. My greatest revelation occurred when I found that many people say the same thing, and even are correct in their data, but some sources can get lost in the mixing in of commercial banners, pop-ups, how busy a web site is, and even the structure of a site can make a huge difference in whether information can be found. In general, it is best to straight to the source when doing research.
As I move forward heading back into the classroom, it will be interesting to see exactly how I can put my past experiences outside the classroom to work. My teaching practices were somewhat different given the resource role I held in the past years. Now, my knowledge of literacy skills and practice will be put to the test as I will be doing my own projects with my own students. Being my own direct instructor will truly allow me to test all that I have learned in this and all my previous classes. Rumor has it that I will be teaching math and science. If so, then we will be doing a large amount of research based projects. While I believe the students need to learn their basic facts, they also need to know how to use and interpret them.
Unit lesson plans are the way to go. I cannot wait to learn more on developing large unit lesson plans and am preparing to begin development of more of them. In that vein, I will be attending some professional development workshops, possibly over the summer, to provide more ideas about what students would enjoy and learn from at the same time. My goal is to share ideas and gather in experiences from other teachers to assist in finding the topics that students enjoy. Admittedly, not all topics are enjoyable, but we can work towards making them less painful. Students are generally eager to learn. They simply need the guidance and attention to get their minds working in a way that perhaps they did not consider.