Tag Archives: Students

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Using Digital Badges in Education

Starring role...Remember earning gold stars as a child?  For many, they were (and are) great incentives to keep up good behavior.  Digital badges present a new way to give those gold stars digitally and publicly.  When earned, digital badges can be displayed publicly online, with linked information as to “who issued the badge, the specifics of what had to be done to earn the badge and a description of what was learned or accomplished,” Jacob DeDecker (Michigan State University Extentsion) reports.

Do you struggle to motivate students?  Maybe digital badges can help!  Michigan State University Extension had some very useful findings after a trial-run of using digital badges for the 4-H program.  After completing a project in which they were able to earn digital badges, the “youth participating . . . were asked a series of questions to learn their thoughts about digital badging.” Here are the results, as reported by Michigan State University Extension:

87% of students felt that receiving a digital badge validates the knowledge and skills gained at camp
92% of students reported that receiving a digital badge helps document all the knowledge gain; including which takes place outside of school
89% of participants are interested in earning more digital badges in the future

Those are some big numbers!  To learn more about digital badges, check out the pre-study post by DeDecker.  The article sets up the study that was done with 4-H students.  The second post in the series provides further detail into the study.

Image credit: http://tinyurl.com/kj964yv, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Do Students Know How to Have a Conversation?

image by Paul Martin Lester
Image by Paul Martin Lester

A recent article, My Students Don’t Know How to Have a Conversation, by The Atlantic raises an interesting topic that seldom gets talked about. With the push for 1:1 in schools and with 98% of adults ages 18-29 owning a cell phone, most young people have lost the art of having a conversation.

Paul Barnwell, who teaches English at a high school in Louisville, KY noticed that his students were struggling with even simple face to face conversations. “Conversational competence might be the single-most overlooked skill we fail to teach students,” he said. “Kids spend hours each day engaging with ideas and one another through screens—but rarely do they have an opportunity to truly hone their interpersonal communication skills.”

In the article he goes on to wonder, “what if we focused on sharpening students’ ability to move back and forth between the digital and real world?” he asks. “The next time you interact with a teenager, try to have a conversation with him or her about a challenging topic. Ask him to explain his views. Push her to go further in her answers.”

Have you seen a deterioration of student conversation skills? How can we address this issue? Is this even an issue or just the way of the future? Let us know what you see in your K-12, public or college libraries!

Academic, Check this out:, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Students Talk About Their Digital Lives

Image Cuddling with multiple devices. Retrieved from Flickr. Used under Creative Commons' licensing.
Image Cuddling with multiple devices. Retrieved from Flickr. Used under Creative Commons’ licensing.

Common Sense Media released an interesting information graphic of students’ opinions about their digital lives. Social Media, Social Life: How Teens View Their Digital Lives is based on a survey of a little more than 1,000 U.S. students between the ages of 13 and 17. The survey addresses the following questions;

  • Intervals in which students text and use Facebook or Twitter
  • The preferred medium to communicate with friends and family
  • How communication tools are affecting friendships and family relations
  • How networking make students feel, reflective in their self concept
  • And so on…

Although the sample size is somewhat small,  it suggests that there is a love, hate relationship building between “digital natives” and social media.  Indicating that increased face time with devices does not necessarily equate to enjoyment or better relationships. Click here to download the full report.

Note: Teachers look for ways to engage students using social media in an effort to meet students where they are at, when they are there. However, this report emphasizes the importance of also maintaining face-to-face interactions. At a time when some students are on digital overload, educators can induce reflective time, “unplugged” into a student’s day; being mindful of how and when to incorporate social media in programming and/or curriculum development.

Academic, Check this out:, General, Public, School Media Specialist

Who Should Deal With Cyberbullies?

Image by J_O_I_D. Retrieved from Flickr. Used under Creative Commons' licensing.
Image by J_O_I_D. Retrieved from Flickr. Used under Creative Commons’ licensing.

Recently on the ISTE Connects Blog, Nicole Krueger wrote a great piece titled, Who’s Responsible for Teaching Kids Not to Be Cyberbullies? This type of bullying has gotten a fair amount of play in the media recently, often leading to tragic endings. In first person, Nicole describes what it is like in the  life of a bullied middle schooler before social media, and after. Her post made me realize how much additional stress is placed on kids who are bullied today, and it is time to figure out who should address this topic. Sometimes, parents think schools should handle it, while school administrators say they cannot ensure what students do outside of the school day. An interesting conundrum, but worth addressing.

Krueger goes on to  write….“In a typical classroom of 30 middle or high school students, 21 students  will have experienced some form of cyberbullying, according to the Annual Cyberbullying Survey 2013, which included responses from more than 10,000 teens worldwide. Of those 21 students, more than 10 are daily victims. The top venue for bullying: Facebook, which is used by 75 percent of respondents — more than half of whom have been bullied there.” And now that Facebook has loosened its privacy rules for teens, allowing minors to post publicly instead of just to their friends, the door to bullying has gotten a little wider for everyone from “mean girls” to sextortionists.

Does cyberbullying happen in your school? Who is responsible for teaching  this important content, and does your school develop its own curriculum on this subject?

Academic, Check this out:, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

The "Search" in ReSEARCH: Primary Sources

Image by RLHyde. Retrieved from Flickr. Used under Creative Commons' licensing.
Image by RLHyde. Retrieved from Flickr. Used under Creative Commons’ licensing.

Many librarians teach formally and informally patrons/students how to conduct research.  Dawn Casey-Rowe, a high school teacher and prominent writer for Edudemic, targets best practices for educators. This October, Casey-Rowe published an article titled, 10 Web Resources to Help Teach About Primary Sources. In this post, she talks about her experience with students after assigning a research paper pertaining to current events. She stated, “There is such an overload of information. Students need to be able to identify and decode sources, then make a decision as to what they mean in terms of causes and consequences.” Sound familiar? Casey-Rowe goes on to list resources that you might also find helpful, regardless of the researcher’s age.

One of the most common stumbling blocks in research is not understanding the best practices to conduct a search. In a related article, Holly Clark talks about the new “digital divide”as it relates to students’ ability to effectively find and process information while conducting searches. Here is a link to Clark’s full article, “Do Your Students Know How to Search?” also posted on Edudemic’s site (October 2013.)