Information Savvy

With the vast amount of information readily available through the internet and the increased prevelance of ameteurs creating websites, blogs and wikipages, how do we sift out the trustworthy information from the opinion? Work. Isn't it always the answer? We need to question everything at least until we've proven a site or a source to be reputable. It is our responsibility as adults, parents, professionals, teachers, and role models to teach our children how to do the work for themselves. Unfortunately, there will always be "on the job training" and some lessons wil only be taught by trial and error. What work is involved with establishing credibility? Read the information on a site. Does it sound creditible? Check the sources cited? Are cited sources? Is the information coming from professionals or from individuals? Double check to see if the same information can be found on another site. What about statistics, graphs and charts? Is the data used to create them from professional sources? Does it sound reasonable? If we teach children the necessary tools to verify information they find and read on the internet the chances that they will protect themselves from false sources and information will be greater.

Savvy Shopper

Need to save a few bucks?  A quick lesson on using coupons for grocery shopping is contained in the following podcast.

Children's Lit Project

I recently created a visual presentation for my Children's Literature class.  The task was to research and teach the class about a specific genre.  My group researched FANTASY.  I wanted to make sure that the presentation was more than just words on a Power Point because that can be kind of bland.  I learned about a website (Prezi.com) that allows you to create presentations with a kick.  I have included the Prezi that I made for you to preview, but definitely check out their website and play around for yourself.

Flickr Findings

So, for those of you who are like me and always wanted to know how to use Photoshop to edit photos, but can't figure out how to do anything in Photoshop, I have an alternative:  Flickr.com.
Highlights of Flickr.com:

• It's FREE!
• It's user friendly.
• It integrates into other technology straight from the website.
• It's easy to share photos with friends.
• (Others I haven't discovered yet)

I plucked around in it for about an hour and was fascinated by all the things you could do with just a click of a button.  Some of my classmates were able to do some more involved editing.  I've chosen a few of my favorites to share.