Literacy with ICT

Literacy with ICT is a developmental continuum for integrating ICT into classrooms throughout the public education system. It also focuses on teaching responsible digital citizenship, whereas past ICT programs have focused on technical skills.

The outcomes of the continuum are split into two domains: cognitive and affective. The cognitive domain focuses increasing analytical and creative thought while using ICT, while the affective domain focuses on responsible, moral ICT use.

As this is an important initiative for teachers of all subjects, at all levels, I started implementing it in my student teaching. Any lesson I did integrating ICT I instructed students as to how to approach the task responsibly. For collages or any other project that required pictures I had students follow along with these steps to practice responsible image searching:

• go to images.google.ca
• click on advanced image search.
• scroll down and click on “Only images labeled for reuse.”
• fill in your search term (e.g. snowflake) and scroll down and click “Search images”.
• double check the licencing of the specific image you want. Follow all restrictions.

With technology fully integrated into our lives outside of the school it only makes sense that we teach our students how to navigate this digital age responsibly and creatively.