Jason B. Ohler

Offers ways to become a "digital citizen". Gives short histories on Educational Technology and ISTE Standards, Perspectives on Citizenship and Comunitiy, adopting a digital mindset, issues we have with technology, helping students identify understand technology's impact, then advice for helping teachers with technology, crash course about kids and technology, and literacy in the digital age.

This book would be useful to help people learn more about how to utilize the internet, or technology in general, to its fullest extent. However, this book is four years old and likely dated.… (mais)

Ohler, a seasoned technology veteran provides us with a serious look at technology in education across the years and the need and the method to educate a different generation in a very different information and technology environment, Ohler is a realist, not a dreamer pushing the “awesome” possibilities rather, he makes a great deal of sens and helps the reader think about the opportunities to create a community of students prepared to live in our new digital world as respectful, creative, participating, and thoughtful participants. We enjoyed the many FYI sidebars that provide so many tidbits that can be used as talking points at the table of school and district technology conversations. Ohler’s style of writing will grab you and rethink your role as a teacher librarian. He actually writes chapters addressed to the school board allowing you to get a sense of what he would say to them about technology. Lots of hints here as you prepare your own presentations and prefessional development for these folks aand other administrators, parents, and government officials. Recommended as a throughtful read.… (mais)

Over the last year, we have become more and more enthusiastic about the potential of new technologies to enhance teaching and learning. The reason for this enthusiasm is the very simple-to-use software that is mostly free and allows everyone – adults, kids, and teens to create creative content and share it over the web. Ohler takes us into the realm of digital storytelling. First he tells us about the possibilities of enhancing literacy, links us to standards, describes methods of storytelling, and then helps us produce a digital product using free tools on the Mac or PC. He encourages us to have children and teens learn to write and produce their own stories by teaching them to story mat – a technique for understanding how a story works using a graphical model. We can think of all kinds of applications beyond just the reading of stories on line, or the writing of stories through production. Using these techniques, we see students as individuals or groups creating digital story biographies or oral presentations using story as the central narrative interest catcher. Even better, we can share the products on the Internet to be available instantly for parents, board members, judges in competitions, and even uploaded to YouTube. We give this one a big plus. A required read. A required DO IT!… (mais)