Thoughts on Digital Content Creation with Kids

A recent ALSC Chat, open to anyone, centered on the subject on how we as librarians can support youth to become responsible creators of digital stories.  ALSC's Children and Technology Committee then gathered the input and published it on the ALSC blog.

They write: "By incorporating digital content creation into the curriculum, we are seizing an opportunity to teach our students how to create responsibly, and act as ethical digital citizens. One way we can accomplish this is through modeling."

Stop here to read the full post. [Digital Storytelling and Content Creation with Children. ALSC Children and Technology Committee. ALSC blog. June 8, 2024]

Image courtesy of ALSC Children and Technology Committee member, Arika Dickens,
who created this graphic for the We Chat slide show.

Recommending Apps for Use at Home

Fiete Math

In a recent ALSC blog post, Karen You-Chuan Wang, a member of the ALSC Children and Technology Committee , noted how popular the apps the library provides in-house are with families. She also reflected on how to connect families to worthwhile free apps to use at home.

She writes: "Many best-of lists include both free and paid media. Two valuable sources for high-quality, no-cost options are Common Sense Media’s Free Apps for Kids and Madison Public Library’s AppFinder (filtered for free apps). Best of all, these resources are written for parents and can be shared directly with families who come to your library."

To read her list of suggestions and recommendations to make to families, please stop here. [Free Learning Apps & Games for Families at Home. You-Chuan, Karen. ALSC blog. February 11, 2023.]

Crash Course: Navigating Digital Information

Sweet, sweet John Green.  What did we do to deserve you...?

A recent blog article in School Library Journal discussed one of the newest offerings in the Crash Course series: Navigating Digital Information, a 10-episode series developed in partnership with MediaWise.  (Unfamiliar with Crash Course?  It's a super-rad online series of informative, entertaining videos available on YouTube!)

We all know the importance of digital literacy and how vital it is that our communities understand how to find and utilize credible sources while trying to navigate the ever-expanding worldwide web.  And, with each episode in the series clocking in under 15 minutes, incorporating them into a lesson or program is easy peasy, lemon squeezy!

As John Green states in the first episode: "Getting better at evaluating information means becoming a better citizen of the communities where you live; it also means become a better informed and more engaged person."

Here's the complete "lesson plan" for the Navigating Digital Information Crash Course.

Looking to incorporate this fabulous resource in other ways?  Crash Course offers series on a variety of topics, including--but not limited to!--the following:

Media Literacy

Engineering

Theater and Drama

World History

Astronomy

DFTBA!