----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Sarles Patricia (18K500) <PSarles@schools.nyc.gov>
To: "aaslforum@ala.org" <aaslforum@ala.org>
Sent: Fri, March 8, 2013 1:40:38 PM
Subject: [aaslforum] Reading online vs. reading on paper vis a vis the students we see in the library


My experience has been that my students skip step 4 (use of information) in the Big Six Skills when they immediately print out what they find online without even reading it first to see if it is truly relevant. I see this also when I work one-on-one with my students. They ask ME what the article is about and I have to break the news to them that they will actually have to read it to find out for themselves what the article is about.

The new Common Core assessments in 46 states and the District of Columbia will all be computer-based. According to a memo from the NY State Education Department to all principals and superintendents, “The transition to computer-based testing will place New York at the forefront of innovative, 21st -century assessment design and delivery. For students, the benefits include using technology to better demonstrate what they know and are able to do” (http://www.p12.nysed.gov/nonpub/documents/transition_strategy_to_computer_based_testing.pdf).

This is my concern about Computer Based Testing: If you look at Smarter Balanced’s (one of the testing consortia designing the new CC assesments) sample test items, for example at: http://sampleitems.smarterbalanced.org/itempreview/sbac/ELA.htm, you will see that students will have to read a longish 9-paragraph text and then answer questions based on the text. (The sample for Grade 3 is pretty longish as well). I’m not sure our students have the stamina to read that much text online because this is not what I see in the library. Students nearly always prefer to print out online text to read later.

Do you see the same thing in your library and do you think your students will sit through and read so much text online? The test for High Schoolers for example will be 140 minutes long. Will students truly benefit from Computer Based Testing and be able to “better demonstrate what they know and are able to do?” for if this is the case, we need to disable printing in the library to force students to take notes on what they read on the screen NOW so that they are prepared to do this in 2014-2015.

Does anybody else see this as a potential issue?


____________________________________________
Patricia Sarles, MA, MLS
Librarian
Jerome Parker Campus Library
100 Essex Drive
Staten Island, NY 10314
718-370-6900 x1322
psarles@schools.nyc.gov
http://www.scoop.it/t/help-with-the-common-core-state-standards/
http://paper.li/psarles/1332609247

The new power is not money in the hands of a few, but information in the hands of the many. - John Naisbitt, Megatrends

The Internet may be the world's greatest library, but let's face it - all the books are scattered on the floor.  - D.C. Denison, Boston Globe

Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant. - Mitchell Kapor

To save man from the morass of propaganda, in my opinion, is one of the chief aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction ... The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. - Martin Luther King, Jr. The Purpose of Education