Education

Just what is an information literate school community and how would a group of teachers set about creating such a school?

This book sets out to answer those questions and describe how research and questioning can become central to the learning activities in a school.

Dr. Jamie McKenzie has enjoyed some 40 years working as a teacher, principal, superintendent and director of libraries, media and technology. Based on his experience with teachers and media specialists to emphasize higher level thinking, problem-solving and decision-making, this book brings you the best of Jamie McKenzie's thinking about launching challenging student research efforts and resource-based learning projects.

In recent years he has been helping schools and clusters of schools from all around the world to bring their learning activities into alignment with curriculum standards that ask us to consider all students to be thinkers.

Beyond Technology introduces an approach to research Jamie calls the Research Cycle and outlines questioning strategies so that each student leaves school equipped with a Questioning Toolkit.

In this book as with his others, he stresses basic concepts that lead to staff engagement and student performance on challenging thinking tasks. Most of these concepts are enduring - strategies that work as well in 2009 as they did in 1999. These approaches outlast the technology fads and bandwagons that come and go. Much of the advice provided will pass the test of time and prove valuable in 2019 and 2029.

Amazon customer review:
I'm a parent of elementary school kids who has become fascinated with their adventures in education. I'm also fairly technically literate and would like to see more educators embracing technology as important tools in their students' quest for insights.

I went to see Dr. McKenzie speak at an educator's conference (they let parents in!) and was impressed with the clarity of his vision that kids will only learn how to frame good questions when their teachers have embraced the notion themselves. It's at that point the technology becomes a powerful tool to help kids create good projects. So I went home and bought this book.

The book is written for education leaders and teachers, to inspire teachers' professional development in the direction of questioning, research, and information literacy. The book has three sections: - The Primacy of Questioning - The Research Cycle and - Research Modules

McKenzie lays out the reasons we should care about good questions, gives us some models for the research cycle and how it helps kids learn, and identifies ways to help create modules and use scaffolding to make their work more efficient. Technology is simply a tool to support the teacher and student in information literacy, but a powerful tool that some teachers are reluctant to integrate into their work. (McKenzie's written another great book that specifically discusses that topic: "How Teachers Learn Technology Best")