Module 4 Blog Post #3 What would you do with the Kami App?

    Technology is at the front of every librarian's mind every day. Whether they are looking at the line of students Monday morning who need help with their Chromebook, researching the newest tech the district is purchasing, or helping a classroom teacher integrate a new application. Librarians will be dealing with technology for a very long time. When reading the article, A Technology Plan, I was struck by the following quote: 

“Technology initiatives are about people—the people who plan with, teach with, and learn with the technology. Relationships are key in schools, and investing carefully in people and relationships is the best way to ensure that an initiative will succeed. Building enthusiasm for a technology initiative is crucial; without it, the best laid plans will flop.” (Overbay, 2011) 

    

    People and relationships are more important than technology and providing the resources needed to implement that technology is key. A few years ago, my district purchased technology for every teacher in the district, a promethean board. WOW! This was great but there was no professional development planned to help teachers utilize this new equipment. Enthusiasm was not created, instruction was not provided, this tech was not the best tool for every classroom. School districts need to remember that it is not about how much tech your school owns, it is about how well your staff implement and use the technology available to them.  

    While searching and searching through blog after blog looking for new tech, I remembered a time last year where a colleague was using something called Kami to upload documents and then annotate or answer the questions on a document. I decided with this assignment, I needed to find out more. While working on this next assignment, I decided to investigate this tech tool.   

“Kami is an interactive learning platform empowering students and enhancing the way teachers teach, feedback, and assess. 

Annotate, collaborate and assess with Kami – the all-in-one learning platform. Enhance your existing resources and curriculum with 40+ tools and features.” 

~From the Google Chrome web store 

 

    That sounds great but is it easy to use? The answer is yes. After reading the blog from www.eduporium.com I discovered that it is easy to use and implement in your classroom. This blog did a great job of explaining Kami and providing ideas on its use in your classroom. There were a few videos linked in the blog, but I wanted to find more as many of you will need a more visual step by step approach to implementation and utilization.  

5 Ways to Use Kami in your classroom

Kami and Google Classroom

Kami Tutorial by Blended Learning

Teaching Students how to use Kami in Google Classroom by CUSD50 Instructional Coaching

    Some of the uses for Kami include taking all those paper copies of worksheets, uploading them to Kami, and then having your students fill them out and turn them back in via Google Classroom. If your students need to highlight text for better understanding, students can do this in Kami. As a teacher, you can also highlight material that you want your students to pay particular attention to as well. When grading material, you can make comments to your students on their work, help them revise their work and then enjoy their final draft. There are so many different things you can do with Kami and the only limited by your own knowledge of the program.  

    Technology is a fantastic tool. It can be used to enhance learning and make what used to be boring lectures and worksheets into something greater. Innovative technology will be released and as librarians, we must explore this technology and find ways to help teachers utilize it. 

References

Overbay, A., Mollette, M., Vasu, E., (February 2011). A technology plan: Administrators should keep five lessons in mind as they implement new technology initiatives. Educational Leadership, 68(5), 56-59.

Kami. (2021). Retrieved September 18, 2022, from https://www.kamiapp.com/blog/what-is-kami/

ISCI 761 - Module 3 - Blog Post #2 - Digital Intersections - Christine Donaldson

Reflecting on information literacy, technology, and media/digital sources requires some understanding of what these terms mean. Information literacy is deciding when information is needed, to use acquired skills to locate, evaluate, and use the newly acquired information effectively. Technology is the machinery and equipment used the added information effectively. Media and digital are means of mass communication both print and electronic. These topics are intertwined in a variety of ways. The devices we use are technology, and we use that technology to access information via media outlets, social media, databases, and news sources. We also use these technologies to communicate with sources to verify information. Each of these items are related and interconnected. You cannot have on one without the other and these items are becoming an even larger part of our lives. 

The P21 Framework (2015) addresses the need for student education in the areas of information literacy, digital literacy, and media literacy by outlining the skills needed for students to be literate in these areas. The Podcast by the Liturgists (2017) discussed the importance of recognizing “fake news” and some tips on how to spot poor information. These tips to look for are: (1) be sure articles or posts have a listed author or contributor, (2) is there an editorial review board to hold journalists accountable, (3) are publication dates listed, (4) is information cited in the article, and (5) is correct grammar and punctuation used? Fake news is not going away, as educators, helping prepare students for understanding and recognizing fake news should be a part of all library curriculums.

These two sources increased my understanding of the concepts, but they also helped me to draw some conclusions about my own information diet. My information diets mainly consists of local news and local connections on social media. These sites are used as information about current events and news as well as the live events of family and friends. My print diet consists mainly of required readings for two U of SC classes and the occasional fiction novel.  

Using the knowledge gained from this module, my school information diet will need to change in a few ways. I will still continue to stay current with local news and events. These events are essential to my understanding of the community I work in. Reading will include more of the items to be considered for purchase and or recommendations for the students I teach. Information and media literacy will become important aspects of my long-term plans and the lessons I will teach. Keeping up to date on current technology and social sites will increase my ability to interact with students and utilize current technologies. Utilizing the technology available to me and keeping up to date on current digital and media platforms allows me to better interact with students and faculty.