Secondary Digital Skills Pack

Pack includes:

Slaying Digital Dragons

• Without avoiding the dark side of technology, this interactive and comprehensive reference book empowers young adults to take charge of their digital life and improve their mental health and well-being. Quizzes and exercises guide readers through the process of evaluating their relationships with their screens, social media, and tech in general. With a frank and humorous approach to a timely topic, award-winning author Alex J. Packer, Ph.D., pulls back the curtain on the hidden aspects of the digital world and shares:
  • Signs that screen time is affecting young adults’ bodies, brains, and relationships
  • Tips for protecting their privacy, safety, and reputation
  • Ways social media and algorithms can distort their reality and sense of self
  • Tools for finding life balance and resetting their screen scene
  Slaying Digital Dragons is a call to action to make the choices that are right for teens. It doesn’t demand ditching smartphones or deactivating social media. Instead, it suggests strategies for playing favourite games and posting on favourite apps, while also doing good in the world and bringing joy and encouragement to others. It invites readers to join the resistance and learn how to thwart the manipulative forces trying to control and profit off their users. And it gives young adults what they need to stay safe and take charge of their digital life.

Digital Learning Strategies

• Digital tools bring an entirely new menu of tasks into the classroom. Students can now demonstrate their learning by using apps and online resources to conduct research, solicit feedback, and collaborate with others more effectively than ever before. Digital tools also provide teachers with effective ways to assess student work. Michael Fisher outfits you for this new world by opening your thinking to new possibilities for teaching and engaging 21st century students.
  Along the way, he provides
  • Six steps for evaluating when it’s appropriate to assign digital work.
  • Ten examples of how digital tools can improve instructional practice.
  • The primary factors to consider for the assessment of digital work.
  • Find out how new digital tools can radically improve classroom instruction.

Authentic Learning in the Digital Age

• Get the inside story of how a renowned school—the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia—creates an authentic learning environment where students ask questions, do research, and explore subjects that fascinate them. Author and classroom teacher Larissa Pahomov takes the work of 25 teachers and 500 students and distils their ideas, passions, systems, and structures into a framework you can learn from and implement in your school. Discover how you can:
  • Create an authentic learning environment in today’s standards-driven atmosphere.
  • Implement a personalized, inquiry-based education in a typical secondary classroom.
  • Use a solid but open structure to guide curriculum and classroom design.
  • Integrate technology into inquiry-based education.

  Find out how a devotion to five core values—inquiry, research, collaboration, presentation, and reflection—ensures students benefit from their education long after they’ve graduated.

Tasks Before Apps

• Content-hosting websites, videoconferencing apps, grade- or subject-focused social media accounts: with such a dizzying array of mechanical and virtual help at our disposal, it can be a challenge for educators to know where to even start. Educator and technology consultant Monica Burns can relate, which is why she wrote this book: to share strategies, tools, and insights that teachers can use, regardless of subject or grade level, to effectively incorporate technology in the classroom. Focusing on the “three Cs” of technology implementation—creation, curiosity, and collaboration—Tasks Before Apps offers K–12 teachers
  • Detailed advice for (and copious examples of) tech-infused lessons that help students meet learning goals while also developing vital digital citizenship skills.
  • Customizable checklists and graphic organizers for planning tech-enabled activities; choosing appropriate programs, devices, and platforms; and setting unit and lesson goals.
  • Recommendations for and links to apps and online resources that can facilitate and energize learning.
  • Reflection and brainstorming questions for use in book clubs and professional learning community (PLC) discussions.

  Knowing how to navigate technology wisely—how to communicate effectively on posts and message boards, locate credible information on search engines, and select efficient, cost-effective equipment—is essential for both teachers and students. Whether you are a novice or a veteran, teach kindergarten students or high school seniors, this book is an indispensable guide to furthering academic skills, social development, and digital aptitude in the classroom.