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Cardiff to host literacy guru

Modern communication technology has changed the way the world disseminates information, so educators must change the way they teach children to read.

Modern communication technology has changed the way the world disseminates information, so educators must change the way they teach children to read.

That’s a view North Carolina-based education consultant David Warlick will share during a public talk in Cardiff next week.

A 34-year educator, Warlick grew up in an era when being literate simply meant being able to read and understand written text. Back then, students never doubted the information they read, as it came from vetted sources like encyclopedias and textbooks. But that type of implicit trust is no longer advisable in the digital age, he said.

“Today, we’re reading out of a global electronic library that anybody can publish to,” Warlick said in a phone interview. “That means that at the same time that children are learning to read, they also need to be learning how to evaluate the information.”

The digital age has redefined what it means to be educated, reducing the need to memorize information but cranking up the need to deal with an overwhelming amount of information, given kids “are walking around with Google in their pocket,” he said.

“Today, being educated has less to do with what you have been taught and more to do with the skills that you own that allow you to teach yourself every single day,” Warlick said.

Warlick believes educators need to teach with the same tools that children use in their everyday lives, such as laptops and other electronics, but the focus needs to be on learning and not the tools.

“A term that I use often is that it’s helping students become information artisans, not just able to read and do calculations on a piece of paper but actually able to use information as a raw material to build information products, to draw conclusions, to construct knowledge,” he said.

The Sturgeon School Division is hosting Warlick for sessions with its teaching staff, some of whom have heard him before, said Wolfgang Jeske, the division’s director of curriculum and instruction.

“As we were planning the event we also recognized that he had a message for parents and community members,” Jeske said.

Hence the addition of a free talk on Tuesday, Aug. 31 at Cardiff Hall from 7 to 8:30 p.m.

Warlick feels it’s critical for members of the school board, the public and parents to hear his message.

“One of the bottom-line points I’m going to be making,” he said, “is that for the first time in history we as educators are preparing our children for a future we cannot clearly describe.”

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