Setting the Stage: a reflection.
The reasons I signed up for the Webtools course was two-fold. I needed another summer class that would apply towards my master's and I wanted to be more "plugged in". I really had no idea how unplugged I was. What has me even more concerned is that my students are not as connected as they think they are. Yes, most of them are on Facebook and some even twitter. But they are only coasting on the waves of the Internet when perhaps they should be diving. I am only just learning what web 2.0 has to offer and I think it is going to take me some time to assimilate all it has to offer. My students probably won't take nearly as long, once it is presented to them.
But that brings me to another thought: there is a lot of information out there on the web. Some of it is reliable and accurate and useful. Much of it is not. Part of what I need to do as an educator is help my students become discerning web users.
I struggle every year in trying to teach students not to be lazy about using the internet for research.
ReplyDeleteThe most common approach: do a google search and click on the first thing that came up. They squint through it, copy sections that they think is relevant to their topic, and paste that info into a word document. Then they write their name on the paper and turn it in.
Frustrating, right?
So there are a couple challenges here: first, the top link isn't necessarily the best. Or most reliable. Second, plagiarism, anyone?
I try to tell my kids to ignore most of the .com links they come to. .org and .gov and .edu are going to be more reliable. But then comes the hard part- teaching the kids to THINK about what they're reading, and then teaching them to cite the information they're using.
We've certainly got our work cut out for us, don't we?
I agree with you Andrea, it truly is a challenge for us to teach competent and honest internet research.
ReplyDeleteI ran across a very interesting TED Talk (I love them!) by Eli Pariser about what he calls "filter bubbles". It was disturbing to me to discover the amount of filtering that is going on in my searches.
I think I'm getting a broad spectrum of results, and it turns out, I'm getting "Carol specific" results.
http://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles.html
What does this mean for our students? Are they aware of this and how can they get around it for a more thorough search of their topic?
As far a plagarism...it's rampant and ubiquitous. I think only extreme penalties set up front with administration and parent disclosures and by-ins are the only hope. And yet, I've had parents help with the plagarism before. It's disturbing and I'm at a loss there too.
"assimilate all it has to offer"
ReplyDeletePlease don't try to do this during the summer! It is a recipe for burn out ;) Seriously, there is so much "out" there that can be explored - the landscape is constantly changing. I think the biggest thing is being comfortable with the concept of connectivity and familiarity with how to "troubleshoot" interesting tools as you run across them. We'll look at a lot of starting points this summer.
I've been doing this stuff for 4 years or so and always learning new things. I think the most valuable part of a course like this...and the hardest to communicate...is the idea of a personal learning network. Once you have that, you have a "go to" resource for ongoing learning.
Oh, indeed, I realize there is more out there than I can possibly absorb, no matter how much time I had. I'm too easily distracted to focus that long on anything anyway. But I am amazed at how much I've learned in just the first week. I honestly had been afraid of blogging because I lack confidence in my writing. But punctuation and grammar hasn't been the issue I thought it would. I just had to get over myself and post!
ReplyDeleteHaving other teachers read and comment on my posts has been such a help!
Carol, your point on students browsing/coasting on the surface of the internet is a good one. It reminded me of Nicholas Carr's article "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" (The Atlantic 2008), where he writes about how the internet is changing HOW we find information, and how we digest it.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/6868/
Carr writes:
"Just as there’s a tendency to glorify technological progress, there’s a countertendency to expect the worst of every new tool or machine. In Plato’s Phaedrus, Socrates bemoaned the development of writing. He feared that, as people came to rely on the written word as a substitute for the knowledge they used to carry inside their heads, they would, in the words of one of the dialogue’s characters, 'cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful.' And because they would be able to 'receive a quantity of information without proper instruction,' they would 'be thought very knowledgeable when they are for the most part quite ignorant.' "
Not unlike many of my students (and @Andrea's it seems as well)! You're right: "teaching the kids to THINK about what they're reading" is the hard part.
Thank you for the link to the article, Scott. I think Carr made some important points about how we read on the Internet and how it may be changing how we think. Even the comments that didn't agree with his assessment agreed that how we research and learn information is changing. I love the Socrates quote. We've moved so far from memorizing stories and information, I wonder sometimes if we've lost something. Whenever I talk with my students about a scientist's important discovery, they are always so amazed someone could even think that deeply.
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