Define what it means to be information literate?
I think that being information literate depends on the age group that you are thinking of or working with. I have a hard time seeing how Barbara or Dawn will be teaching internet grammar to their preschoolers, however, I think that by fifth grade it is important to teach kids how to read information and interpret that information well. That will set the groundwork for the later grades. The example of “Zach” in November’s Empowering Students with Technology is a perfect example of why we need to “teach” our kids how to interpret what is real. Too many times do I hear from some of my fifth graders that they “read it online.” And I want to respond with a sarcastic, “Oh, so it must be true!” Just today on a field trip one of my students was quoting something that she had read online and I told her that just because we read it online does not mean that it is in fact true.
I can’t help but think of the story back in March of this past year when the composer died and that Irish student had played a hoax on Wikipedia…even adults (and the media) can fall victim to what is posted on websites. Even Fox News and MSNBC quoted facts from Wikipedia that they later had to recant.
How can teachers and students thoughtfully evaluate online information resources, including the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia?
When Maurice Jarre died in November and the media misquoted, it confirmed my beliefs that Wikipedia cannot be trusted as a source for my kids, now however, I think that it could be a teaching point. I think that I may start allowing my kids to use the website as a source, but I will have them use it as a secondary source, a source to confirm what they have already learned. I think that it is an important lesson for them to have more than one corroborating source. In teaching them to have more than one source, we are empowering them to become information literate and evaluative of the information that they are coming in contact with. Richardson would agree, “I think we need to teach Wikipedia to our students” (Richardson, 2010) . The operative word, teach.
I am more now interested in Wikipedia, the statistics that Richardson shared in the Wikis chapter were hard to dispute, “edits appear at a rate of around 400,000 a day…(in six months the tsunami entry) more than 7,000 changes had been recorded, and the post had settled at around 7,200 words” (Richardson, 2010) .
It is more accurate than I had originally given it credit for. The fact that the university professor had purposefully created “13 errors on various posts on Wikipedia, all of which were fixed within a couple of hours” (Richardson, 2010) speaks to the importance of the ownership of the many for the information to be as accurate as possible.
What are a few of the similarities and differences between the four instructional models of internet use?
Although all for the most part have a collaborative piece to them the outcome can be quite different. The Internet Inquiry is the collaboration of two or more classes working together to find out information on a topic. The Internet Workshop seems to be more of a collaborative piece that is created by a class or groups. This can be to build background knowledge or to increase content knowledge. Internet projects can not only go outside the classroom and provide opportunities for students to work with other students in other schools but also other countries. WebQuests are usually more teacher directed/selected, at least in my experience, and can be done individually or in groups.
What are a few of the similarities and differences between the four instructional models of internet use?
Although all for the most part have a collaborative piece to them the outcome can be quite different. The Internet Inquiry is the collaboration of two or more classes working together to find out information on a topic. The Internet Workshop seems to be more of a collaborative piece that is created by a class or groups. This can be to build background knowledge or to increase content knowledge. Internet projects can not only go outside the classroom and provide opportunities for students to work with other students in other schools but also other countries. WebQuests are usually more teacher directed/selected, at least in my experience, and can be done individually or in groups.
Stacy,
ReplyDeleteI very much agree with your views on Wikipedia. I, for the longest time, completely shunned Wikipedia as a source. Only recently have I begun to see it as a source of information. As you pointed out, there have been mixed results with its use. I had always clung to examples like the one you gave about the composer death as a Wikipedia hoax. Yet at the same time you quoted November's Example of how quickly information is corrected.
I am by nature a skeptic and part of me looks at the use of Wikipedia from a what if standpoint. What if our students were doing a project on a topic and are using a Wikipedia article that happens to be incorrect? I have come to realize that this is most likely not to occur, however, it could and that is why we need to inform our students to not settle for "I read it online, so it must be true."
From my own experience I find using Wikipedia is helpful as a source to find other sources. I see it as a starting point: use the information from Wikipedia to help you find articles that can confirm these facts and are more reliable.
Because of the nature of the product, I do have issues with students using Wikipedia as a source for a research paper/project, even if it is just a secondary source. It is hard to tackle a moving object. Wikipedia is constantly changing. Going back to November's example of how many edits take place in a day, 400,000, how on earth can we quote or cite something that may change in a few hours?