Monthly Archives: February 2007

It’s Not All Garbage to Me

I recently heard a teacher say that the majority of the information on the web is “all garbage;” and therefore, it should not be used as a source for research.
Students don’t buy that. They ask, “Why can’t I use the internet as a source? If the information is out there in multiple sources, including electronic sources, why are you insisting that I use only textbooks and other print materials?”

Those questions are all too commonly asked by many students who are accustomed to having information at their fingertips. One of my kids came home one day to tell me that she could not use any internet sources for her research. Her teacher wanted her to use “more reliable sources,” like textbooks and periodicals.

I’m not knocking the information one can find in a periodical, but what lesson are we teaching students here? Is NOTHING on the internet valid and reliable? And therefore, we shouldn’t use any of it for research/information?

I understand that a lot of teachers are uneasy about the wealth of misinformation that can be found on the web. However, wouldn’t it be a better skill to teach students HOW to find valid and reliable information?

I sometimes hold a class for teachers that explains how to be a good “Internet Sleuth.” We learn about testing sites for accuracy, validity, reliablility, etc. Why can’t we do that with our students?

Interestingly enough, I found another blog post about this very same issue today. Will Richardson over at weblogg-ed.com posted “YouNiversity” yesterday afternoon. He writes about the same frustration:

“The problem, obviously, is not only are we denying students the ability to connect with and use some great resources ‘wherever they can find it,’ we’re also not teaching them the processes that go along with editing those resources for themselves, for making decisions about the content they find.”

And that is the true disservice to our students. Discernment is a very necessary 21st century digital literacy skill. If we continue to point our students to sources that we know are “trustworthy,” how will they ever learn to find their own trustworthy sources?

And please, let’s not continue to assume, or worse yet, tell our students that everything on the web is “garbage.”

February Think-About

Today, while giving an in-service to some really great middle school teachers, I pulled an analogy out of the air… and now I wonder if it painted the picture I wanted.

 I compared MySpace ™ to Elvis.

A lot of adults- educators, parents, or otherwise- hate MySpace (and other sites like it.). They don’t like the potential threat it carries with kids who don’t understand or care about internet-stranger-danger. It is commonly considered a bad influence on the thinking skills of young people. Adults don’t always understand why anyone would want to spend that much time posting and communicating and requesting “friends.” Many adults wish that MySpace would just go away, so that things will go back to the way they were before.

In the mid-1950s, Elvis Presley was all the rage. Girls screamed and cried over him. Boys thought he was the coolest. Some adults even got caught up in Elvis fever. But many adults saw Elvis as a threat. His effect on the minds of young people was dangerous . His singing and dancing was scandalous. Why would anyone want to waste time listening to him? They wished he would just go away, so that things could go back the way they were before.

Elvis didn’t go away just because a lot of adults didn’t like him. Neither will MySpace.  In their respective generations, both have made a significant impact on the lives of young people.

How adults respond to the MySpace issue will also make a significant impact. Are you as an educator going to be the naysayer, the finger-pointer, the accuser of the “evil empire” that is the MySpace generation? Or are you going to open your mind to the possibility that there could be something useful, productive, and… yes, even educational about MySpace?

With the appropriate boundaries, MySpace-and other sites like it- CAN BE a good thing. Let’s do a better job of teaching kids how to use the tools they have appropriately.