The most urgent and important issue being raised at my
school at the moment is the need for students to be able to evaluate the
quality of information. So willingly the accept whatever is written on Wikipedia
or other sources that aren’t necessarily presenting authentic information
Lorenzo (2007) agrees that the level of misinformation on the internet is
causing educators problems when students are reporting it as fact. Part of the
problem, stated by Garfinkel (2008), is that whenever something is searched
for on the internet, the Wikipedia entry on the topic is always one of the
first search results that appears. As a result, students believe that this
means it is the best source.
Lorenzo raises the interesting point that we make the
assumption too often that since students seem technologically savvy in their
everyday interactions and navigations online, that they are equivalently savvy
when in comes to determining the validity of the information. While the skills
of the students seems to be far outstripping their teachers, the skills that
are needed in order to process all this information is not moving at the rate.
The possible answer to this problem is suggested by
Wittenburg (2007), that the role of teacher librarian, as well as teacher needs
to be redefined. This means responding to the needs of young students, rather
than lecturing them for using Google as a source of information (Wittenburg
2007).
The modern day librarian now needs to be as technologically
savvy as the students that he/she teaches. Rather than spouting the knowledge
found solely in books in the library, the librarians role has to focus more on
the search process through digital media.
Through my own work in the library the last 2 years it has
become apparent that students become stuck on the first step of the information
search process and do not properly define the purpose for their search. Due to
this they are often flooded with information that is irrelevant or misleading for
what they are actually looking for. The new role of a teacher librarian needs
to be to step students through the ISP for digital resources.
Garfinkel, S. (2008). Wikipedia and the meaning of truth. Technology Review, 111(6), 84-86. Retrieved from www.technologyreview.com
Lorenzo, G. (2007). Catalysts for change: Information fluency, Web 2.0, Library 2.0, and the new education culture. (March). Retrieved from http://www.edpath.com/images/IFReport2.pdf
Wittenberg, K. (2007). Credibility of content and the future of research, learning, and publishing in the digital environment. The Journal of Electornic Publishing, 10(1). Available http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=jep;cc=jep;rgn=main;view=text;idno=3336451.0010.101
No comments:
Post a Comment