November's article is an insightful discussion of the importance of balancing responsibility and learning in the digital arena. I think his point that social and ethical responsibility must be taught by exposing children to these social tools rather than blocking them is valid. Many schools already address bullying so adding cyberbullying and other misuses of technology seems like a logical step.
His point that students too often accept information from the web without thinking critically about these sources is so true. As teachers, we need to teach our students how to find accurate information online and to evaluate its reliability. I try to do this by directing them to several trustworthy sites and then have them search on their own for other sites and then to compare them.
The most important point November makes is the need to teach our students to think globally and to be aware and empathize with the plights of people around the world. I hope to continue to work on this with my students by various projects like having them research the use and availability of natural resources in other parts of the world.
This project fits well with Warlick's ideas on the importance of student-centered learning in that I let them pick the resource and the country that they want to learn more about.
I have tried to provide students information in general note form on how to locate a valid and reliable website with few results. I like your suggestion of showing them specific websites that contain the essential qualities of great websites. Then we can look at them together and discuss the qualities that make it right. Hopefullin this way, they can go out on their own looking for those same qualities.
ReplyDeleteDepending on what level you are at, you can start with something extreme like martinlutherking.or or Save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus (http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/) to look at website characteristics. I like The Weidner University site on web evaluation (http://www.widener.edu/libraries/wolfgram/evaluate). It is appropriate for secondary students as well as providing good background for teachers. I like the way it focuses on the purpose of the site when evaluating it.
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