In the fast-paced, ever-changing world of technology we live in, there is a plethora of resources available on any subject that comes to mind. The dilemma we all face is "how reliable is the information we encounter on the myriad of websites we visit?"
It is important for teachers and students alike to be able to search for and critically choose resources with merit. This is not always an easy task, for it is often overwhelming and time consuming. Even after a lengthy search and selection period, we are still often left pondering the validity of either the information itself, or the reliability of the source. Many of us have discovered that the popular, easy-accessed Wikepedia, though laden with information of any description, is not an entirely secure sight and that most anyone can post information, valid or invalid. It is important to realize the same potentiality with countless other accessible websites.
Two key skills that can help choose online resources with merit are; critical thinking and comparing findings. The critical thinking process is an invaluable skill for students of all ages to learn, explore and practice. This being said, critical thinking is not necessarily inherent and can be taught through careful 'questioning' which will lead to stimulate 'more questioning'. Additionally, comparing findings can be said to be as invaluable as critical thinking because by comparing the results of our research we can detect anomalies, clarify incongruities and validate our decisions.
Experiential learning is critical to keep students engaged with their learning, and today's technology is a primary source for 'hands-on-learning'. However, we must keep in mind 'hands'on-learning' doesn't always just happen of its own accord in the classroom. As teachers, we utilize modelling strategies available to us. "Searching for Reliable Resources", includes a WebQuest for teachers and secondary students to help get them on there way to learning how to research wisely online.
http://imet.csus.edu/imet5/koreen/284/index.htm
Learning how to evaluate internet sources is another valuable skill set to teach students so that they can understand 'why' an internet source should be evaluated and 'what' the value of this skill means to them, before they blindly accept the information given. Here are a few sites to explore when evaluating internet sources.
http://curriculalessons.suite101.com/article.cfm/evaluating_internet_sources
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Evaluate.html
http://www.bcpl.net/~dcurtis/psd/handouts/s3-67/
The task of evaluating educational resources is not new and many of the same methods used to evaluate print sources, such as journals articles and books, also apply to the evaluation of resources on the internet. Also, there are some evaluation criteria that are unique to internet resources.
http://www.library.ualberta.ca/guides/criticalevaluation/index.cfm
29 comments:
Online resources are always a questionable aspect of having students do research through the internet. I agree that critical thinking and comparing finding skills are crucial for students. If you teach them the skills to identify educational sites versus none reliable sites when they are younger they will continue to have those skills. I think that online resources are very helpful. It is important that teachers take the time to make them work in their classroom.
I appreciate your connection & distinction of printed text to web text in evaluating tools. It is true studnets must be taught how to evaluate a valid source from an in valid source. Even when only printed copy resources were available for research it was still a skill set taught - on a smaller scale. Society is to secure in its attitude if it on the news or on another "machine" based source it is valid.
The important aspect when considering online resources, is first teaching students how to do online research in the first place. We seem suprised when students are using wikis as references, yet we have not taught them about the technological research issues. Like most methods of assessment, we must first teach the foundational skills.
There is a lot to teach students when deciding to do research projects on the internet. There needs to be a lot of exploration and navigation on the internet first to address the second skill of "evaluating" websites that Bonnie mentioned. I think that would be the first step when looking at valid/reliable internet sites in the classroom. Plagerism is another issue that needs to be discussed as well as proper citation. There is so much information, be it true, false, opinion, and/or fact, and it is so important to be able to distnguish one from the other, especially when doing research projects.
Dayna
Great question Bonnie
As a parent I have faced this dilemma for years. I was surprised to see how often my own children discount the validity of information retrieved from a website. I tried to encourage them to use different strategies to obtain information, this always seemed to fall on deaf ears and of course I lost this argument. Both my children insist that everything on the internet is accurate and truthful; all the information is valid in their eyes and in the eyes of many of their peers. They contend that getting information of the internet is fast, convenience, and reliable. In essence they just want to get the work done.
I too agree that is important that students ( including my own children ) have the tools to decipher valid source verses invalid sources. As teachers we too have to be on top of valid information and invalid information given to us by our students. I am not sure how I would do this without doing a lot of my own research- and where is it that I will be retrieving these facts. HMMMM – time is to an essences in my life and as a teacher !!!
Angela
Bonnie, I like your point that it is not always easy to evaluate a source after spending so much time just to find it. Sometimes when I am doing research, once I find something that gives me the answers I was looking for, I am so tired of looking for material that I don't feel like critically evaluating it. Through our university careers we may have internalized some evaluation skills so that we use them without thinking, but our students will not have those years of experience. We definitely have to teach them critical thinking skills for evaluating sources. I think comparing results is also a great tool. Students should use more than one source anyway, and when sources disagree, something needs further research.
-Mela
I think the suggestions made in this blog are valid and useful. Comparing information and critically thinking about the information are great ways to help ensure that the information is accurate. I think it is important that we as educators keep in mind that most people believe what they read and do not understand that information on the internet may not be accurate.
Sarah
I am interested to check out your links Bonnie! I think that teaching resource reliabilty to students is a HUGE part of research and that it should be an important part of our teachings. As the internet and technology become as bigger part of the global community, it is up to us to ensure students know where to look for reliable sources in many different areas they search.
Leslie
I definitely agree that learning how to evaluate internet sources is very valuable. This needs to be done so the student can choose appropriate information for school based assignments and can make appropriate choices when they are out of school. I really like the idea of comparing findings. The student can critically think about what each source had to say and look for similarities and differences. I think this is a good starting point for looking at the validity of internet sources.
-Rebecca
As I read the blog and then the comments I began to think about resources are resources, if they be printed or online. Research is about evaluating what is a valid point for your agrument. Years ago as I read journals, newpapers, and other obscure articles on microfiche I kept in mind the background of who wrote the item, can I find the same or similar point somewhere else and does this make sense. This is still true today and I admit using the internet to most of my research.
I really enjoyed your site because I believe it is important to know about resources and research. I wish I was taught about researching earlier because my whole career in school has been about using out side sources. I am still learning so much and I am not even close at being an expert. It is very crucial for us to be aware of what skills are going to make our students successful and looking at resource authenticity is one of them.
Natalie
First off, Bonnie I love your links - very useful. Secondly, I think that at the Secondary level, internet research should be mandatory in academic classes. I learned how to access authentic sources in College yet would have beneficial for me to learn this in the public education system. Students should be producing proper research papers in senior Secondary grades.
great blog. I really think we have to focus on teaching our students how to know what they are looking at on the internet (and all written sources as well) because the source often helps tell us a lot about the validity of an author... or not even validity, but gives us their motiation.
Blake.
Great links Bonnie!! I can clearly see the concern that is brought about by the tainted information that is accessable on the net. Like we teach our students to question the author and sources of books or newspapers like the "National Inquirer," we must do so with information found on the net.
Tammi
Guilty as charged Mela!! I know better than to use the first source I come across, but sometimes I just use the first one out of sheer desperation of finding a site. Having these artices at my disposal and can check to see if the sites are from a respectable source.
Online resources are so unpredictable. How many times have we or even or students typed in a the wrong website address and something 'not so good' pops up...or even a site that is bugged and a inapporpriate add pops up? How are we suppose to stop that? I think that we as teachers need to really monitor what sites our students go into...I like Mikes idea of using those online favourite folders that your students can use...I think that would cut down on teachers stress!
Well Done Bonnie, your link to the web quest is greatly appreciated, a wonderful resource ready to go.
Patti
I think at this point in time, most students know more about searching the internet than I do. Knowing what sites are reliable or not is an important skills. A good activity would be to find some reliable and unreliable websites and explain the differences.
Jackie
I remember being in high school and never being taught any internet research skills. Generally, we were just told that we could not use any more than X amount of internet resources and the rest much come from books. I can only imagine that we all used wikipedia as I am sure it was one of the first few links to pop up. Without teaching the students the skills, how would they be able to use them? This reminds me of issues with internet plagiarism. I have seen lots of students (High School)do it just to get caught and wonder why they are in so much trouble.
- Clay
It is defintely important to teach students how to search for and locate reliable information on the internet. I think that students should be encouraged to balance the use of internet sources with traditional paperback sources. This way they can compare their information and develop their researching skills through different mediums of text. In my experience, many professors are not allowing internet sources in research papers anymore because of the reliabillity and plagarism issues, so keeping those traditional research skills is important.
-Alyson
Ithink your right Bonnie in that comapring online resources is a good way to go about checking the information. However this is still a very lengthy process and for me is a huge reason wh yI stay away from using online material.
-tasha
I agree that it is very important to teach students how to evaluate online material. I think it would also be useful to teach parents as well so they can support their children when researching online material at home. I think there are a lot of people out there that have no clue about the reliability of online material.
~Lindsey
I usually only use the internet for my resources. I find it very helpful. It look me a long time to be able to distinguish a non reliable site to a reliable site. So it is important to make sure first that your students know how to research on the internet and how to look for a reliable site. One question I have that kinda fits into here is when it comes to evaluating students work referencing from the internet how do you find out if it was plagiarized?
Students need to be taught the importance of choosing appropriate resources online. As technology is becoming increasingly popular over text books for reasearch, we will need to incorporate choosing web resources along with print resources into our teaching. Students need to learn that the firt few websites that come up on Google may not be the most reliable and we need to teach that to them.
I always question the validity of what I'm reading on the internet, which is funny, because that is something I have never done with an encyclopedia or book that I have taken out of the library. It's strange that technology is supposed to make things easier, but sometimes you have to question that which seems too good to be true...like Wikipedia always being in the top three links whenever you google ANYTHING!!!! As teachers, we just need to make sure that our students are educated on how to make sure the information that they are gathering from the internet is valid.
Kimmy
I agree with the thread of the discussion. We need to teach our students to be able to analyze the validity of a online source. We also need a wealth of sources at our fingertips to direct them to. I would love to have a list of excellent online sites for every curricular subject.
Jasmine
In response to Jasmine's comment on having a listing of reliable online resources for every subject area, wouldn't it be nice. But, the reality is that even reliable sites are ever changing and as teachers we will always have to remain on top of our own research to check and verify sites to share with our students. This presents a great opportunity for teacher collaboration as well. Our "teaching tool box" will forever remain open and will need to be sorted and culled on a regular basis.
This is a great topic, and especial important considering the rapid growth of technology. It is important to teach students how to critically analyse both internet resourse and hardcopies. It is important to critically analyse EVERYTHING we read.
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