It just occurred to me that all of you are probably about as old as the internet, at least the popular, available internet. You may have seen this cartoon drawn by Peter Steiner and published in the New Yorker in 1993*. It's sort of a corollary to what I say about 'nothing you say on the internet is ever erased'. In this case, 'what and who you see on the internet is not necessarily what or who you really get'. What this means for teachers is that contrary to older traditional sources of information (text books, encyclopedias, references books) current sources are not limited to trusted and supposedly well vetted sources. Today the internet is a vast sea of information, much of which is fresh and well reasoned but at least an equal amount of information is bogus and misleading. The question becomes how do we as individuals and as teachers discern the wheat from the chaff? For our students how do we help them sift the good stuff from the not so good stuff without snuffing their quest for knowledge? In a previous post I asked you to posit the role of the teacher in the post-information age. Perhaps this is a hint of the new set of responsibilities for teachers. I'd like to know your thoughts on this riff on 'No one knows you are a dog...'. Comment here or do a twofer on your blog.
Just in case you are wondering: This is a blog prompt.
*The above cartoon by Peter Steiner has been reproduced from page 61 of July 5, 1993 issue of The New Yorker, (Vol.69 (LXIX) no. 20)only for academic discussion, evaluation, research and complies with the copyright law of the United States as defined and stipulated under Title 17 U. S. Code.
+ There is so much information on the internetas well as every other form of media it is a good thing to think about, as an educator, how to teach the good from the bad.
ReplyDeleteIll right more about this on my next blog. I don't know how I am just now seeing this post.
In the field of science this is especially important. There are so many "sketchy" .com sites out there that students are finding from search engines like Goole, Yahoo & Bing. As a teacher, we have to try and educate them on the more stable and valid websites as well as other viable resources such as electronic journals, etc.
ReplyDelete+ Every coin has two sides. I feel like that the point is how we choose the information that is good for us. Since the internet is global and there exists lots of different kinds of opinions and sources. We may depend on our moral judgement to decide which to trust and which don't.
ReplyDeletePearl, Interesting perspective. Certainly moral judgement is an essential part of discerning what web based information is good for us or for out students. But what is difficult is finding the source of the information and checking it against other sources. Not all misinformation on the internet appears to be morally offensive. Sometimes it is just not correct. Checking sources against other known reliable sources is often the best course (after first eliminating morally offensive information). Very thoughtful comment.
Delete+ Dave I have decided to respond to this in my blog.
ReplyDelete