Educators are designating this week for a special focus on digital citizenship. In keeping with the theme, it makes sense to offer a resource educators may find helpful. The News Literacy Project makes a variety of resources available including Checkology which provides a series of interactive lessons. Get Smart About the News includes individual lessons focused on specific skills such as reverse image search (see image below) as ways to investigate claims. The project seeks donations to supports its efforts.
I have become a fan of the power of what I have decided to call “understanding through ownership”. I believe embracing this concept provides anyone both a sense of autonomy and a better understanding of how digital technologies works within our lives. I am not a supporter of the universal value of “coding for all” as I regard programming as a vocational skill unique to specific professions. I do believe that digital literacy is a far more important life skill and coding alone does not provide the necessary skills and understanding to deal with the changes technology is bringing to all of our lives.
I have written previously about what might be described as the benefit those of us who participated in the emergence of personal computing have enjoyed. Those who have entered this revolution at some point along the way lack the understanding that comes from having experienced more primitive versions of things and having to do more for yourself. I miss the days I enjoyed being able to quickly convert any Mac I was working on into a working server. It is true that I enjoyed the advantage of working at a university which allowed me the advantage of a dedicated IP, but even a computer that assigns the IP as you connect would work as a server until you disconnected again. I understand the security issues in those with limited technical knowledge operating a server, but this understanding also illustrates the point. I understand security concerns because I personally had to deal with them. I am not advocating going back to this level of control, but having had such experiences has strongly influenced my thinking.
What I think makes sense for the educational setting is the purchase of shared server space. This is relatively inexpensive – I would budget the cost at about $10 a month. When you own a server, you can take risks and exercise control at multiple levels. Most hosting plans allow me to install tools by running host provided scripts. Anyone can do this. Push a button and follow instructions and you can set up a wiki, a WordPress blog, or a Weebly web site. You own the service and the content and the headaches. One of the realities of services is that flaws continually emerge and some flaws allow vulnerabilities. If you want, most services have mechanisms that will automatically update your installs. Middle school on, I think some students could manage such a site for their peers.
Just to be clear. You do this type of thing not because it provides you access to the most powerful version of services, but because it offers you greater control of versions of a particular service. I suggest that you use open source software when possible. Unless you install the open source software from a source external to the hosting site, you have some satisfaction in knowing that most groups providing this software are receiving some support through the stipend you pay to the hosting site. Dealing with how online experiences are funded is an important lesson for all to learn and learners are more likely to think about such issues when they are putting a little money into their experiences.
I have written on several occasions about the problem of finding what you look for rather than what you should see. This is my way of describing what Eli Pariser calls the Filter Bubble (also the name of his book).
For educators, thorough online exploration is part what might be called digital literacy. Public Learning Media has introduced Glean – an interesting tool for exploring the variety of reactions to a given issue one might find online. You first identify a topic – say Obama jobs program. You then select terms that might describe different positions on the initial search phrase – say “pro” and “con”. The search tool returns hits offering these different perspectives. Pretty cool!
Google has a new offering – Google a Day. Google asks a question and you attempt to find the answer. Google even includes a feature that allows you to search the Internet as it existed before they answered the question (folks are fond of demonstrating they have found the answer). Perhaps this is an interesting activity for developing search skills.
I think this is the answer – I could not find it by examining images, but I found this by searching Coubre, print , Che & inscription. If this is the answer, I assume by now it appears online in many places before you see it here.
This just in – digital natives may not have magical techno powers. Mark Baurlein, Emory University, points to an ETS study conducted with a very large samples of college students demonstrating that web search skills and the critical thinking skills necessary to evaluate the quality of information located through web searches were often not sufficient to complete college level assignments. I agree that too much has been made of the general technical sophistication and applied capabilities of college students.However, like unwarranted assumptions regarding the breadth of tech skills those who walk onto our campuses might possess, I also think it inappropriate to assume technology offers little of academic value.
The report is part of a body of discouraging findings and outcomes regarding the academic benefits of technology. Unfortunately, those reports are pretty much swamped by the flood of enthusiasm (and money) pouring over newly-wired classrooms and campuses. Given the enormous cost of technology, we should pay more attention to actual results and give less credence to airy predictions.
While I deal with students and understand the limitations as described, my wife works directly to help future teachers develop skills necessary to integrate technology when they move on to classrooms of their own. I like how she describes the situation. Her students seldom have the technical skills or pedagogical insights she attempts to develop, but they come with sophisticated technical expertise in other areas that has transfer value in taking on these somewhat different goals and they typically (but not always) see the value in making the effort.Search skills can be learned. Naive assumptions that all information is created equal can be overcome. Given some general guidelines and heightened awareness, critical thinking tends to be applied when we value the consequences of decisions we make.
Perhaps too much has been made of generational difference in the way technology has been used. And, perhaps there is a confusion between comfort level and productivity.
The first ever virtual longitudinal study carried out by the CIBER research team at University College London claims that, although young people demonstrate an apparent ease and familiarity with computers, they rely heavily on search engines, view rather than read and do not possess the critical and analytical skills to assess the information that they find on the web.
The group responsible for this study intends to track individuals longitudinally. The group also seems to contend that bad scholarship is like a disease – the rest of us are catching it from our students (I made the part about the disease model up – the group says no such thing, but they do observe that similar patterns are emerging across generations).
(pdf explaining the research and intent of the group is available to those in which the problem has not progressed past the point of no return – read while you still can) 😉
BTW- the details in the pdf are a little sparse. This is more of an issue piece, but the issues are interesting and linked to some research.
This is follow-up to yesterday’s post considering how social networks might more usefully advance general understanding.
Have you been following the NYTimes debate between Rick Cotton and Tim Wu considering copyright in the digital era? I like the debate format (with side reader comments) as one approach that may make productive use of social networks. At least with the debate format you must consider active opposition to arguments. This is better than allowing one group backing one position to explain the arguments of the hypothetical opposition. It is important to consider “both sides of the story” (with a nod to Phil Collins).
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