Andy Carvin recently posted in PBS Teachers' Learning.Now that Congress has passed a rider to the Broadband Data Improvement Act that requires schools accepting federal funds to give mandatory online safety instruction. Schools receiving federal subsidies will have to provide education to students on appropriate online behavior and cyberbullying. ISTE has praised the move citing that "Education, not mandatory filtering and blocking, is the best way to protect and prepare America's students." While I am sure Congress will provide no funding for such an education program, this is a positive step. Readers of this blog have know that I have been advocating teaching media literacy so students can evaluate information for themselves so they can make better decisions.
I feel Library Media Specialists may have a problem with this move by Congress. Case in point: our seventh grade Language Arts teachers wanted to get a jump on preparing a research paper. This was done in part to prepare students for the writing portion of South Carolina's new PASS test which is given in March. The teachers approached our new LMS about helping with teaching research skills, something our previous LMS would have not done. One move that disturbed me was the fact she restricted students to using DISCUS, South Carolina's website of "approved" information sites on the web. Almost every LMS I know gets very irritated when students go to Google when starting a research project and nearly go ballistic when students land on Wikipedia. They always goad students to use DISCUS because they believe it is the end all be all of online research.
As I observed students using DISCUS while researching their various topics and holding my tongue at the same time. In fact, I was even assisting students in using DISCUS in finding information. The problem I saw was students were not getting enough information to write their papers. It was disturbing to me and students were getting frustrated. Later, I discussed the situation with the teacher of the class who agreed that information was limited but students would go home and use Google anyway. My next thought was, "What about the students who don't have Internet connected computers at home?"
This project continued to haunt me. Those who have read past posts in this blog know I have constantly advocated media literacy. I feel sites like DISCUS run counter to this need students have. Now before every LMS comes down to Bluffton to string me up we should think about this. Our news media is now becoming one-sided politically, either on the right as many believe Fox News is or on the left as MSNBC is making no secret of its left leaning bias. Unfortunately, our news media would still like for Americans to believe it is "fair and balanced." A print reporter told me earlier reporters need to be objective. That is nice until you are watching either Bill O'Reilly or Keith Olbermann. Then you need to have media literacy skills to properly determine if what they say is fact or opinion (actually it is entertainment). Also, so-called citizen journalism, such as blogging, is growing more and more but not necessarily for the better. The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating on whether a blog post falsely claiming Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, had a massive heart attack was a deliberate and illegal attempt to influence stock prices for the benefit of parties unknown. While other online news sources refused to post the erroneous information, CNN's iReport did post the story causing a drop in stock prices.
The moral to this story is students need to see bad information and learn what makes it bad information. Students need to view two news sources with opposite points of view politically and learn how to verify the claims made by the two sources so an informed judgement can be reached. The days of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite are sadly over. They have been shoved aside by the likes of Keith Olbermann, Rush Limbaugh, Al Fraken, and Bill O'Reilley who are more interested in getting ratings by any means necessary. It would be sad the next President of the United States was elected because because the American People believed him to be a popular cult icon and not because they examined the issues and chose the candidate most matches their core beliefs.
4 comments:
OkayI agree with you. I don't understand why I'm being called out here. Yes, I encourage studets to use DISCUS. It has reliability, validity, it's authoritative, EASY TO CITE, etc. I alos tell frustrated kids who get angry when the filter restriction screen pops up that if they'd use DISCUS< they would not have to deal with that. But I don't JUST teach Discus. I teach about media literacy as well, an specifically about evaluating websites to see if they are what they seem on the surface.
In fact, one of my favorite inquiry based lessons is using the MLK site that is put out by a white supremecists group so kids could see that things are not always as they appear. I show they the way back machine and more, and hopefully equip them to judge the material they see online. I talk about tagging too, and using tags to search for content that may not be indexed in an authoritative site yet.
So again, why am I being called out here? I'm on YOUR side. Great post, John. Oh and congrats on e the TIPS award.
Sorry to offend you but I mentioned you because not only do I respect your expertise as a LMS but you have the thickest skin of any LMS I know and you are a good sport. I am glad you see my point about media literacy. Unfortunately, in my district, LMS's (even the good ones) are still skittish about venturing into new territory on the Internet. I just hoped to get a good discussion started. Please don't kill me at EdTech. See you in a couple of weeks.
As a Media Specialist, I would hope that teachers (and other LMSers) would be encouraging the use of a variety of resources in research - print, Internet & DISCUS. I'm fortunate to have a freshman English teacher who LOVES for me to teach web evaluation, DISCUS and print resources each year so that the students get a good start on info literacy skills. While I don't specifically teach "media literacy" I do teach bias and not to trust everything they find on the net (or DISCUS for that matter=bias is everywhere). Additionally, you can't just tell students they can only use DISCUS w/o teaching them HOW to use (search) it properly.
The other part of that equation is to make sure student CAN find information in DISCUS - that the info is actually there to find. DISCUS may not be the best source for obscure topics or extremely current topics. Nothing frustrates me more than a teacher assigning a topic when they haven't even made sure there are resources available for the kids to find/use.
Heather,
I agree about teachers not thinking about the topics they assign students for research projects. Last year an ELA Teacher told students to write reports about their favorite bands. Halfway in the assignment, surprise surprise, she was totally frustrated because all the sites the students went to were blocked by district. She came to me for help but I told her there was nothing I could do. Needless to say, the project was a disaster. Thanks for your comments and participating in the discussion. Hope you are going to EdTech.
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