Week 4-- Thoughts on Student Research and the Web

The first question in the reflective journal discussion prompt is What do we want our students and ourselves to know in order to access information effectively on the web. To me, the most important thing I learned this week was the proper use of search engines using the right keywords, boolean operators, upper and lower case letters and specific phrases or quotations to narrow down and get a more precise search. Just learning these simple steps eliminates so much endless sifting and searching. I think the knowledge of the different search engines is just as important as well as learning to recognize credible, legitimate websites. I guess another important lesson learned is never assume students and teachers are at the same level of knowledge in terms of technological use.

We need to learn and teach students(and ourselves) about the issues of credibility and accuracy when researching and using web-based resources. Realizing there is no "web president" or "web police" to set rules, regulations, and guide lines awakens us as readers, to not believe everything we read or see on the internet. Checking credentials and tracing authorship are two important steps students and teachers need to take in order to prove legitimacy of a website.

After reading Kajder, K&L, Grabe and Grabe,.. etc, I saw a few main topics and themes running through all of their writings. They all address the issue of hypertext or hypermedia literacy and the importance of teaching, preparing, and providing the skills needed to sort through all the information on the internet. Some of their answers and solutions were similar too, such as limiting websites use to what is already approved, guiding students in their search, using webquests as a teaching, learning, and researching tool, linking previously researched and approved websites for use. Throughout all the readings, the one subject that seemed to be a continuous problem was how to teach students to "sort" through the ever-changing, always growing, fast-moving, world wide web when their is no realistic way to set guidelines or a" safety net" to prevent students/children from encountering "undesirable" and harmful websites. There is just no way to ensure it doesn't happen and that poses a huge problem for teachers, schools, and parents.

As for the McEneaney article, I had a little problem and couldn't experience what the author wanted his readers to see first hand, "the learner's path". Instead, I had to read the traditional version and click on the links added to the article. McEneaney writes and links together the 'path' he wants his readers to follow, allowing a flowing argument and and specific direction. He eliminates reader 'choices' by blue-printing his writing in the order or level of importance. That way, by the reader won't be jumping from one idea to the next, losing focus on the main idea. McEneaney's "learner's path" encourages coherency and fluency in reading, learning, and researching. I, however, lost focus, my train of thought, and got more frustrated the more pages and links I had to click on to read McEneaney 's article the "traditional" way because I couldn't get to his path-version, so I really don't have the full comprehension of his path-version. I am just imagining how it would work by the way he describes it.