Chapter 5

Chapter 5 explores how teachers and students can critically research and evaluate the Internet as a teaching and learning environment. It emphasizes that information literacy should be a significant learning goal for students. To Millennials, most of us have kind of Information literacy, but haven’t been trained academically. We learn how to browse, and how to use communication tools by ourselves. Media have a powerful attraction to adolescents or even adults that they desire to learn how to use them. But such kind of learning is one-sided. Just like the research mentioned on page 116 that students, even college students still lack of media literacy skills. I think to educate students to use media is an urgent topic for teachers. Students need not only media skills but also a proper attitude to media. Most of us use media for entertainment, but lack of necessary techniques for learning. When I was a child, the first thing I learned from computer was computer game. Although in elementary and middle school, I was taught basic academic computer skills which were very simple, what I was taught was not proper designed and was out of date. If as the book says “developing information and media literacy skills begins in the grades and continues through college”, schools ought to make a more effective curriculum plan.

I believe that “to share” is the spirit of Internet. During Internet age, information is not controlled by elites, it is shared and posted online. Ideas have been interchanged. But the freedom of sharing information also provide a chance for spreading misinformation. It seems so difficult to identify the “correct” information. Even though so called “experts” will make mistakes due to the tricks. Recently, a very authoritative television channel made a huge mistake in a documentary program that it used some information from a website which functioned like Wikipedia but was totally incorrect. It remains me that when facing up to so much information, the ability to evaluate, analyze and identify should be trained.

Questions:

1)    Ch 5 encourages students to take electronic notes. Of course it is useful, but compared to the traditional one, students are easier to lose attention. For example, when networks are available, how to avoid students from checking emails, or responding to other Internet users through social apps?

2)    If computers or other technologies are widely used in schools, will it cause a heavy burden for the low-income families? Since electronic products update so frequently, will students feel uncomfortable when compared to others using latest ones?

3)    Is it necessary to build specific standards to examine whether students have reached the requirements of information literacy?