6712 reflection

I had never before thought about the need for teaching students how to locate reliable and valid sources of information. I thought this was something that could be perhaps modeled once and forgotten about, but the reality is that it needs to be modeled frequently as well as reinforced and monitored throughout the students' years in school. I am now more aware of the need to first understand each child's prior understanding of the internet and then model the instruction from there. I value the freedom of learning possible through the internet, but now I know that students must be taught how to utilize this tool effectively in order to ensure that the students find valid and reliable information. I would like to see how other educators teach this essential skill to students in order to view a model I can utilize in my classroom. This is such an individualized and difficult task that I would like to have as many tools in my teacher repertoire as possible. I plan on asking my principal if I can organize a meeting of the technology committee next year in order to have a round table discussion of how the other teachers in my school go about teaching students how to effectively search the internet for the intended information.