Tool #11

Students should understand that the site must be offered to substantitate - and for definite truth - those sites must be examined offline. I, myself, always assume Wikipedia is completely correct! - and I also assume Google's method of placing the first site up - means it's more reliable - which is not true. Secondly, I believe that students should realize that just because a site is from a library, it may be incorrect information (may not be 'sanitized' by librarian). Thirdly, I would like to slip in the fact that safety is an issue - no full names or locations given out. Students should be aware that just as in movie avatars that turn out to be vastly different people than their screen persona suggests - that people they meet on the internet could be very different than the image they portray.

To teach Digital Citizenry, I would like to emulate the facets - questioning sites and not assuming they are all fact, using etiquette in responding in interactions with people on the internet, practicing safe measures (i.e. using last initial only when presenting student artwork on internet), and promoting curiousity by immediately looking up information in response to student queries.


From "Coolcat" blog (can I assume all this is fact too?) However, I copied down the principles that resonate with my experience.

If students take the "first thing they come to" to determine their opinion, then we are sorely at the mercy of Google's algorithms and the determination of webmasters who desire to be heard. Understanding how to search, how to validate sources, and even how to use deep web resources is an essential part of being literate.

Stephen Downes says, "Indeed, a person who reads a website and concludes that it's true, no matter what it says, is dangerously illiterate."

Sharon says: "I have been asking students to evaluate the web sites they find for years, using a variety of evaluation instruments and criteria. They didn't and still don't like to do it!"

Literacy, learning strategies, etiquette, safety - 4 key areas from which to work in digital citizenship.

Digital citizenship is more than literacy, it is living safely, civilly, and effectively in our increasingly digital world.

It must permeate all subjects in all grade levels just like reading, for increasingly it is reading.

Most students think if it is the library that the librarian has thoroughly sanitized everything in there. (Which too, as Tom Hoffman pointed out, is flawed thinking.)

"We have to practice what we preach, and we have to practice it out loud!

At the same time that we continue to use our textbooks (or what ever they evolve into), reference works, databases, and our own expertise, we should also bring in, at every opportunity, content and resources that we have found, evaluated, processed, and prepared for teaching and learning, and that we should include conversations about how we found it, evaluated, and processed it. If the are seeing us, every day, asking the questions that are core to being literate today, then perhaps they will not only develop the skills of critical evaluation, but also the habits."