Many students don't know how search engines work. You type something and press search or the 'enter' key and boom a list of different websites come up. When I first stared Elementary school, I didn't know what a computer was or what you did with it. Today at my work, the child ask to go on the computer to play games or do homework. If children aren't taught the proper way to search a topic and know whether there source is authentic or not, then they could potentially get in trouble for plagiarism or something along those lines. Two of the major search engines used today are Google and Bing. You see commercials on TV of people picking the search engine they like the most.
My mind stayed in the same direction for all three of the topics I wanted to reflect about. My next one is ensuring safe online experiences for students. I think it is very important to make sure all children are doing what they should be on the computers and what happens if they aren't following the directions given. In the book says 'To ensure safe online experiences teachers can preselect sites for students to visit' (pg. 126). At the school I work at, they have all search engines blocked except Bing. Teachers and students both have everything blocked, so not only did the teachers preselect the search engine for students but the principal picked and made it equal across the board. When you type something in the search engines, you never know what you are going to see.
The last topic I wanted to reflect on is plagiarism. If students are educated at a young age that plagiarism is serious and something you shouldn't do, then it isn't such an issue as they get older. As a teacher you have to know ways to prevent the students from 'accidently' plagiarizing someone's work. In college teachers use the website Turnitin.com to check that the student hasn't plagiarized anything. My professor recently used this on one of my papers, but I also submitted to Turnitin.com before I submitted it to him. If teachers let their students know that there are websites like this and that they should (don't have to) turn their paper into that before the teacher so they know whether they did plagiarize on accident and where it was at.
I think as long as students know how to use a search engine and how to correctly cite work, they shouldn't have a problem doing research papers for teachers. I wasn't taught until my freshmen year of college how to properly cite and now its simple to me.
Work Cited
https://bubbl.us/mindmap
Maloy, R., Verock-O'Loughlin, R., Edwards, S., & Woolf, B. (2011). Researching and Evaluating Internet Information. In Transforming Learning with New Technologies (pp. 112-141). Allyn & Bacon.
There are definitely many reasons to provide internet instruction, modeling, and reinforcement to students - as young as possible! It is not a one-time lesson, however, and even many current teachers are not sure about all of the 'ins and outs' of the internet, searching, etc. - the internet did not come with an 'instruction manual'. ;)
ReplyDeleteLike your Bubbl.us mind map - oftentimes, the visual connections are exactly what students need to deepen understanding. Perhaps you found value in your own thinking. :) For future - be sure to provide credit to yourself for the creation using APA citation - you can see my example (with Bitstrips) on my sample blog.