Internet Research – boon or bane?

19Nov08

When I typed my headline for this week’s topic, I was honestly quite tempted to say that I’ll just go with the first option, not only because it fits so nicely to my last name.

‘Cause isn’t it a real blessing

• that we can do research while sitting at home, eating lunch, or lying in bed?
• that all the world’s knowledge is accessable just via the little screen and keyboard in front of us?
• that I just have to move one finger in order to get an answer to a question?

But isn’t that the pitfall?

• that we can get all information – right OR wrong – in just a second?
• that we can get all information – ALL OF IT!
• that we might not be able to evaluate which ones are false?
• that we spent too much time gathering little bits of information about unimportant stuff, not staying focused on the actual matter?

These are some serious problems our future students will have to face when doing their first internet research (and the second, third, fourth, tenth…).

But how are we going to teach them right?

Since I have attended several university courses, where I was supposed to learn how to find my way around the internet, I can recall from my own experience that “learning by doing” is the method that I would recommend the most.

But how can that be done?

• doing presentations (maybe not allowing wikipedia to be a source, limiting the sources to educational (.edu) sites, etc.)
• free, half-guided, and guided searches
• Web Quests
• Constantly pointing at/down-grading cases of plagiarism, weak/wrong sources etc.

• why not do a library-rallye, working with actual books, and maybe introduce children to this (maybe) almost forgotten opportunity?

All in all I think having the opportunity to use the Internet for research is a blessing, since it offers fast information. Life just got alot easier. But still, you have to be aware of the “side-effects” and our students have to as well.

Filed under: coursework   |  1 Comment
Tags: Internet, students, tasks, teaching