‘An age of overflowing information and proliferating media’
18 03 2008
I just read the article How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century, by Claudie Wallis and Sonja Steptoe (2006).
I found this article interesting because it discusses the use of the internet in creating the genereation of global citizens, that can work effectively in the global community and global economy.
One point made in this article that really struck me was that students learn how to ‘distinguish good information from bad’ on the internet. It seems so obvious I am wondering why I never thought of it. The internet is the ideal resource to use when teaching critical literacy, media studies, anything that involves analysing a text and determining whether it is reliable, biased, valid, ridiculous, or whatever. The internet has the whole range of types of texts. Books on the other hand, have all been published, and therefore editted and criticised before they are read publicly. It is the biggest differenence between the two (besides the ease of finding information of course).
I find I have to agree with Wallis and Steptoe, we do need to bring what we teach and how we teach into the 21st century.
Image From: http://img.timeinc.net/time/daily/2006/0612/soteach_1209.jpg
