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Internet - Friend or Foe?
I just noticed that the blog archive is blocking part of the comic strip. This is the link to view it in its entirety. Sorry for the extra work!http://www.comics.com/webmail/ViewStrip?key=59750587-48e3661bfe-FFThis comic was published in the March 2, 2008 edition of the Charlotte Observer. I am pretty certain that Allen Bloom would love this statement about the relevance or irrelevance of information found on the internet. Well, if he would stoop to reading the Sunday comics that is! Education in a democracy is a tricky business when we have to sift through the information so readily available on the internet to separate fact from fiction. Then, of course, we have the good fortune of having to explain why it is untrue to our students, and why they have to check information like Halloween candy!!! Some of that stuff is just bad and dangerous!!! The battle for truth continues!!!
5 comments:
I must agree...there are a great deal of unreliable resources on the internet these days. And yes they are dangerous because ANYBODY can have access to the internet and can put up whatever kind of nonsense and misinformation they see fit. Therefore, I think it is extremely important to inform the students of how to verify reliable information on the internet. We as teachers should also go behind them and check the information ourselves. I feel that students these days MUST be educated on how to find reliable information online.
Very entertaining and true! I remember learning how to look information up in the library when I was in school. After looking at this article, I searched for any standards related to learning how to verify internet resources, but was unable to find any. I am curious to know if this topic is currently included in library lessons when students go to the school library to learn how to look up books.
This is very true of the internet. There is so much information available and it is easily accessible. That is why it is important to use reliable sources and to use more than one source. I liken it to getting a second opinion, if two sources has similar information than its probably right. With user based websites like wikipedia, information is sometimes distorted and as teachers we must help students decipher which sites to use. Kristan I'm not exactly 100% on this but I believe some of the computer application courses have standards on verifying internet sources. I will check it out.
Oh and to answer your question...Internet is definitely my friend. I love it!
What interests (and worries me) about knowledge and the internet is that the internet represents a move away from expertise as legitimating knowledge and to a more democratic legitimation of knowledge. In order for you to get a book or article published, you have to be vetted by other experts via peer review. But you can just throw up a webpage and say whatever. The way that knowledge gets vetted is when lots of people start coming to your page, linking to it, and leaving comments. That's how wikipedia is supposed to work -- things are kept in line because everyone is able to contribute. That is certainly more democratic, but something about it still bugs me.
Good post.
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