I wonder if my teachers ever felt even slightly liable for the material that I might have encountered while researching this or that.
No I don't.
I don't wonder.
I am sure that they didn't give a second thought to it. What trouble could I have gotten myself into under the matron's watchful eye at the Walker Branch of the Chicago Public Library? (Let me tell you, in a building where you weren't allowed to urinate without whispered verbal permission and a key duct-taped to a giant wooden spoon, not much.)
Now, though, even primary students are armed with the Big 6 and strapped to their tiny gills with permissions, Acceptable Use Policies, and pixel-specific lists of where they may (digitally) tread. The internet, with its moebius strip feel and dizzying disco ball allure, can be a dangerous place for tiny researchers. So, what is an early primary teacher to do?
I like to think of students' initial internet research experiences as being great examples of teacher-monitored scaffolding, except not necessarily the kind of scaffolding that bridges students' learning. Nooooo, this is more like the scaffolding that forms a protective cage around our students' fragile sensibilities. (Think Washington Monument, circa 1999.) Utilizing specifically-designed tools such as webquests, we can be fairly certain (We all have our wanderers, don't we?) that students will gather the necessary information without accidentally encountering fraudulent and/or illicit images or ideas. Short of the webquest, we have all probably hyperlinked sites in a Word document or two, and then universally saved them for students to access in their search.
As with anything else we teach, aiding our young charges in the pursuit of useful and appropriate information is all about repeated modeling and practice, practice, practice.
Hi Maria-
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy reading your posts. You use such wonderful language and words that I have to look up the meaning of! I learned something new after reading your post: the moebius strip. I hadn't ever heard that word, and thus your picture made sense with your post.
I like what you had to say about using the early internet searches with primary kids to assist in scaffolding their learning for what is to come. Being that primary students really don't do much research, I think you had a great point with that part of your post. I struggle with (again) what the point of having them search for information online would be. Is it so they can "do it on the computer?" Or is there a meaningful reason. But, like you said, I do think there is validity in having them do it just to do it so they can be prepared as they grow up.
Hi, Kim-
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. I also struggle with having my students do research online. In fact, when the third graders do their Big 6 Native American research project in the fall, they are only allowed to use digital resources in extreme circumstances. (By the time they do the Wax Museum in the spring, though, they can search with their parents.) I know that 4th grade writes a good many research papers. I wonder what their digital research parameters are.
Maria
P.S. Thanks for your compliment :) .