Blog Post #3 (Due 9 February 2011)
The amount of information available to people is growing every day — as scientists uncover new facts, physicians develop improved treatments, technology firms design unprecedented products, and journalists record history in the making. Technologies such as digital media CDs, DVDs, and digital media on the World Wide Web make this vast — some say overwhelming — amount of information easily available to teachers and students. As a result of this potential information overload , experts worry that students might be spending more time sifting through information than actually applying and utilizing information. What do you think? Can there ever be too much information? Why or why not? How could too much information adversely affect teachers and students? What can be done about information overload? How can teachers help students avoid this?
As a history major who has written many research papers, I know from personal experience that there is such a thing as too much information. When you find dozens of primary sources, books, and journal articles on a subject, the amount of material is incredibly daunting. You often find yourself asking "Where do I even begin?" or saying "Maybe I should narrow this down". You may wind up reading hundreds of pages worth of information just to write your own 10 or 15 pages. As college students we are up to this task because we have been taught how to research, but it will be up to us as teachers to instruct our students on what information to look for and where to look for it.
ReplyDeleteThe internet is an endless resource of information these days available to virtually everyone, and it will be available to our future students at the very least through the school systems. This tool will make researching easier for students and give them more ways to interact with course material. Nevertheless, if students are not guided to reputable websites and given guidelines on the things they are to research, then students may discover false information and/or become sidetracked by irrelevant details. Students need to be shown that not all information on the internet is correct, and teachers should provide students with websites that can be trusted. This will limit students' focus from the whole worldwideweb to just a few webpages. Furthermore, teachers must supply students with rubrics or other guidelines that they can reference and will help them to center their attention on important information.
Can there ever be too much information? I immediately think of the commercials for Bing (where people are on a search overload because anytime they type in something hundreds of things relevant or irrelevant come up and you have to sift through them). Honestly, I find myself sometimes getting overloaded with mass amounts of information. We definitely find ourselves doing a lot of sifting, to know what's valuable to use or not. Thinking back to the book, we want to use technology to help with our students' inquires, chapter 2 refers to information literacy, where students go through the process to find information. With the mass amounts of research out there, it could definitely get overwhelming, on top of that students need to learn what resources are valid for whatever they are searching for. JMU provides us with a wide range of data bases that help with this issue of overload. We are able to narrow and refine our search efforts and know what we are using credible work. I'm wondering more about public schools and what they have set up to help do that. I know in high school we would search the library for resources, but we did have data bases with articles. We were told me to be careful with on line searches, but it seems to be more limited without the use of data bases. I know JMU pays a lot of money for our resources, so I wonder how that could play out (or maybe it already is) in public schools in the elementary, middle, and high school levels. The best thing teachers can do is help their students through the process of research, even through the process of just googling something to find out information (I know I do it all the time when a question comes up from a student that I'm unsure of). As teachers, we should talk about how to check more than one place (and seek to find out the credibility, it is not always an easy process. When it is something such as a project, teachers should direct students to helpful websites or data bases they could use to search for information.
ReplyDeleteWell,I think our learning curve as human beings is remarkable. We are constantly getting new information and learning new and better ways of using that information. Not only is the amount of information vast, it is available to everyone. How amazing is that! The internet has become the great equalizer. Anyone and everyone can get their hands on a multitude of ideas and sources. Since the invention of the library, there has not been such an open forum of discussion and information. However, like walking into a library, if you do not know the system, it is so easy to get lost. As teachers we have to make sure that students do not feel lost when looking and sifting through the information. Sometimes we feel exceedingly overwhelmed by the information presented on the internet. Who has not typed in a topic, for example, metaphor, and gotten everything ever imagined abou it. When you go to Google, you type in "metaphor" and get plays, definition, metaphors across cultures, news stories, personal blogs, student papers, and legal documents. Confusing huh? How are students supposed to sort through all of this to find something specific? As teachers, we can help students with a few things. First, we can show them which websites are legitmate and worth reading. Second, we can give students the name of websites that we deem are appropriate. Third, we can walk students through various search engines and databases. However, this is certainly not the solution to everything. I am a firm believer that the internet is an amazing tool with a lot of draw backs. Kids can often be misinformed, focus on the wrong information, feel lost and confused, and be distracted. This can especially hurt students with Learning Disabilities that have trouble focusing, processing, and reading. We as teachers must recognize these flaws. We need to help students to learn to navigate the internet and to not be over whelmed with it.
ReplyDeleteI do not think that there can ever be too much information available. I believe that as we obtain information our lives can be improved and that we will never be done learning all that we can. I believe that there is an immeasurable amount of information that can edify our lives. However, I also believe that there can be information available that we do not need at that particular time and sometimes never. The amount of information available can make it difficult for teachers and students to find and use the information that is most relevant to them at a particular time. That does not mean that the amount of information available is bad, it just means that both teachers and students need to develop skills that allow them to sort through the information efficiently. As they learn to determine what information they are looking for and to quickly set aside any information that they do not need at that time, they will be able to navigate the information effectively. Technology has provided a means for making large amounts of information available bringing with it the responsibility for teachers to teach their students how to appropriately sift through the information to find the relevant information. Teachers can teach student to evaluate the information that they find. Is this information relevant to what I am studying? Is it reliable information? Is it significant to the topic or is it just a tiny detail? The ability to scan over the information and quickly determine if the information is pertinent is a useful skill in dealing with the large amounts of information available.
ReplyDeleteLydia-
ReplyDeleteI like the way you put it. We will also be building and learning and improving. It's the nature of life. The problem can be sifting through it all. I spoke about the same thing- teachers helping students know how to evaluate the information. That can be an overwhelming process, taking it step by step with students is a way teachers can help.
I personally like the information overload. Now I have an endless supply of information that I can come up with new ideas or opinions using the internet and even a hugh library. That is half the fun when you write a paper is that you can personalize the information that you use. This is like the article, in that you make your own network of information that you use and process. The difference is that you have to have your own filter so that you know what is important, accurate, and true. Learning the techniques and practices to discover if a source is credible is and will be, a very important practice educators need to imbue into students.
ReplyDeleteThis is probably the largest problem that teachers and students will face. How to sort out the fact from fiction. Unless of course your assignment is to read a fiction. As history students, we were taught to work from the beginning, the primary sources. Now, when I read books, I look at which sources were used. If the bibliography are nothing but other texts written on a subject, how are you supposed to figure out a true fact from opinion? Teaching (atleast from a social science perspective) that the primary sources, if referenced, are the best ways to receive true facts.
Only by us, as teachers, correctly showing the ways to discern fact from fiction can information overload be over come. Primary sources can be in all different forms of media. A video or audio file can be primary sources now. Have they been tainted with different opinions? Biased from news networks or is it "fair and balanced?" The same idea of teaching primary source documents are in place, it just needs to adjust and transform with the progression of technology.
Nick-
ReplyDeleteI love your optimistic perspective! It is a nice way to think of using information and making your paper personal. Also I think it just shows students that we can always continue to learn. We can build on what is out there and make it our own through more exploration.
While we all know we have to help our students' filter, you take a fun spin on it. We need to help them filter but we also need to help them use it in a creative way!
When I began thinking about this topic of information overload I decided to do a simple search online and this video appeared in my results, and I think it does a perfect job at depicting exactly how much information is out there. This video also does a wonderful job at reiterating the fact that students must be taught how to filter through this information in order to determine fact from opinion. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ECAVxbfsfc)
ReplyDeleteI personally do not think there is such a thing as too much information. However, I do agree that it can be over whelming when you search a topic online and then must spend a period of time sifting through all of the results before you can even begin to use or write about the topic. But since I have been taught how to sift through the vast amount of information, I like knowing that I will get a ton of information when I do a search on the web. I can see where students, especially young ones, would have a hard time distinguishing between the useful information and all of the other stuff out there. I think that as an elementary school teacher, it would be my job to teach my students how to effectively search on the web by using reputable sources or databases. I know when I was in high school my teachers taught us how to use the databases through my school to find reliable and credible information to use for research, which has been an extremely helpful for me in college. But since children are using the web to do research at a much younger age than high school I think elementary school kids need to know how to sift through information in order for the web to be a valuable tool for them. Even though I enjoy the amount of information available to me on the web, I can see it being a problem for some teachers and students. For example, I have seen in my practicum experiences that there are some students who do not have the attention span to look through all of the information and will just rely on the first piece of info they get to. This is when I would take the time to show my students that not all information on the internet is correct, I would also give them a few web addresses that usually contain accurate and reliable information. Hopefully by educating young students about this growing issue, they will learn at an early age how to effectively search the web and obtain reliable information. I do realize that since there is so much information out there that sifting through it all can be very time consuming but in the end I still believe that that there is never too much information.
Information overload is a very real thing now a day. So many sources claim to be correct but have no research to back them up. When doing the research for any of the papers I have had to write in college and in high school I have been bombarded by the amount of information. There is so much that it takes too much time to sift through all of the information. When sifting through the information it would a take me a week or more just to get the information I was looking for. It was very discouraging when I had found so many sources and only a select few would actually be on my topic. So much information out in the world has made it very hard for students and teachers to find the information they need and be able to present it.
ReplyDeleteToo much information can backfire on the teacher and the students who are doing research. The vast amount of sources can overwhelm students and be hard for them to truly focus on what is important for their topic. When researching for information the students have to go through so many different sources and find it hard to get the information they need to make the paper or project.
To combat information overload teachers can build web quests where students only go to websites approved by the teacher. Also there are portal portals and students can go to them and click on websites there if the students are looking up different topics. We can explain that websites ending in org or edu are ones where the information is correct and has sources to back up the information. When I went through all the information I needed to write papers I was told by my teacher to back up the information with at least three sources. This can be changed for younger students but it is important for sources to say the same things.
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ReplyDeleteWhile I do not think there can ever be too much information, I do think the process of sifting through all of this information to find meaningful and relevant information can be daunting. As a college student who has had to write many research papers, the task of sifting through JMU’s library data base alone can quickly turn into an overwhelming experience due to the vast amount of information available to us.
ReplyDeleteCollecting valuable information is a skill that we must teach our students. When conducting research, or collecting significant information, we have a goal in mind; we are purposefully searching for something (whatever that may be depends on the situation). We use reliable resources to collect information, we then sort through the information finding relevance within it, and we continue with our goal in mind and evaluate the data collected. How, as teachers, can we expect our students to not only be able to perform this skill of sifting information and evaluating its use in school, but in the real world as well if we do not teach them? It is our job to prepare them for their future and that means preparing them to make smart decisions regarding the “information overload” that our civilization has developed over time. By providing students the opportunity and reliable resources to learn, practice, and sharpen this skill we will in turn give them the tools they need to be successful citizens.
Stephanie--
ReplyDeleteI agree with your comment about teachers using porta portals to provide students with reliable information. My cooperating teachers does this all the time and the students absolutely love it. They get to research various topics on the internet while she has peace of mind that the information is useful and appropriate for them.
Jillian-
ReplyDeleteYour comment about the use of databases made me think about having to teach students about citing sources. Not only can students get information from online websites, but they can also get information from any number of databases. These databases have journal articles, magazine articles, and many other types of sources. Teachers must instruct students on the correct ways to cite all of the information from these sources. Furthermore, teachers must keep reminding students of the importance of citing.
Nick-
ReplyDeleteI like that you brought up video and audio on the internet. Not only do teachers need to guide students to reliable print information, but teachers also need to make sure that students are not watching incorrect Youtube videos (or similar things) and using that information as factual content. Legitimate video and audio clips, such as news clips, can be very useful to students; however, teachers need to help students figure out what clips are appropriate.
Jen-
ReplyDeleteI appreciate that you mentioned the real world applications of teaching students how to sift through a great deal of information. When students enter the adult world and get actual jobs, those jobs may necessitate that the students research different topics. We are not teaching the students to research properly just so that they can write a paper or create a project. Our end purpose is to prepare students for their adult lives, and this ability to research correctly may be vital.
We all seem to be of the same opinion – tons of information and we need to teach our students how to access, evaluate, organize, and use the information for some purpose – to solve a problem, achieve a goal, satisfy an interest, etc. Lindsey, I really appreciated watching the video you found. The exponential growth of information is astounding! But, as I watched the video, read everyone’s comments and thought about my own experiences as a teacher, I couldn’t help but wonder about your roles as teachers in this world of information. The video Lindsey shared asked a question that caused me to stop. It asked something like “Why do we continue to insist students memorize and regurgitate information?” We can’t possibly expect students to learn all the information that is out there. Yet, in Virginia at least, our state assessments are primarily discrete facts and concepts. As future teachers, how can you act as agents of change to ensure your students develop the skills required in the 21st century? When you get hired by a school division, the pressure will be strong to make sure your students perform well on the state-wide tests. But, is that in the best interest of your students? Does being able to identify the life cycle of the butterfly or the structural configuration of an atom serve well students who will face the challenges of the 21st century? Many of you have learned how to organize units based on understanding and backward design (Remember Understanding by Design?) Those of you in the middle and secondary programs, while I didn’t teach you, I would imagine you voiced the same concerns as many elementary teacher candidates: “This takes too long; I won’t have this much time to spend on this unit. I need to teach all these SOLs.” Yet, if you are like the ELED students, in the end, you realized the enormous value of teaching for understanding. Now, how do we get the powers-that-be to also realize the value and absolute need to teach for understanding? How can we be agents of change? Food for thought…
ReplyDeleteHannah-
ReplyDeleteI agree that students should be given guidelines. Rubrics are always a great way to give students guidelines to use when looking at websites. I suggested that a porta portal be used when students are going to be researching. I found that in my practicums the teachers who chose to use these had an easier time in letting students go out onto the internet.
Jen-
ReplyDeleteI agree that students need to be taught how to sift through the information not just for the academic but also the real world. Once a students gets through their education and enters the real world they need to be able to sift through the information that is being given to them and report back on it to their superiors. I find it highly important that students are sent into the real world with all the skills to succeed.
Hannah,
ReplyDeleteI see your point that you can be looking at too much information at one time, but I don't think that it is necessarily bad to have that much information available because some of the information you don't need at that time, is important for someone else. Either way you look at it, the results are the same: it is important to teach students how to deal with the vast amounts of information that are available.
Nick,
I like how you mentioned teaching students to look for primary sources. That is one specific way that we can teach students to narrow down the information they find.
Lindsey,
Your example of students who would just use the first piece of information they find made me think about how we could teach them the importance of checking to see that the information is appropriate. I was thinking that the teacher could provide sample sets of data to the students. The first piece of data could be very obviously unrelated. The teacher could then have a discussion with the students about why that piece of information is not relevant and begin helping students identify ways to tell if a piece of information is relevant and accurate.
Nick-
ReplyDeleteI find it very interesting that you like to have all the information in abundance. I have not met many people who enjoy having all the information that may or may not be true. I personally have never enjoyed the process of going through all my information just to find out that most of it is not what I wanted. The primary sources are so important and there are so many ways to find out if the source is primary now. Our school on the JMU library website there is a link you can click on that has only primary sources available. This has been invaluable to me since I started college.
Michelle-
ReplyDeleteI like the connection, clearly a big struggle for future teachers and teachers alike. It is true, as information builds, how do we decide what students should spend their time learning? (Well, we don't decide, the state standards do). I often think about history, it will always be growing (of course, the other subjects too, this one is just more obvious). I think this is something that will shape and change especially as technology grows and becomes more integrated with schools.
I don’t believe that there is such a thing as too much information. I like being able to choose from a vast amount of information rather than to have too little to choose from. I do, though, think that large amounts of information at one time can be very difficult to sort through. Many times in high school and even in college, I’ve had teachers and professors explain to us how to properly research for topics and how to skim articles quickly to find out whether they would pertain to what is being researched. It is important for students to know what counts as a trustworthy source, what primary sources are, and how to determine if information is factual. If teachers are willing to take the time to show students how to properly research, I think half the battle is won. This is not to go without saying that obviously there is a ton of information out there and we as teachers need to make sure that students are not wasting time sifting through the material. One thing that I know a lot of elementary teachers use is Portaportal. This might be a great way to combat, especially in the elementary years, the overload of information that is out there. Teachers can post certain websites that they want their students to access in order to do their research and that way students are not roaming around the Internet. Eventually you can wean your students off of portaportal and allow them to start research on their own. This doesn’t necessarily work for everything or all grades, but it’s a start. I think the video that Lindsey posted says it perfectly. The best thing we can do as teachers is to help students learn how to access, analyze, apply, and assess the information that they can find. Even if there is too much information out there, it’s obviously not going to stop multiplying, so we have to do our best with what we have.
ReplyDeleteStephanie-- I agree with the portaportal idea! (I hadn't read your comment before I wrote my mine! :)) I think it's a great tool for teachers and students to use. I also liked your idea about explaining the domain names, such as .gov and .edu as reliable resources!
ReplyDeleteHannah-- I had never considered the idea of a rubric as being a tool to help students focus on what information is important. Great idea! Rubrics give students a foundation to build their research/project on and can also support their routine of finding information. It is always important to give students some sort of guidelines when it comes to searching for information.
ReplyDeleteMegan-- I liked your comparison of the internet and being lost in a library. It's so true that unless we or our students know the right paths or websites to use to gather reliable information, then we will be muddled down with lots of useless information to sort through. Teachers need to help guide their students to choose legitimate sources for their research and show them how to check if a website or article is credible.
ReplyDeleteI do not think there can ever be too much information. It’s amazing how we absorb different kinds of information every day. We may be taking in a lot of information but that does not mean it becomes knowledge. The article, “The Cure for Information Overload,” states that information “is a stepping stone from the data in the world around us, to the application of our knowledge (plus concepts, ethics and morals) in the decisions we make. Information, therefore comes from a lot of sources, and we each need a lot of information to supplement our knowledge.” I feel like many of us take in all this information but select a few things to make it applicable to our lives and in turn, use what we know into knowledge. It depends on what and how it means to us. Too much information can adversely affect teachers and students by giving students too much information and not having them actually apply and use the information. I can definitely relate in my many years of schooling and how teachers would supply us with lots of information that may be on a test, but I remember many instances where I was asked to just regurgitate the information and forgetting it all the next day. In chapter 9 of our text, the reading introduces ways teachers and students can use multimedia technologies to create and present educational information. I think this is a meaningful way to use information in the classroom that doesn’t bombard students. An example I found in the text was that photo taking and movie making by students can be used as a way or students to become directly involved in information creation and presentation. It allows students to become engaged in the learning with the information presented, and the teacher can focus the attention of students on the essential academic information being conveyed. In addition, using multimedia can help students avoid this information overload and put the information into use. Information creation is a process of taking photos and making movies that allows students to become creators of visual content, which are meaningful skills in the 21st century. Using technology is a way for students to make learning more valuable. It also reminded me how what Dr. Purcell mentioned in class about the information processing theory and assimilation and how it’s important to link new and prior knowledge. Therefore, knowledge is the application of information and we need to make this information meaning to our students.
ReplyDeleteA question that was brought to my attention is how much of this information is reliable? We take in all this information and how do we critically take a step back and see if this information is discredited or unreliable? An article I found called “Too Much Information?” http://brainblogger.com/2010/01/22/too-much-information/ questions if there is such thing as too much information and how this has affected the information in the health field and the reliability of our sources. It brings an interesting perspective on information overload.
Jessica,
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you in that there is always going to be more and more information out there so instead of worrying about that we should instead prepare our students to tackle this information overall. I have also seen Portaportal be a successful tool in the elementary classroom, and I think this is a great way to get young learners to start using the internet to find useful information without being overwhelmed.
Lydia,
I really liked what you had to say about the role of the teacher in dealing with information overload in the classroom. I also think that there can never be too much information out there, but as you said there will always be information out there that is irrelevant. I can relate with the last sentence in your post about learning to scan the information to quickly determine if it is relevant to your research, because this skill has saved me a lot of time when sorting through information.
Hannah,
I can see where you are coming from when you say there is too much information out there, but I think this abundance of information can be used in a positive way if students are taught the correct way to research and use this information. The only way students are going to learn about reliable resources and trustworthy websites is if teachers are willing to teach these essential skills at a very young age. These skills will be needed in order for students survive in a world full of too much information.
Lindsey:
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your ideas! I completely agree with you that there can never be too much information but I think it’s more about how we utilize the information and apply it. It’s so easy to take in lots of information but how much of the information do we really use and make it into knowledge? I remember in high school, going to the library and learning how to find credible sources and using the databases as well. I think it is very important that we teach our students how to find these credible sources and not just use the information on the first site you see online. I too, found it really beneficial to learn how to use the databases because I need those skills in my college courses as well. I also found an article about reliable information added in my post and they raise questions about how reliable sources are in the health field.
Stephanie:
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that we are all bombarded with information but we need to take the step back and see if the information is reliable. I think using databases as credible sources is very important for our students to understand. The first website that shows up does not mean it contains reliable information. We also need to be able to use the information we are presented with and apply it and make meaning out of it. If not, it becomes information that doesn’t really mean anything to us. I really like your idea of building WebQuests. It’s a great way to engage students and students can research topics of interest and controversy by locating different viewpoints of an issue. Therefore, it’s important again to teach our students how to find reliable and credible information.
Hannah:
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with your post. I also find myself going through that thought process when researching something. I have to think about if the source is credible and reliable and how to pick and choose the information available. The Internet does present us with a plethora of information and I think it’s important as teachers to teach our students how to find credible information. How can we teach our students to do this? It can be so tempting to use any or all the information presented online and not thoroughly research to see if the information is true. Possibly developing a guideline that lists databases where students can find reliable information can be helpful. Students also need to be aware of ways to use information and make it meaning to them.
I would say that it is possible to have too much information. I have certainly had experiences when I’ve done research on a topic, or searched for something on Google, and felt completely overwhelmed by the amount of resources at my fingertips. When searching about any topic, it is essential to sift through the information available to find reliable sources that answer the question at hand. This is a skill that takes many years to refine. I don’t think that it is possible to list an amount of resources that is manageable and an amount that is too much; I feel like this varies for each person. One way to identify too much information, is when the researcher is unable to sift out reliable and useful information.
ReplyDeleteToo much information could adversely affect teachers because it may prevent them from finding the answers to specific questions. An excessive amount of information may adversely affect students by pulling their attention away from reliable sources. One way of handling information overload would be for teachers to have a discussion about it with students. Many students blindly think that the more information they present, the stronger their argument. This isn’t always the case. Often times it is more effective to have a few pieces of evidence that strongly support an argument, than an abundance of information that is irrelevant. Teachers of students at a higher level can provide the students opportunities to sift through information in order to find reliable sources that are relevant to the topic at hand. Teachers of younger students, can avoid this problem by providing the students with a handful of appropriate resources when giving the students a research assignment. I do think that it is important for students in elementary grades to have experience researching, but it needs to be controlled and manageable for their level.
Vivian-
ReplyDeleteI really like what you said about information creation processes that can be used in the classroom. It is so important for students to be involved in the creation of methods to convey information, instead of constantly absorbing information from outside sources. One reason this is so important, is because it helps students think critically about information. When they are responsible for deciding what information to include and what information to leave out of their movies, photos, etc, they begin to think more critically about information that other creators included or omitted in their videos and pictures. You mentioned at the end of your post the question of reliability. I think information creation processes in the classroom is one way to at least begin the discussion of reliable resources, and the factors that make them reliable or unreliable.
Megan-
ReplyDeleteI really like the analogy that you made between the internet and a library. Both are great resources but require that individuals have some knowledge about the system in order to reap the most benefits. It is crucial that we, as teachers, explicitly teach the process of researching and sifting through irrelevant information, misinformation, and the like. We need to be sensitive to the needs of all of our learners, and take into account those who have a learning disability, limited English proficiency, or ADD/ADHD. It is important that these students learn the same skills as other students, but in ways that are appropriate to their learning styles.
Jen-
ReplyDeleteI like what you said about teaching students the skills of sifting through information, and how this skill is crucial to their future as a successful citizen. I have seen in the older adults in my life that it is not easy to function in the information age when they have not been taught the skills needed to be successful. It is vital that we teach our students these skills, so that they can be successful academically but also beyond the school walls. Information will continue to abound and our students need to be able to find reliable and useful resources to address any topic.
I am so glad to see that Jillian has already mentioned the Bing commercials, because that is exactly the first thought that comes to my mind when I think of information overload. However, I don’t see all of this new information that is developing as a bad thing. I don’t think there can ever be too much information; however, I am concerned about the amount of useless information flooding the internet. I think that as more and more information is made available, I think new technologies will develop to help you sort through that information in a helpful way, like the Bing Search Engine strives to do. However, I think a way to prevent students from solely focusing and spending all their time on sifting through material would be to improve the student’s internet literacy. They mention this concept in the book, and I think that is something that is very important that we teach our students. We need to show them what types of websites and databases are good sources to use to research. Perhaps a good jumping off point, would be to give students a list of acceptable websites and have them do some sort of webquest with that, so that they can understand why these are good academic and useful websites, and then perhaps have a follow up project where they are to find useful websites on their own. If you don’t teach the students the right way to research and sift through the material, they may never learn how and this could harm their learning in the future by allowing them to accept wrong and useless material. Information and Internet literacy are the keys to breaking down the excess of information that is floating around the internet today.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteJillian- I love that you brought up the Bing Commercials, I also talked about them in my post, because they were the first things that came to my mind when I saw “Information Overload”. I also liked that you brought up using the school’s libraries resources, like databases, because they are a very helpful tool.
ReplyDeleteMegan McCaferty- I really liked that you referred to the internet as the “great equalizer”. I have never really thought about it that way, but you are right; everyone now has an opportunity to get their hands on the same information. And I love your comparison of the internet to a library and not knowing the system you can wind up lost, that is such a great example.
Jessica- I also had the idea for the teacher to post certain websites for students to use, I can see how important this would be for younger students like elementary level. Also, you bring up a good point about the information not stopping, so we kind of just have to deal with this mass of information.
I definitely think there is a lot more information now than a few years ago, and the amount of information available is continually growing. I do not think there could ever be too much information. We are constantly learning new things that help us improve our day to day life. For example, scientists are finding cures to diseases and inventors are coming up with more efficient ways to do things. I do not think the issue is having too much information, I think that the issue is not knowing how to cipher through the information. If people can cipher through information picking out what is important and what is correct, I do not feel like this would be a problem. Teachers have the important job of helping students develop these skills. Until students have the necessary skills all of the information from the various sources could be overwhelming. Too much information could cause students to give up on a project or become frustrated. Also having too much information gives a chance for students and teachers to find and learn the wrong information. As I said before teachers can help students overcome this by teaching them skills that help figure out the important, correct information. Teachers can also assist students in finding credible sources.
ReplyDeleteIt is amazing all of the different places we can gather information from, and there are constantly new sources forming. I ran into a situation in practicum that caught me off guard. My co-operating teacher was working with a small group of students during power-up time. She was working on a reading comprehension activity and one of the questions asked about an encyclopedia. She had to ask them if they knew what an encyclopedia was and if they had ever used one. I was so surprised. I had never thought about the fact that with the internet and other electronic resource some children have never seen or used an encyclopedia. I remembered using them for research in elementary school, and I had never really thought twice about it. That is something we have to keep in mind. Encyclopedias are a great tool and they are still used today, but just in a different way. It might be useful to show students a different way of looking information up to reinforce the idea. I just found it really interesting!
Karen-
ReplyDeleteI liked the idea about having discussions for students. It is easy to just give students more information about what to use and what not to use, but that could be even more overwhelming. Teachers should have a discussion telling students what they think is important about how to sift through information, but they also need to hear from the students. The need to know what the students are confused about so they can help clarify and eliminate frustration. Also, teachers do not always know the best answer or information. Students can relay what information they learned to the teacher, allowing the teacher to learning something new and useful.
Jessica-
Thanks for talking about Portaportal. I have heard the name several times but did not really know what it was about. It sounds like a great resource for teachers to use, and a great way to start students off learning to research in a successful way. The internet can be an overwhelming resource because of all the information it contains. If teachers can help refine that information while students are learning how to do it themselves, students will grow up to be efficient researchers.
Dr. Hughes-
I really enjoyed reading your comment. It posed a lot of questions I have had myself as a future teacher. How in the world am I going to teach for understanding and the SOLs at the same time? It seems like a lot of teachers I have seen in my practicums are focusing mostly on SOLs because of pressures from principals, school districts, and the state. How can I be the teacher I want to be while feeling the pressure of SOLs? I am not sure if anyone really has the answer, but I hope to learn how to balance the two in my own classroom.
I believe that there is no such thing as information overload. Learning in limitless as long as the person is willing to apply themselves. I believe that learning happens in many different ways and that technology is another tool to aid in learning. I do believe that due to recent advents to in technology than it is necessary to filter information and know the proper way to utilize the technology to access information.
ReplyDeleteAs a Social Studies teacher, this is an essential skill to teach students, both in terms of researching and identifying bias. There is nothing that is not written with some sort of slight bias. It is necessary that students' understand that information may vary depending on the source and the goal of the source. It is necessary that students understand this concept so that they can continue learning throughout their lives and are able to sort through the many different accounts of the same information.
Hannah,
ReplyDeleteI have had similar experiences as many of my history classes called for long papers. I remember it used to seem like a huge paper in high school to write 5 pages. Now it seems like anything under 12 pages is easy no matter what the topic. Access to information is almost limitless with the internet and it is amazing to have that access to all this information. One can use all the information to not only develop even more ideas and increase overall comprehension of a topic, but also to analyze information critically.
As a future educator, I am not concerned with the idea of “information overload” but rather, the ability to effectively manage the information that is provided. The article by Cripwell provides strategies that support his readers in their attempt to avoid reaching the point of “information overload” He comments on the fact that, although at times we are able to successfully operate within our knowledge boundaries, there are many situations in which we rely solely on the information provided by others to make decisions. He goes on to suggest that we choose information flows to follow, discard the remaining information and build a network of people that allow us to gain the variety of knowledge we need without sifting through all of the junk.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the implementation of his tactics may allow a person to avoid “information overload”; I think that they are quite superficial and impractical. I have difficulties understanding how someone who supports digital media as mode for progress and prosperity becomes so willing to support knowledge acquisition through a relatively unreliable “word of mouth” source. “Information flows” may be utilized by individuals in order to expand their knowledge within an area of interest, and the rest of the information is typically used as a resource. If we follow Cripwell’s advice, we throw away the opportunity to independently explore our questions and discover answers within reliable sources. The information that is available through digital media is not intended to be continuously reviewed and stored in the minds of the general public. Increased access to digital media has made positive changes regarding the knowledge base of the general public but it is completely unrealistic to expect that these changes will support “the all-knowing” individual in the future
The leaders of tomorrow should not have to depend on someone else to locate and articulate knowledge, but should be confident in their ability to effectively manage the information available as a result technological progression. Today’s educators have the most potential to effectively approach this issue with their students. Instead of applying Cripwell’s strategies, we can challenge ourselves and our students to critically reflect on information that is presented through digital media. An emphasis on standardized testing has hindered the development of critical thinking skills amongst today’s students. We can support our students by providing opportunities to access, analyze, and reflect on the multitude of sources available today. Teachers should place emphasis the point that everything that is published may not be factual and should challenge students to find multiple, valid, sources to support their conclusions. With guidance and practice students will be able to independently develop questions about a topic, locate credible sources, and summarize the information they have reviewed. They will not be attempting to gain every bit of knowledge that exists in the media, they will have the skills necessary to eliminate ineffective sources and thus will avoid reaching the point of “information overload.”
I found an example of how this strategy may be incorporated into the curriculum while reading an assigned article for another education course. The article is titled “Critical Thinking/Reading Across the Curriculum: Using I-Charts to Support Learning,” and may be viewed through the link provided below.
http://www.li.suu.edu/library/circulation/Angell/educ6390vaThinkingAcrossTheCurriculum.pdf
There can never be too much information available. Teachers should evaluate and sift through information and teach their students to do the same. Students should be taught to evaluate the reliability of sources. It's also important that they're taught to skim the information and see if it is useful and relevant. This will prevent them from wasting time. Students should know before hand what they are looking for and what the purpose is of reading (or watching). Cripwell explains that we should evaluate if different streams of information are useful or just wasting our time.
ReplyDeleteWithout teachers and students learning how to sift through the large amounts of information, they could be adversely affected by spending valuable time on unimportant information. One of the positives of the state education standards is that they tell teachers what information is important to teach and when because there is too much available to teach everything.
Jillian-
ReplyDeleteI love the connection to the bing commercials! It is a great idea to model effective research and sifting before your students so they can see how it's done. I don't even know what research tools are available at my elementary school. The librarians would be wonderful tools to help with this, like Cripwell mentioned having people who know a lot about a topic.
Lydia-
I like the questions you proposed for students while they are doing research. Maybe they could be posted on a wall near computers where the students do research. Or students could have them on a paper and go down through similar questions like a checklist when they're researching.
Stephanie-
PortaPortals and Web Quests are great ideas for tools that help guide students in good research. This might be supplemented with teaching students about how to wade through more vast amounts of research in the future, like you said.
Karen,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about the overload of information that can occur especially when writing a research paper. I think the main aspect of that is to focus on synthesizing the thesis to be as specific and detailed as possible and then using all that extra information, from reliable sources, to support that thesis. I personally have noticed that the more specific I am able to make my thesis for papers, the easier it is for me to go through all those resources which can oftentimes be overwhelming.
Ashley,
ReplyDeleteIt is great to see that others actually think about how to teach understanding and the SOL's at the same time. I had the experience to teach in VA and the pressure to make sure the SOL's have been taught is very heavy. As soon as you come up with other ideas though, the administrative staff is usually 100% behind your ideas. They help make it happen as well as refine your ideas. Just about every teacher also is willing to help refine and administer your ideas when it comes out. There are also many resources that are available to find base lessons that teach understanding and SOL's available on the internet. You then run into the problem of information overload on what to use and teach for understanding without over doing an SOL point. I found that there are many data bases with ideas. One way I used to teach World War II and the homefront was to use reenactors. Then using the internet, I had students make sure that all the information they had retained from the actors was true. So using different forms of the same content could help sift through the information.
Yousef,
ReplyDeleteThat is a great perspective to take on the information. If you concentrate on bias in every different media, students can discern the correct information more quickly. I have read many books from modern times through the 1800's on the American Revolution. It is very important to know the times and culture during that time to see why they focus on the facts that they would write about. Also, one was written from a British historian who never said that was a revolution but an insurrection. Biased is everywhere and the more you can identifiy it, the easier it is to look through the information.
The issue of “information overload” negatively affects our population not because of the prevalence of information itself, but the prevalence f bad information. It is certainly easy to see that visual and auditory stimulation is available to most American citizens at all times, but the information acquired by such stimulation is only has helpful as the sources are credible, and may only be as damaging as the sources are unreliable. Mere abundance is not necessarily the crux of the problem, rather, abundance of information and the ease with which it can be obtained afford students an opportunity to practice valuable researching and critical thinking skills. But, if students are indeed spending too much time sifting through information in an attempt to learn, then the blame for “information overload” should fall with the students’ education, not their access to information. Time devoted to “sifting” is cut down as we teach our students to identify credible sources, to recognize legitimate news affiliates from tabloids and gossip media, to trust in academic and scholarly texts whose aim is educational not financial, to investigate the authors and producers of various outlets and to be skeptics-until-proven-otherwise about the agendas of such forms of media. If a student is taught well, he or she will know that an article from a professor at Columbia is probably most trustworthy than Wikipedia, or that news channels or papers whose articles continually produce only one opinion stated many ways are less balanced, and therefore more questionable, than others whose writers sit on both sides of the aisle. Information itself is a blessing (especially to those of us who grew up having to use microfilm to find old articles instead of the “archives” tab on nytimes.com) and should be treated as such by educators. But, with all educational aides, it should be used with care- at the discretion of the thoughtful educator whose goal is not only content, but the transference of skills. Teaching excellent critical thinking skills to students at young age will not only help them cut down on time spent researching, but is the only way to prepare them for a world which has no plans to slow down or provide fewer sources of information.
ReplyDeleteJillian,
ReplyDeleteI agree that teachers should direct their students to credible and helpful sources, particularly where online searches are requisite to the project. I would argue, though, that we do students a disservice to do too much hand holding. I don't think you're suggesting that we do the work for them, but I do think it's incredibly valuable to teach them how to examine sources even before we suggest helpful ones. We may even need to allow them to find unhelpful information so that they understand for themselves the problem of information overload. In this context, it may even be wise to allow them to do a project (in early middle school perhaps) that involves little direction from the instructor so that they understand the breadth of what is available to them, and later come to us with questions about how to find relevant and credible sources. If the problem is suddenly applicable to them without us having to tell them "this is a problem for you," the lesson may have more lasting effects.
After being assigned countless lab reports, research papers, and projects in college, I definitely agree with the idea that there is a lot of information out there. However, I do not think there will ever be too much information. The problem is not so much the amount of information, but the quality of it.
ReplyDeleteThe internet is a wealth of information, but anyone can create a website or post information that may be untrue. With this constant influx of information from all around the world, it may be difficult to curb the rise of excessive information. This is where teachers and students may be negatively affected. One of the most important things I’ve learned at college was to make sure you’re using credible sources when citing papers. Since technology plays a major role in schools, students and teachers need to learn proper techniques for using the information they find. It’s important for students to recognize which sources are credible and whether they are appropriate to use for the assignment they’re completing.
While students may face some difficulties with this information overload, I see teachers dealing with different issues. One of the biggest issues I can see happening is the overuse of media. I think teachers are so inclined to make classes interesting while still getting across information, that they rely too heavily on movies and video clips from the internet. I’m not saying these are bad resources to use, but everything is good in moderation. Access to these videos and online clips is so easy, that some teachers may become reliant on them to teach the class. I had this problem in my 9th grade Biology class when the teacher would play movies everyday. Teachers should also have to learn how to appropriately incorporate this information in their classes, without using it excessively.
Lindsey,
ReplyDeleteThat was a really neat video! It’s amazing to see how much information is really out there when then show it from the perspective of it all being printed. I also agree that the ability to sift through information may be very difficult for elementary students. I didn’t learn how to find credible sources until college. My friends who are younger learned in high school. The internet is such a widely used resource by all age groups, that even kids in elementary schools need to learn these skills. Students should be required to take some kind of technology course starting in elementary school and continuing through high school.
Jessica,
I have never heard of Portaportal before. That sounds like a really good way to target students in the right direction when they’re researching. I would never expect an elementary student to be able to search for a topic in a search engine and sift through all the information thrown at them. Portaportal seems like a great resource to use for younger kids and for older kids who may not have as much experience filtering through all the information the internet has to offer.
Yousef,
I really like the point you make about identifying bias. I often take into account the credibility of the source, but I sometimes forget to look at the potential bias. This is a great skill for students to learn in all subjects. It’s difficult to come across information written or expressed with little to bias present. That’s why it is important for students to observe all aspects of the information they’re researching to get the most valuable and accurate info.
Allison—
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on the fact that sometimes teachers use various forms of technology just for the sake of using it. There have been many times throughout my career as a student (and even observing other teachers during Student Teaching) that I could not understand why teachers were using the technology they were using; it added no real value to the content being taught. As for showing videos all the time, I agree that this can sometimes this can be overdone to excess with no true value at the core. As future educators we must remain mindful of these occurrences.
Nick—
I agree with your comment about teaching students the correct ways to “discern fact from fiction.” This is such an essential skill that students will need to take with them into their adult lives. If we, as future teachers, are to fully prepare our students for the real world beyond just school, this is a skill that must teach effectively.
Karen,
ReplyDeleteI think that your comments about the quality versus quantity of information that students present contributes to the ideas that were presented by other students in our class about teaching students to recognize valid sources. The availability of digital media forces us to be able to identify credible sources of information but, as access to these sources continues to increase, we may find ourselves with rapidly approaching a state of “information overload.” The ability to choose a minimal amount of sources that effectively support multiple objectives may very well be a more valuable tool for “digital age learners.”
Allison,
I completely agree with the fact that teachers overuse digital media in an effort to make their class interesting. My practicum placement last semester was in a third grade classroom and the teacher used youtube videos to depict some animal adaptations. The videos motivated enthusiasm amongst our students, which of course encouraged the teacher to continue showing the clips, but I am not sure they fulfilled their purpose. From what I witnessed, the students were focused on their dance moves (some of which were quite inappropriate) and their pitch more than they were on the content that was being presented. When I was young, School House Rock videos were fun and interesting, while portraying the curriculum content effectively. Unfortunately, I think that if the students were asked to describe the process of echolocation or the purpose of a camels hump they would skip the facts and jump straight to performing their new dance moves. Teachers need to put more effort into introducing media resources that truly represent the curriculum content.
Nick:
I like the spin that you put on the article about having your own filter and being able to trust what you know. I am still concerned with the author’s willingness to trust another human being to effectively employ the world of digital media during our quest for new knowledge. We have all been stressing the responsibility of a teacher to support the students’ ability to find accurate information and we understand the consequences for the student in the future if they are unable to do so. How could anyone put the validity of their knowledge base in the hands of someone who may not have had sufficient support from educators in the past? I want to be confident that the information I believe is supported by facts.