I think students should be encouraged to search independently in the third grade on information appropriate for that age group. I think that this a good age group to begin having the students view the internet as a pertinent tool to use for research. The seriousness of gathering accuarate facts should be strongly encouraged. If students are taught right from the beginning that facts should be validated no matter the source they will always check and double their facts before they believe them as gospel or present them as the end all and be all to the accuracy of the information.
The strategy that a teacher could use to avoid what happen to Zack is to build in the back up links into the project to check the accuaracy of the information . The process could be simplified so that the student could not go to the next question without checking for accuracy of the information gathered.
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Wow 3rd grade! I initally said sixth grade for students because of the mental capacity, but after reading your opinion about the grade level, I am starting to have second thoughts on my own opinion!
ReplyDeleteYour post got me thinking because, like Megan, I said students should begin doing independent searches in sixth grade. However, now that I think about it today's third graders have probably been using computers in school since kindergarten. This means that by third grade they should have the prerequisite knowledge that they need. On the other hand, today's sixth graders may not have started with computers in kindergarten so they did not learn the prerequisite skills as quickly. This could definitely impact when students are ready to do more internet searching on their own and also shows that if trends continue students will be better prepared with technology earlier and earlier as advancements and experience continues.
ReplyDeleteI really like your idea about building backup links into the project to check for accuracy.
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