I have to disagree with the viewpoint in this article. Technology is here to stay and students need to be taught how to use it properly by qualified teachers the same as any other subjects. Unfortunately, most boards no longer have full-time teacher librarians and this is part of the reason students have poor research skills. Without proper assistance in the library, the role must be taken up by classroom teachers. I am a teacher myself and make it a point to integrate critical thinking and analysis combined with researching, summarizing, citing sources, etc. in my class lessons. We cannot and should not assume that students know how to do this just because they use the computer a lot.
I recently surveyed my class to see what technology tools they use at home. The answers were not surprising. My grade 8's use MSN, Facebook, Word for typing up documents and they occasionally google to find information. A few are able to make movies in Windows MovieMaker. They have digital cameras and iPods and that's about it.
Realizing this, teachers should not feel that their students have more knowledge about technology than they do. We need to help them with the academic part of using the internet for research. We need to teach them about primary and secondary sources and academic honesty. We need to show them which tools are best for different assignments and expand their knowledge of other applications. We need to model how to become good digital citizens in a world where technology is everywhere and information is at their fingertips.
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