IChat Reflection

What feedback on your Internet Workshop did you receive from your two group members online?
Will you use the Internet Workshop, or use a revised version of the Internet Workshop in your future classroom? Please explain.
Briefly summarize your group's discussion of the statement, "Students will become victims of the expansive dark side of the Internet unless we teach the critical thinking necessary to make meaning out of the overwhelming and potentially manipulative amount of information that is now available and growing every day" (November, 2010, p.27).

My group members thought that my objectives were well planned out and concise however, they informed me that one or two may possibly be a learning goal rather than an objective. They noted that they really enjoyed my teacher beliefs and that it could possibly be a rough draft or beginning to my philosophy of education on technology. When it came to my handout, they mentioned that it was helpful that I asked the students to circle either yes or no and then go on and critically analyze the question. I just didn't leave it at a yes or no answer, they had to evaluate and explain. One thing that I had pointed out after seeing Megan's rubric was that mine was a bit too detailed. I think they both agreed with me on this point. We decided that it can be intimidating for young students to see all that writing. I believe that a shorter more precise rubric would work better.

I would most certainly use my internet workshop in my future classroom. Up until I entered this class, I had no idea how to decipher whether or not a website was valid. I had always been taught that if it says edu at the end that usually means it is credible. I think it is important for young people to become information literate in order to be able to analyze and evaluate the information that is being provided for them. Young people are already very impressionable and the world wide web can be a market place for people to take advantage of that innocence. I think that enabling our students with the skills to critically evaluate a website at an earlier age will only help them in the long run. I myself am still very weary of websites, I plan on continuing my practices of analyzing the web. Also, this workshop provides the students with the ability to work hands on and use an actual website to complete the task. I believe that having a more student center active role in the classroom makes the material for meaningful and therefore they will remember the concepts being presented.

We discussed the fact that we need to arm students with the skills to critically evaluate websites due to the fact that there are so many hoax websites out there. There are also a ton of corporate websites that try to appear as a resource but in reality they are just trying to sell products to impressionable people. In order to survive, you need to realize and recognize the underlining purpose of the website. One important fact for people to remember is that just because it is written does not mean it is necessarily true. Website creators do a marvelous job of making the information appear to look scholarly. There are so many different tricks that students need to be aware of because the internet is such a large part of our lives. Students need to know how to approach it because it is constantly growing and becoming more important each and every single day. We connected this idea to the connectivism theory that we read about in GNA's class. George Siemen discuses that information is everywhere and constantly changing so people are continually learning and changing because of that. She gave us an example of cognitive off loading which include a cell phone. We rely heavily on our cell phones and typically if we were to lose it we would not know any of the numbers expect a few select ones. We constantly have tools and devices in our environment to off load learning. Due to that, we don't have to be vessels to be filled with information. The internet is how people are going to be learning for many many years. Therefore, helping them to become criticial helps protect them in the long run. They are just not off loading the information. If we teach them the neccessary skills to evaluate they will then only be able to protect themselves.