Comments on Will Richardson

“being literate in this new learning environment requires more than knowing how to read and write.” I believe that this statement from Will Richardson’s blog is so true. I look back at my half century of life particularly when I started school and was ecstatic to be able to recite a story I had heard. As I grew older I was expected to READ a story then summarize it in writing. In today’s learning environment a student must read, write summarize it while presenting it with PowerPoint. Of course now that we have blogs, facebook, myspace etc. the student learns how to insert music, graphics and text. In a sense he has just become an online publisher, a trade once reserved for professionals. In today’s society the changes happen so fast and the only way to keep up is through computers, thus the need for blogging and other online skills,

Assessing the relevance and reliability of information is a crucial skill for all educators to master and model. Perhaps this will be the hardest skill to master. I once went to a site that was about Martin Luther King. While I was at the home page it looked like a good article, however as I followed various links in the page I found the true agenda. It was a hate site. I feel I lucky that I found that out. As an educator and a skeptic I have a hard time accepting web sites as being factual. My question is who/what is the source. At times I feel this works against me. I am sure that wikis are a good source of information, but I feel uncomfortable with them since anyone can put down their version of the truth. I allow my students to use wikis as a starting point, but I make them use other sources to cite.