Kajder stresses the importance of teaching strategies for finding, understanding, and dealing with the overwhelming amount of information – some accurate, much that is not – at students’ fingertips, via the Internet. She tells us she learned this, “the hard way” and shares a story about a shy girl in her eight grade class that opened a porn site by typing titanic.com into the browser. “I lost Carrie that day,” she writes, “Her confidence and willingness to share aloud in class was shattered by her embarrassment (pg. 49).” The story is cautionary and well taken. However, students are resilient, and my guess is that the rest of Carrie’s educational career was not destroyed by that one moment. Clearly the Internet is littered with such garbage, and stories like this have become commonplace; from observing students where I teach, many are now able to filter the vulgar garbage out (in a classroom context, anyway). The bigger issue at stake here, as Kajder goes on to suggest, is the one of finding information relevant to one’s research, and having confidence that the information is accurate.
I’m going to focus on two things Kadjer brings up in this chapter:
1) Internet Access – “The most recent federal research finds that more than 98% of
Kajder also notes that students “download study tools such as Cliffs Notes, Monarch Notes, and study guides (pg. 50). SparkNotes should be added to that list. SparkNotes was, I believe, originally created by Harvard students – here’s their self-description: “Created by Harvard students for students everywhere and geared to what today's students need to know…” and they also claim to “love teachers.” It is the most popular “study guide” being used by students at Xaverian (for English class). Some progressive thinking teachers may see SparkNotes as a legitimate study tool, as a friend (and they may have a point); but I see them as the enemy. They are free and easily accessible, and they do a very good job in breaking down – in an impersonal, generic fashion – themes, symbols, plot summaries, etc. In essence, they do all the thinking for the student. On page 61, Kajder cites a quote from Jim Burke’s The English Teacher’s Companion: “Internet thinking is not inherently reflective; it’s hard to think too much about where you are going when you are driving a hundred miles an hour as many do on the Internet.” SparkNotes contributes to this reckless driving.
2) Search Engines – To me, this section of Kajder’s chapter feels dated. The book was published in 2003, which means she was writing in 2002 – around five years ago. So I’ll throw this question out there – Is there really that much difference between search engines anymore? On pages 57 and 58, she describes a search she did on “Othello AND Shakespeare.” I tried this same search on google, dogpile, metacrawler, and yahoo – C4 looked shady, and profusion is out of business. The results were, more or less, the same each time: SparkNotes and Wikipedia listed in the top five, other less known study sites like enotes were pretty high up there, on two of searches an advertisement for boating equipment came up (?), and frankly, some of the sites on Shakespeare appeared a little dubious (shakespeare-literature.com). I had to sift through to find urls connected with a university (which, I know Kajder says those aren’t necessarily more accurate, but I’ll take mit.edu over a site where I have no clue who authored it).
So – students need to delve deeper when researching on the Internet. They need to be aware of the pitfalls and/or mirages that exist in the barrage of information flying on the screen before them.
One last idea – they need to know how to use the library. There’s no going back at this point – students will always use the Internet for research. One of the Internet’s great benefits when approached critically is its convenience.
But taking a class to the library is usually a positive initiative. Yes, it does require a lot of planning and coordinating, but it’s good for students to see that a library is not really confusing or intimidating – and information can be just as easily found there, you just have to walk around a little more. Internet and library research could complement each other well.
7 comments:
One last thing I forgot to mention. Kajder brings up the issue of plagiarism at the end of the chapter. This has become more of a problem with the advent of the Internet, but -- I think most English teachers would agree -- when a student plagiarizes it is USUALLY obvious. Those instances are easy to deal with. When a paper is a questionable, dealing with potential plagiarism is more difficult. We've started using turnitin.com where I teach... I wonder what some other resources are.
Lucien, you write a very thoughtful,coherent analysis of Kajder's chapter 5. You point out some key factors in the chapter beginning with importance of teaching students(and teachers) how to best use the internet for research; especially how to "question and evaluate and use the information found online" (K,p47) Although this sounds like a no-brainer, I am amazed how much I learned by reading this chapter. I am also surprised there isn't a class that teaches students how to "use" the internet. I'm just not so sure it should be the duty of the English teacher.
I can remember learning how to use the "Dewey Decimal System" when learning how to find books in the library and the "Periodical table of elements" (I think thats what is was called) for magazines and continously updated texts. I do think there is a need to teach students, parents, teachers how to use the search engines available on the internet. They might sound self-explanatory to many, but I think Kajder makes a strong argument as Lucien wrote, when she says 98% might have access but it doesn't necessarily mean they're using it for learning.
Kajder writes she doesn't allow her students to use online resources for any projects until they've gone through the basics, (p50), and I agree with her on that approach. When I saw domains like .gov or .edu, I always thought they were credible. I didn't know I needed to question those too.
Lucien, you mention "spark notes" as being the enemy, to which I agree with you to an extent. I would not want a student to rely solely on them for interpreting or understanding a piece of literature; however, I must admit I used them,(I think it was Spark notes) the first time last year when trying to decipher the 'middle english' writing of THE CANTERBURY TALES. Yes, I read the book, took notes and tried to translate what I was reading, but Spark notes helped me too-I'll admit it. But, I also understand teachers seeing it as the "enemy" because I've caught my son searching for "notes" on books he didn't feel like reading and needed to know about for class.
Lucien writes about not seeing much of a difference in the various search engines and I'll take his more experienced word for it; however, Kajder stresses the importance of using the correct "Keywords" when searching under any engine and I think that issue is very relevant and essential to teaching students how to use the internet. This is where I learned something new and why I believe it is important to teach students the basics like Kajder discusses on pages 57 and 58. I've always tried to use short, specific words or phrases to search for info but never knew I could use NOT to exclude. I thought I had to siphon out what I didn't need or want after getting results from the search. I also didn't know about (+) and (-) signs when searching or using quotes to find quotations. I never knew how much I could narrow down my search by using these tools, so speaking as a student who has researched, I wish I had. Some things might sound like common sense but I think we should never assume everyone knows how to use the internet. Kajder stresses the importance of knowing that "no one" is in charge of the internet and anyone can put information online,(p 60), so she warns us as teachers that we need to teach our students to "critically and responsibly choose and evaluate what they find." Once again, sounds like common sense, but learning HOW to recognize the differences in the information is not always so obvious.
Janet -- Point well taken: for some pieces of literature, SparkNotes can be beneficial (You cite the Canterbury Tales; in the sophomore curriculum I teach, it might be Shakespeare). But many times I've seen students using them to replace the actual reading of a novel (or other work)...
So, I'll say -- SparkNotes: The Enemy, the majority of the time...
Access, Spark notes, plagiarism, search engines.
The thread I see running through both Lucien's thoughtful posting and Janet's equally thoughtful response is the quality of student's thinking--whether computers are available but aren't being used to stimulate sustantial thought, whether some of what's available online provides shortcuts around thinking, and whether any of us, students or teachers, kids or parents, really know all we could know to use the internet thoughtfully. Such a rich and continually changing and expanding repository of so much information challenges the ways in which we know how to find it, work with it ourselves and help our students work with it thoughtfully.
At the same time, I wonder whether the kids growing up as "digital natives" vs. someone like me who is definitely a "digital immigrant" really do feel the same effect of going a hundred miles an hour. If I had only walked or ridden a horse, I might find the speed of a car on a highway to bombard me with more input than I could manage. But as a driver, I know how to focus my attention and filter out distractions. I'm amazed at how productive my daughter can be with many things going on at once, most of it online. So I swing back and forth about what the online world will mean for learning and growth, between seeing many potential problems and seeing many possible advantages. I like the fact that Kajder sees both.
I agree that some of the info in her book is dated (although as Janet points out, much of it is still useful). To me it's another 100 miles an hour problem. It's hard to write about or even fully grapple with any aspect of the online universe before it changes on you. The publishing world isn't set up to rewrite books every year or two (except for the small changes in textbooks that justify new editions at outrageously high prices for students), but I also think the larger concerns are more important than some of the details that are changing so quickly.
Lucien, I agree with your praise of the internet as a research medium for its convenience, “when approached critically.” And, that phrase toward the end of your post sticks with me because it concerns me: I think the critical reading is the most difficult aspect of reading hypretexts. More than with the technical use (how to find things and what things do we find?), I am concerned with how do we teach the actual reading so that it is critical?
Kinzer and Leander cite research (Bolter, 1991) which “claims that the inherent ‘linked’ nature of hypertext leads to critical engagement.” This position, therefore, concludes that “hypermedia must be strongly articulated with critical pedagogy.” (552) This claim seems to convey the belief that “reading” hypermedia is necessarily reading critically. I really disagree. Although Kinzer and Leander don’t seem to take that issue up in the same section where this is quoted, the entire purpose of their chapter is to make the case for an expansion of the definition of literacy and for the explicit inclusion and provision of hypermedia literacy in English curricula. Issues of authorship, credibility, power-relations within one site/text, and understanding “a sites’s positioning with respect to other sites,” (558)—all of these are elements which have to be specifically taught. They are essential to students’ ability to read critically and, contrary to Bolter’s claim, they are not “given” with any hypermedia text; on the contrary, they need to be made explicit, brought to the forefront, and analyzed. By “reading critically,” I refer to the ability to read “dialogically”—to identify different ideas and positions within a text (either stated or omitted), compare them, make them dialogue with each other, come up with some of one’s own thoughts and try them out by entering into dialogue with the text. I am sure that my own ability to do so in a hypertext is limited, although I have some clues...what about the students we teach? I think Kajder’s point at the beginning of Chapter 5 that teachers can make NO assumptions about students’ knowledge of the internet rings true in regards not only to technical use, but especially in reference to their literacy skills.
Kajder says “Just because our students are able to cruise through the Internet with speed and what looks like skill doesn’t mean they know what their doing”(49).
Fast searches, and huge scattered results is all that comes from no pre-planning or explanation about web research. Kajder very explicitly outlines the pre-planning that is necessary to facilitate a worthwhile, time sensitive web search. The internet quiz that she describes questions the most common misconceptions that kids and some adults have about the internet. This along with a talk on search engines, and search strategies clears the highway for a more systematic search that will hopefully produce a better quality of work and inquiry by students.
Lucien your little study of the search engines was interesting and a bit worrying that sparknotes and wikipedia always came out on top as the first hits. I have mixed feelings on both wikipedia and sparknotes. I like wikipedia for biographical information on authors that I may know very little or nothing about. I don’t take it as the last word but sometimes if I need a quick intro to an author it can be useful. It is nothing if not interesting but I usually search it for non-scholarly stuff like music or sport.
As for Sparknotes I think almost everyone has taken a peek there once or twice but I have learned that they can be dangerous in a way because their interpretation/s are taken as the critical last word by most kids. If you look at a story like The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka which is almost impossible to definitively interpret you begin to see that a single spark notes analysis is detrimental to the deeper examination of the story. Maybe sparknotes can be useful for Beowulf or The Canterbury Tales for example but you would have to be very careful introducing sparky to a classroom as your little experiment might snowball and come back to bite you.
I think we will probably have to get to a stage where each and every research paper will have to be scanned by turnitin.com or plagiarism.com. Then its fair game for everyone and everyone has been forewarned, but that’s a lot of extra work, and much faster software needs to be produced to get the results back much quicker than twenty four hours later.
Kajder has one very good suggestion for cutting down and/or eliminating plagiarism and that is to “Provide a narrow list of topics for students to choose from. Unusual topics with a narrow twist allow for unique mindful writing, not reliance on what has already been said” (62). By boxing in the research topic you narrow the net for potential plagiarists. Although one would have to be careful not to narrow the topic so much that you limit learning, and knowledge of what/or who your researching.
Kajder points to a 2001 study that found that:
“Seventy-one percent of online teens reported relying mostly on internet sources for their research with only 24 percent reporting that they use mostly library sources (Lenhart and Simon 2001). This suggests that the whole basis of academic inquiry and research is in a state of enormous flux, and it’s not surprising that many kids make it all the way through high school without being able to work with any secondary sources (bar the internet).
We can teach students to use the online databases that they can access through local libraries, alongside teaching them about wider internet searching skills. I have to confess to rarely seeking materials that I can't access through my computer (although I count here the books I order from Amazon or through the virtual catalog of the library). Mapping the universe of knowledge resources that one could access from one's home computer could be a useful activity in itself.
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