Too Much Information

Classmate, blogger, and tweeter – Hillary Heck recently tweeted from the blog, Mind Shift linked to KQED homepage where you can find endless amounts of information through radio, television, blogs, articles, and so on. The particular blog post was titled – How Are Students Roles Changing in the New Economy of Information?

The title stood out to me while browsing through Twitter being as I am still a student and agree that the amount of information out there today is endless. The article stated that; “For students, this abundance of information means not only a changing role from the traditional classroom, but also a drastically different set of skills and expectations.”

A reading done in class by Kevin Kelly claimed we are changing from book fluency to screen fluency and our students will need to learn and adapt to that. Many of which are already adapted perfectly fine and school is a bore to their daily lifestyles full of technology. But having all of the information at our fingertips and a click of a button away can be dangerous.

Students need to learn how to handle all of the information given to them. This is one of the main questions posed in our discussion of how writing is changing based on technology – how we handle the amount of information. We need to learn what to research, the correct way to do so, credible and non credible sources, and the consequences.

The article makes a point aside from the general idea of information, Shawn McCusker, author of the article writes; “At the core of finding and evaluating information from a wide variety of sources is the need to question and evaluate its validity to determine its true usefulness and worth. The student who actively challenges sources, as well as the thoughts and opinions of others in class, perches at the center of information processing. Social students excel in this environment as they collaborate and commingle ideas from individuals into greater community ideas, making them a potential asset to other students in their class rather than an interference.” As a future teacher, this could not have been worded any better.