To begin I had no idea research on the internet could get that advanced. I was always under the impression that the more words you put in the search engine the less results you will have thus leading you away from what you wanted to find in the first place. But no I was wrong again, as my spouse would say.
I have always been a superficial researcher on the internet and have never really thought much about it, but after reading this article I realize that I could be doing so much better with my research and saving so much more time. Recently I have been researching house plans as I want to be building a home in the next year or so, and I continue to struggle to find exactly what I am looking for on Google. I always find aspects that I want but never exactly what I am looking for. Now that I have read this article I feel that when I am done this blog that I can go ahead and research exactly what I am looking for and it will be there, I hope. When I was teaching a Social 7 class in one of my practicums I was having the students write a critical essay and presentation on representations of First Nations people in the media. Most of the students were having trouble finding anything that would help them fulfill the requirements of the assignment through their research. So I continued to tell the class what they needed to search. By doing so the students were able to find what they were looking for and were more engaged in the assignment. This taught me a huge lesson about teaching as well as understanding what your students are capable of. My students had never really spent time on the internet researching before, and thus struggled with finding content. Now that I have read the article I realize that what I should have done to start the class before I had them start their own research is I should have taught them how to research on the internet. I never had anyone teach me how to search, which would explain why I am content with the superficial aspects of my research. If I want my students to be engaged they need to have success with their research. It is the same with sports, I am a sports fanatic thus I may correlate the two. If kids are learning a sport it is essential that the skill they are being taught is successful 1/3 of the time, if they want to stay playing the sport. If a skill is too difficult the children will just quit and find something they can succeed at. I feel the same is with the internet, and researching. Students must see success in their research and be able to use this research for their specified assignments. We want the students to be engaged in their learning. If they are it is fun and if it is fun it will be lifelong. Significant Comment: http://marywauters4764.weebly.com/blog/history-of-the-internet#comments http://myeducationpath.weebly.com/reflections-for-tech/history-of-my-internet#comments
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The Internet became a new thing to me when I was around the age of 10. I had just moved for the first time and remember my old computer we would go on in the basement. It was huge and had the old disc drives with the floppy disc as well as the hard disc. I didn't feel at the time that this would change many things in my life but as time went on this thought quickly changed.
We started using the computers more often at school to search for things or do some sort of work on. The computers we had then were the old Macs that were different colours, I'm sure most everyone knows which ones I'm talking about. As I got older the Internet or World Wide Web became more useful and interesting to myself and to some of my teachers. We started doing research, looking at videos, watching videos over and over and over again without having to record it. I remember coming home asking my parents questions about homework that I had on the Internet and it was like talking Russian to them, they didn't understand a thing. This told me right away that I, in school, was in unchartered territory for them. They didn't know how this new thing was used. All they knew was how dangerous it could be, and as such they would limit my time on the computer. This was a good thing as it still allowed me to keep my interests in sports and fun outside the house instead of sitting on my couch playing computer games . This I do thank my parents for as it for,Ed me into the hard working person I am today. Is this trend changing though? Are kids becoming more lazy because of the Internet and its many tools? In my opinion it has I feel kids are less focused on sports now days then they were when I was in school. I feel that they are learning more and more at a younger age which then puts them ahead of the generation before them, thus allowing them to go further in life, whether it be good or bad. I feel that interaction has changed dramatically. As a co-worker of mine said, he wishes he had texting when he was younger he could have had so many more dates with girls. For myself I didn't feel my communication changed much during school, but now the communication has lessened and almost seems hard to find conversation at times. Overall I believe the Internet has brought us so far as a society and as teachers, yet I do believe that it still must be used carefully. It will help us as well as destroy us if we let it. |