I have a child in my class at the moment who is convinced that he is an awesome reader despite the glaring fact that he struggles to read anything longer than a basic cvc word. The power for self-deceit is quite remarkable.
My readings this week have demonstrated that the Web lends itself to producing a whole generation of students convinced that they are fantastic researchers. After all, they can type what they want into Google and up pop hundreds of results. They can cut and paste to their hearts delight and hey presto... instant assignment. Barely even any need to know what you are researching!
Well, that may be a slight overstatement, but it does not seem to be that far from the truth. Students are over-reliant on Google, inflexible in their approaches to searching, and even those who demonstrate good reading strategies when using print-based text seem to abandon what they have learned when faced with online text. To cap it off they seem to have total faith in everything they see online. The innocence of youth may be sweet and endearing but has no place online.
The alarming fact is that this confidence in their own online infallibility seems to be developing at startlingly early ages. The onus is on those of us engaged in the early years of education to address these issues before the students becpme over-confident and cease listening to reason.
Here I come to save the day...!
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