Can I Trust the Information?
Objectives - ISTE NETS for Students #3: Research and Information Fluency
"locate and evaluate information from a variety of sources and media"
Materials
Directions
This is a story submitted by Neva Reese, a participant in an Information Fluency course, used by permission.
"Let's say you are on the playground and one of your friends comes up to you and tells you that they just heard that the school year was ending early. You asked them who told them - they say they heard someone talking in the bathroom - Do you believe them?
"Ok, what if they told you that the principal made an announcement over the speaker system. Now would you be more likely to believe that it is true?
"What is the difference, and why would you believe it one time and not the other?"
"It is an easy switch to help them understand that the value of the information has a lot to do with the author's or publisher's reliability.
"Just a little tidbit - pretty much a no-brainer, but I only thought of it after reading about research done on teaching by analogies using concepts that are more familiar to our students. I have to remind myself constantly most of the kids I teach have had very limited exposure to many ideas most of us take for granted."
Neva's example is a good one that illustrates the need to identify an author's qualifications before believing what he or she said. For older students, have them consider why they would believe the principal in the story. What makes the principal trustworthy?
