1. What are the "history wars," and what are their implications for technology use in history?
Basically what the “history wars” refers to is a disagreement within the education system about several issues concerning the content and focus of social studies in the classrooms across the country. Much of the debate concerns the appropriate role of what and how history is being taught within the educational curriculum. Some individuals have claimed that many schools across the country have struggled to give proper emphasis to all of the social studies topics that are available at their disposal.
Some other individuals claim that schools should mainly focus on teaching the student’s history and civics rather than adopting the broader approach and covering a number of social studies topics. So you have one group that feels strongly that students should be aware of the broad array of influences that have impacted America’s history, while the other group contemplates that teaching social studies that way makes the content diluted because it focuses too much on topics they consider to be outside the mainstream and not on traditional historical themes and the pertinent events in America’s history.
2. With students' ready access to information on the Internet, what might be the concerns of social studies teachers?
There are plenty of concernes that social studies teachers could and do have about the way students use information off the internet. Many students cannot differentiate between what is a rumor and what is a fact when it comes to the information that they read and acquire on the internet for their research. Many students just take down information without questioning the accuracy and validity of the information.
I would venture to say that for the most part, there are many more websites with inaccurate or false information than websites that contain accurate or factual information. As the book mentions, students need to obtain adequate instruction on how to become more analytical about the information that they obtain from the internet and also double checking using other resources to make sure the information they acquire of the internet is as accurate and factual as possible.
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I would agree with you that there are a ultitude more websites with questionable information than there are with reliable information. A great deal of what we ahve discussed comes down to the fact that we have to teach students to be discerning in their research. I am currently taking another class on secondary readng that, interrestingly enough, was talking about just this topic this week. Studies have been done that have directly shown that students in elementary school can learn to discern between resources and assimilate the information.
ReplyDeleteStudents taht we have, no matter the district, are going to have a wide relationship with technology. I strongly suggest that, if you have time, check out a video on youtube that is called "A Vision of K-12 Student Today" This was shown in a special education class I am in and was pretty phenomenal at getting the point across that kids are in need of learning through technology.
I agree that there are non-credible websites. For every factual one, there is probably one that is not factual. And if students learn early, they can get in the habit of double checking facts. Even in TV reporting, there was an instance in with a network was in a rush to be the first to report that President George H.W. Bush had died, even though he had just vomited at a Japanese State dinner. As with reporters, students should get in the habit of checking facts of research against a few different sources. Now let me drop a twist on this topic. If a credible source posts an opinion on a blog, does it make it a fact or just a blog opinion? Should blogs be considered credible sources of facts?
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