Mark+Ertl


 * Digital Nation-Life on the Frontier**. This was a long article and talked about multitasking-something all of us seem to be doing more and more these days, but is it really all it's cracked up to be? Some folks did research and found that multitaskers were terrible at every aspect of multitasking. They did not ignore irrelevant information well and did not keep things organized in their mind well.

They were observing more multitasking in younger kids and the concern is that they need to be able to filter out irrelevant information and to organize things.

"At the end of the day, it seems like it's affecting things like ability to remember long term, ability to handle analytic reasoning, ability to switch properly, etc.,"

While it seems many like to multitask, they are not necessarily doing it successfully. I recently saw an article that mentioned college students were having a more difficult time reading longer more complicated texts. They have a difficult time sitting in one place and carefully going through these texts. The researchers in the article did mention something about analytical thinking.

Another article I looked at was **Eight Ways to use School Wikis:** August of 2009. I liked the idea of not cluttering everyone's e-mail box with documents they need to save somewhere. But having a wiki, documents staff need could be placed there and accessed whenever needed. We receive so much documentation, it would be nice to have one consistent place to access everything.

"At many schools, there may be more than one teacher teaching the same subject/unit of study. However, there never seems to be enough time to collaborate. A wiki solves that issue. All lessons can be posted right on the wiki and, using the discussion tab, teachers can connect and collaborate." At first I wondered what the benefit of this was as we have a network and can save things to folders everyone can access. However, a wiki seems to be convenient for discussion. I'm interested in seeing how this piece works. Also, I could see doing this with someone between different districts. It would be nice to have a group of people who teach a similar content area to share ideas with.


 * Will Richardson's Wiki**. "Wikis facilitate "the purposeful work of negotiating and creating truth"" I thought this was an interesting comment. I wonder what he means.

I wonder how in a large class you could share a document among so many students when only one can edit at any time? I could see smaller groups working on a project, but not a large class.

I could see trying to connect with someone in another country on a project. Perhaps team a student up with another student from far, far, away. That could be pretty exciting and interesting. I wonder how you would set that up.

Wiki's are really a web site you can edit. I wonder how you can monitor it's accuracy and agree on changes?


 * Moving Toward Web 2.0 in K-12 Education**-this site made the point that these tools allow for authenticity. I believe that is a motivator to students. We need to make sure they have the tools to do quality work before posting, but they sure will be motivated to participate and hopefully to do so in a quality manner.

=The Top 10 Reasons Students Cannot Cite or Rely On Wikipedia= []

This article gave reasons not to cite Wikipedia. One was as simple as not just relying on one source for your information. Another was not knowing if the author(s) are reliable. Some of the information posted may be incorrect and go undetected for a long period of time. If someone accesses in the meantime, they will have wrong information. The article went on to say that accurate contributers could be deleted. The number one reason they gave not to cite them was “We do not expect you to trust us.”

I think students should be able to look at the information, but also must compare it to validated sites or text information. There are some things happening so quickly in the world, that printed information does not always exist. The key, I believe, is that students need to be //critical thinkers//. Someone posted information on a "tree octupus" and students were told to report out on it. They were duped into thinking it actually existed. Even when they were told it was a hoax, they had a hard time accepting it and if I remember correctly, argued against it not existing.


 * Who, What ,When, Where, Why**-**The Five W's of Website Evaluation by Kathy Schrock**. She used this as a tool to help students critically evaluate a site. Who: are they an expert? What: What is the purpose of the site? When: When was it created? Where: Where does the information come from? Why: Why is this useful for my purpose?

"Wikipedia should be allowed as a cited source by teachers because no matter what, a kid uses wikipedia at one point in their paper." This was a blog comment. Wow, you should be allowed to cite it because I use it. Again, where is the critical thinking?
 * Other**-It seems that Wikipedia may be a good starting point, however, you need to followup with cited sources and check for accuracy.


 * Wikipedia: Ban It? or Boost It?** I agree with the author when he says this may be the only source for current events and technologies. I did like the idea that Wikipedia information can be "flagged" as not being neutral or that the facts are disputed. This could lend the reader to see the controversies surrounding the topic.