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=Web Research & Media Literacy =

Media Literacy

Media Literacy is essential to helping students become responsible consumers and citizens. Because every facet of the media is a construction, it’s important to understand how those constructed messages work and what effect they can have on us.

There are a number of different ways in which messages can be conveyed:

-Content/Word-choice -Images -Organization -Tone -Etc.

It’s important to ask ourselves when we read or see something:

What is being privileged or prioritized in this message? Who is this message aimed at and who created it? What is being left out? In terms of bias, how do we understand objectivity? (Do we value objectivity anymore, and if so, is it possible to achieve?)

Some great site based resources for media literacy: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|5 A's of Media Literacy (Via Hofstra Professor, Paul Mihailidis)] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Project LookSharp (Via Ithaca College)] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Center for Media Literacy]

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Some resources that deal with issues within Media Literacy:

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|How the design of TIME magazine "works" (via the Pentegram design firm)] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Who do we trust? "Is Jon Stewart the Most Trusted Man in America?" (via NYT)] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|NEWSWIPE: "the generic language of News reports" (videoclip)] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Ralph Lauren attempts to silence bloggers on Photoshop discussion (via Jezebel.com)]

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">English

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Traditionally assigned in English classes as a writing assignment, the instruction in “how to research” falls to the English teacher. Twenty years ago, an English teacher assigning their students’ a research paper would begin by selecting a topic, maybe something from their US history course or science class, and then going over how to use the library in order to find information on that topic. There is much more involved in the process, but for now, let’s focus on that research portion.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Even in the days before the internet, teachers would have to explain to their students the difference between a reputable source and a disreputable one.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">In the case of our cartoon, an authorized biography might leave things out to make the subject look good, but an unauthorized biography might not have great sources for the information. Which is more reputable? In this instance, it’s a matter of debate; either will be useful in certain contexts. What the Internet introduced to this scale of repute was a whole other realm of unauthorized informants. With the boom of websites created by people around the world, establishing credibility became an important issue for teachers and students trying to source accurate information.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">There are many websites specifically created to deal with just this problem, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">These two are indices of resources available to English teachers regarding research papers in general.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The beauty of the internet, as demonstrated above, is that it is choc full of information from all over; if we ourselves use it to do our own research, is it a bad thing to allow our students to use it? The most important thing about using web research for a research paper is explaining to students what is an acceptable, reputable web resource and what is not.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Establishing Repute

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> [] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> [] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> []

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Which of these three websites is the real one? How can you tell? Can you tell just from the tag at the end of the URL?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Wikipedia
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Starting point
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">General information
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Emphasize that it is not the end-all be-all source

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">So when establishing reputable sites, ask the students they’re go-to website for information. Expect Google, Wikipedia, Ask Jeeves or Bing; focus on Wikipedia because it will be the most common. Okay, so on Wikipedia at the bottom of the page there are links to where a lot of the information came from. Wikipedia is an excellent beginning for Internet research on a High School paper because it might not be at the level of the students, but they’ll most likely find something in the references at the bottom of the page. Outside websites, articles, all kinds of information. There are activities to demonstrate a vandalized Wikipedia page, or a mistake on a page such as the wrong mascot for the students’ school to show them how incorrect information gets on the Internet.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">PROS OF WEB RESEARCH: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Fast <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Up to date information <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Expanding access to reputable sites

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">CONS OF WEB RESEARCH: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Establishing Repute <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Plagiarism <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Extra work for teachers to evaluate sources <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Sparknotes

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Social Studies

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> There are several pros for web research in the social studies including: faster access to information, more information available and interactive ways of learning. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Here is some statistics on a sample web search for a social studies topic. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> The sample is Pearl Harbor:

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">12 links from Wikipedia

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> •9 million + results from Google search (number 2 page is from the movie) <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> •Over 1 million results on Google Books, many of which can be previewed <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> •632 results in Mirlyn’s catalog <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> •216 results from Mirlyn Search Tools <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> •Total Time Taken- Under a minute

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> There are several YouTube videos of real footage and documentaries- [] (footage), [] (documentary). Here are some interactive websites - •[|http://][|www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29055379], [|http://][|military.discovery.com/interactives/pearlharbor/virtualattack/virtualattack.html] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Here is a game- [] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Also many useful map quizzes for geography - []

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Some cons of web research- Wikipedia the most commonly used web research tool is at a high reading level and lacks general coherence that is essential to the discipline of social studies. To illustrate this I invited fellow class members to make legitimate sense of the opening paragraph for the entry on Hinduism. There are several terms used in its intro that are lack definition. Wikipedia and other websites present liability and plagiarism issues. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> An article I read stating some of the cons on web research was "Looking for Laura Second on the Web: Using a Famous Figure from the War of 1812 as a Model for Evaluating Historical Web Sites" (Tate, 2005) This study shows how different information on a historic figure can be by using a simple web search. Another argument it made was how many web site articles do not have any information on the author, thus compromising validity of the source.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Another problem is how students can poorly search for a subject. Again using Pearl Harbor, the entry on Wikipedia is on the naval base not the historic event. Also the Hollywood movie is the second search option on Google. There are also several websites with blatantly incorrect information that are easily accessible from Google.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Science <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Google Scholar

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">What is it?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Google Scholar provides users with a search engine to find “scholarly” research articles on the Internet. Its popular name (Google) and ease of use in comparison to the traditional database is giving it great pulling power – enough to create a concern that it will take people away from doing research using traditional methods (i.e. databases) in traditional places (i.e. libraries).

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Search Engine vs. Database

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Databases are currently the mainstream way to find research articles. Databases search for articles using keywords and indexing. Librarians and scholars index research articles to sets of relevant keywords. Database searches look for articles that match the keywords provided by the user. Databases are often segregated according to academic discipline.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Google Scholar searches for scholarly articles using a search engine. Search engines search bodies of text for keywords provided by the user. Search engines also use keyword tagging, a process like indexing except anyone can tag a page with any keyword they want. Google Scholars search method is multidisciplinary because it searches the whole web for “scholarly” articles without distinction.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Access

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Google Scholar functions primarily as a “middle-man” to acquiring journal articles. Often, it will bring users to an article that requires a payment to be viewed. Some academic institutions, including the University of Michigan, are providing students with access to publications through Google Scholar.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Point

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> The scholar of Google Scholar has been questioned since its debut because it is not exclusive to only peer-reviewed journals.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Google Scholar should be ignored so attention won’t be drawn to it. Once people discover Google Scholar it will become their only tool to do research, which will have a negative impact on our libraries.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Database searches are more effective at finding relevant articles. Indexing offers a more streamlined, reliable, and consistent approach to searching for journal articles.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Counterpoint

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> For the most part, but Google Scholar searches scholarly databases. Furthermore, all articles found by research databases are also not peer-reviewed. Also, what is required for a publication to be scholarly? Another question that should be asked is: Does peer-reviewed equal to scholarly and accurate? As should be the case for research in general, people should be learn to be critical of the credibility of what they are reading in order to ensure the scholar of their own work.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Instead of ignoring we should be teaching people how to integrate Google Scholar into their research. It shouldn’t be a battle to the last man standing. We should educate people to live in a world where Google Scholar and research databases can coexist.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> If unfamiliar with the particular vernacular of a topic of research, databases are difficult to use. Google Scholar’s ease of use makes it a good starting point for research by providing users with an initial set of articles that they can use to become familiar with the keywords needed in database searches.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Reference

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Kesselman, M., Watstein, S.B. (2005) Google Scholar and libraries: point/counterpoint. Online information review. 29(2). 208-214.


 * Wikipedia** is one of several canonical websites that students use for online research.Depending on the subject that is being researched and the goals of that research the results can vary greatly. Here I discuss how Wikipedia can serve and ill-serve students.

If a student's goal in using Wikipedia is to gain a general overview of a topic as a means to understand the topic and generate ideas for a further literature search of peer reviewed scientific research and primary sources (depending on the discipline), then Wikipedia may serve them well for the following reasons. The text that introduces a topic is typically very short and provides an starting point for further inquiry that is manageable. The text is dense because it is concise. This may require that many terms withing the overarching summary of a topic must be looked up in order for that summary to make coherent sense. As a result, a student must click on many hyperlinks to other Wikipedia pages within the summary. This is, however, both something that students are overall very efficient at doing and one of the ways the internet was designed to be used. This action also forces students to expand their sense of the topic by investigating a series of pieces and then go back to the summary to reassemble that new knowledge after the search. This process helps them to make organized sense of the very content that are trying to understand. Often diagrams on Wikipedia are created with the goal of conveying a specific idea and thus communicate that information clearly. These diagrams are then frequently fully released free to the public available through [|Wikimedia Commons]. Many diagrams are also linked from high quality sources such as scientific research organizations like NASA in the case of astronomy and Earth science. The case of the [|redefinition of the term "planet"] by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) is a prime example of this. One can search through the page edit history of Wikipedia and see that as the IAU meeting was taking place the new developments were both being updated in near real time on the corresponding page and that those developments were being organized in a way that facilitated a deep understanding of the issues involved in the redefinition. If a students intends to use the content and reference section of Wikipedia as a substitute for a full search of appropriate resources then there are many concerns to worry about. Many of these are addressed in the following section but one main concern is that This creates the potential that students would miss large areas of the topic that are central to understanding it in a meaningful way. The may be unaware of crucial pieces of research, observational data, experiments, primary source accounts, etc that are essential to the topic. The ability to seek out and judge appropriate pieces of evidence central to a topic is a fundamental skill that needs to be practiced at multiple levels. The internet is a tool that contains a wealth of information of varying degrees of quality. Using this tool to directly find these pieces of information allows students to evaluate sources themselves and understand what sources of information are being used to create a myriad of products, Wikipedia being just one example.
 * Wikipedia as an example of a starting point/overview for web research.**
 * Summary is concise
 * Text is dense but students search naturally
 * Quality of diagrams and figures in high
 * Topic is very up to date
 * Wikipedia As an ending point/Substitute for Literature Search**
 * References may not be complete or representative
 * Students will lack real research skills

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The dangers of internet research

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">


 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Professional scientists rely on primary literature found in internet databases such as Web of Science when researching grants, manuscripts, and projects.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Failure to do so can result in a serious loss of credibility (just read about the citation error in the [|IPCC 2007 Climate Change Report])
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The problem is that the majority of students (college students!!) have NO idea how to distinguish between a primary source and a secondary source, or between a reputable source and a non-reputable source (what does this say about the web research skills teachers give students in K-12? Not a lot!)
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Students tend to believe that everything they read on the internet is true, when it is often subjective opinion.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">As paperback science textbooks become obsolete, a number of teachers are using online books for their classes.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Instead of actually reading the text, many students are just Googling the answers. This reduces the accuracy of their work, and in addition hinder science literacy development.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Teachers have a responsibility to increase the online scientific literacy of their students, by helping them to distinguish between good and bad sources.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Obviously, the particular online resources available will depend on the school itself!!
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">So - in conclusion, web research isn't 'bad', in fact it's essential to becoming a good scientist. Students just need more direction to help them get on the right path!!

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Math <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Mass Media Concerns:
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Amount of time spent with the Media
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Impact of Media on Aggressive Behavior
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Sexual Content in the Media
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Effect on school Performance

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> An interesting article that shows the relationship between viewing television and high school students achievement: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Television vs. High school GPA]

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Social Networking on the rise: Global time spent social networking

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Mass Media Benefits:
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Educational television programs
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Thought-provoking magazine articles
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Creativity
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Knowledge

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Mass Media Education: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Media education is most effective when it includes:
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> both media analysis and production
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> teacher-created combinations of activities
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> coordinated efforts across all subject areas

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> I enjoyed reading this blog, hopefully, you will too: [|What Concerns You About Mass Media?]



<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Yahoo! Answers: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Wrong Yahoo! Answers]



<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Useful Math Website: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[]/ <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[]/ <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[]/



<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Web Math Pros:
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Wolfman Math World: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Wolfram MathWorld]
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Math search engine
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Reference section at the end of the article
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Calculate equations prompt by user

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Classzone:
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Online Textbook
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">World Languages