Good evening,
Nowadays people more often go to the web to find information than to books. This is so because it is more convenient and less time-consuming. However, on the web we can find things that are posted by anyone. Therefore, it is important to be able to distinguish between what is correct vs. what is incorrect, and what is legitimate vs. what is not legitimate. Also, it is important to know how to distinguish between a post from a knowledgable person vs. a non-knowledgable person.
As teachers, it is important for us to know that our students will most likely only go to the web for information. Knowing this will allow us to target their needs. We should show them how to distinguish between different websites and the validity they have. In addition, when assigning our students a project in which they are supposed to cite their sources we should think if we will allow them to only use the internet or if they also have to go to the library to use books as their sources. If we tell them they do have to use a book we must be able to tell them what the use of searching in a book as well as in the web is and why they cannot only cite online sources.
If we teach our students to distinguish between websites they should be using in our classroom and those they should not then maybe there will get a point in which it will be ok for children to only cite online sources. On the other hand, I feel that nowadays it is still hard to know the validity of everything we find online. When we look online for information we can use professionally we are actually still only using the sites of those institutions or books, newspapers, and magazines that we can also find offline or information that we have verified offline.
Technology in the Classroom 