My Experience

What I know after working with 7th and 8th graders for 10 years?• They want immediate gratification.
• If the online resource doesn’t answer their question in the first few
paragraphs they simply go to another article rather than read the entire
article.
• They don’t skim the entire article—read headings
• They don’t evaluate validity or reliability
• They are easily distracted by advertising, animations, links
• They can’t tell the difference between personal, professional
• Wikipedia is always acceptable
• Difficult time with keyword searching, using Boolean operators
• They are not skilled at narrowing search
• They are not attentive to strategies that computer helps them with-----
keywords
• Many learners have never read thru an entire article
• Can’t tell you what the advantages of a database or internet search
• Many copy and paste
• Rote process—find the answer and write it down—no thinking
• Staff not skilled in asking the essential questions that make the students
collect data to support their answer
• They don’t apply the same skills in reading print text to digital text