Kids Aren't As Internet Savvy As They Think

One might argue that the title of this post is simply stating the obvious. I agree. Kids aren't as savvy as they think they are at just about anything, so no reason to to think that the kids and the internet would be any different, right? Parents have known for years that kids aren't good at evaluating the claims they hear -- on tv, the internet, on the bus, I could go on  and on. Yet, this truism apparently has been lost on education administrators that have for years told us that our kids are "tech natives" and other such hogwash.

Just because our kids spend an enormous amount of their free time (if we let them) texting on phones or surfing the web, doesn't mean they can critically evaluate what they are consuming.

Now a professor from NEAG (the school of education at UConn) and Pearson, a very profitable company that peddles techie gadgets to the ed world, have teamed up to tell Superintendents that kids lack the skills they need to critically evaluate what they read on the internet -- even older, high school kids aren't good at telling fact from fiction when it is on the internet.

To find out what solution Pearson and Professor Donald Leu (of NEAG) we would have to attend the conference they are putting on in Texas.


For those of you who missed the Texas conference last Monday, let me suggest a few ideas on how to teach kids internet savvy skills -- direct instruction is my favorite method, hands down. Tell and show them the difference between a .com site and an .edu or .gov site. Help them practice by evaluating sites you pick for them to evaluate accuracy and trustworthiness and which are not.  I'd caution against discovery learning approaches.

And if you think your kid is the exception to the rule -- ask them to visit this website:  Save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus, and ask them (with a straight face and as sincerely as you can) if you should donate money to the cause. It is a great site, extremely well done. Click on all the links and marvel at the elaborate efforts put into it.

Actually, if I were feeling really evil, I might try to get my child to share the link with a teacher and see if any of them fall for it too.