ANNOTATION: Kuiper, Els, Monique Volman, and Jan Terwel. “The Web as an Information Resource in K–12 Education: Strategies for Supporting Students in Searching and Processing Information.” Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Review of Educational Research. Fall 2005, Vol. 75, No. 3, pp. 285–328.
This article from 2005 is a meta-analysis of research in Web-based learning from 1997-2002. The authors reviewed studies evaluating the Web from many angles as a teaching resource in K-12 education. The authors present a complex array of conclusions and observations, but chief among them is the recognition that the Web is a nearly bottomless source of information and that the best uses for it in education are not for information finding, but rather for information synthesis, aka “inquiry activities.” In evaluating a wide array of existing literature as of 2005, they conclude that what is needed most in Web education for children is training information literacy: teaching children how to find information, how to evaluate it, and how to process and apply it. Future research, they suggest, should focus on how the use of the Web can contribute not to information transfer but rather to “deep and meaningful” learning activities.
The authors limited their search to the SSCI and ERIC databases and focused on empirical studies from a relatively short period at the dawn of widespread Internet use, yet it is interesting to note how many of the suggestions presented in this article have been implemented in schools and are still nearly universally applicable. For example, in my own district, what was formerly library science curriculum has become information literacy, or “LITS”—teaching children how to search for, evaluate, verify, and apply the vast amount of information at their fingertips. The language used in this article echoes the vocabulary of 21st-century learning, in that the emphasis of school-based learning must evolve from information dissemination and intake into critical thinking and creative problem solving. Methodologically, the authors posed the question of how children approach Web research from four perspectives: searching strategies and search results, the effect of student characteristics on use of the Web, the effect of task characteristics (such as whether queries are self-generated or assigned), and interface characteristics (students like more pictures and avoid plain, text-heavy pages). They conclude that most researchers on children’s use of the Web agree on two items: 1) children must acquire search skills as well as skills to use the information they find, and 2) children need to be taught to discriminate and be able to recognize the relative authority and reliability of information that they find. In the end, the authors did find an answer to their central question, which is, to paraphrase, “Is Web learning different than book learning, and if so, how do we teach students to use it accordingly?” The answer is yes, it is different, and we need to train students in information literacy and provide supervision and support to ensure that they are getting the most from it.
Applying this to the work I do and my own research interests: In designing effective online arts instruction with subject matter experts, the implications are this: There is no lack of information and instruction on the Internet, but it can be challenging for new learners of any age to discriminate between what is sound instruction and what is not. The role of our online courses is much like the role of the teacher in the classroom in supporting a young learner seeking to learn via the Web: Course content together with live, online instruction can help students curate, condense, synthesize, and apply the vast amount of information available on the Web to their own creative endeavors. Online arts courses like these should not focus so much on information transfer, but rather should provide students guidance on how to process that information to help develop their individual artistic skills. Just as Web learning needs to be about teaching students how to connect and process the information they find, online arts learning needs to be designed not to simply transfer skills but to use that information for individual expression and creativity. As k-12 school teachers serve as a guide in Web-based learning, so can online arts teachers provide personalized feedback, creative direction, and emotional support, offering student-specific input and guidance to help students learn how to apply and reshape what is known about their creative domain in service of each student’s unique passion and purpose.
Susan Gedutis Lindsay 