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Kafai, Y. B. & Bates, M. (1997). Internet web-searching instruction in the elementary classroom: Building a foundation for information literacy. School Media Library Quarterly, 37(9), 18-22.
The growing Internet accessibility for educational purposes has raised a range of issues that concern not only children's emotional safety and the beneficial use of limited resources but also their development of critical skills in searching, retrieving, and using information media. As interactive electronic media become more pervasive in children's school and home lives, it is especially important that even young children are developing these skills so that they can build a solid foundation for their later learning. As a case in point, the report describes and discusses an educational intervention with over 200 elementary school children ranging from grade 1 to grade 6. During a five week period, students from six separate classrooms in the West Los Angeles area built together a collaborative WorldWideWeb-directory. In each class, the teacher and students would decide on one search topic related to their other classroom work. They would then search relevant sites, review them, and annotate their selections so that others could understand their choices. The resulting WWW "SnapDragon"-site is an annoted index by children for children. One goal of this intervention was to help children develop criteria of "information relevancy" as they were reviewing sites and writing their evaluations. A preliminary analysis of the evaluations indicates that many children placed a primacy on "visual relevancy" in contrast to "text relevancy"-a result which reflects two trends: (1) many WWW-sites are not written in child-adequate language thus making it difficult especially for young children to gather pertinent information, and (2) children's growing acquaintance with visual media for collecting information about their world and culture. We furthermore discuss issues regarding children's information searching skills and collaborative models in classrooms with limited Internet access.
Creating Information Structures and Exchanges for Learning: A WorldWideWeb-Discussion Forum by Children for Children by Y. Kafai, M. Bates, P. Ender, D. Abernathy, P. Braxton, B. Burnam, M. Creedman, K. Danizewski, K. Morrison, C. Merino, O. Pescador, & R. Greenwald at the UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, 1996.
The growing Internet accessibility provides possibilities for children's exchanges around timely topics to enhance their social and political understanding. Bringing together children from different background and ages can foster exchanges and help them broaden their understanding. An ideal situation for such exchange are current political events such as the presidential elections. As a case in point, the report describes and discusses an educational intervention with over 200 elementary school children ranging from grade 2 to grade 8. During a five week period, students from six separate classrooms in the West Los Angeles area created and exchanged information about the presidential elections via a discussion forum on the WordWideWeb. One goal of this intervention was to see how successful children would be in structuring their exchanges and what particular aspects they would focus on in their information exchanges. A preliminary analysis of the interactions pointed out that structured discussions are difficult to achieve and that many students have problem identifying pertinent information from digital information sources. We discuss implications for future models of how to orchestrate information exchanges and how to support young students in building information structures.