Margaret Allen
29-05-2006, 09:47 PM
I was lucky enough to meet and hear the above gentleman speak last week at the Edinburgh E-Live Conference. The second part of his presentation was about plagiarism and how we should support students/pupils to avoid it.
With today's internet access there are obviously many places for this type of activity. I will not try and recount his talk as I could not possibly do it justice, but one of the things he said which stuck in my mind was that it is the way in which we search that will influence what we find. Fairly obvious! :eek: BUT he meant more than that, it was with what we searched which would make all the difference. He pointed out that most students if searching will use Google and although Google is superb as a search engine it does not lend itself to search in a higher order fashion, which research and reading around a subject dictates.
He recommended that www.ask.com (http://www.ask.com) and www.answers.com (http://www.answers.com) would be a much better pair of options.
He also mentioned the following websites which I pass on as they may be helpful.
www.vivisimo.com (http://www.vivisimo.com)
www.tekmom.com (http://www.tekmom.com)
He has such a brilliantly open, but clearly focussed style and to listen to him is to do so with ease. The pace with which he speaks could be likened to lightening, but the sparks that flew in that room were indicative of the impact that he had in what he was saying.
Obviously the above are American, but maybe some of you who are more academic than me could proffer your opinions....
One of the other interesting things that he said was that in a way it was important that lecturers/teachers should reconsider what they set as essay/assignment titles as they need to reflect the way in which youngsters/today's students learn.
Getting students to compare websites on the same topic.
Look at a website as it was years ago and compare with how it is now.
Asking students to argue the case for something that they have researched not using Google, he felt would heavily influence what they return - but we the educators need to be the ones who are supporting them in doing it correctly - we shouldn't just let them use the internet without supervision.
He also went on to talk about RSS feeds and then I felt stupid...... perhaps someone could enlighten me? :rolleyes:
He also said that we should encourage children to start with a "myspace" page.
My children all have them and I am amazed at the power/committment/interest/depth with which these offer youngsters (and maybe not so youngsters) to communicate. Blogs were also an obvious offering that he mentioned too....
Anyway just thought I would share a little of what I learnt if even at a basic level ;)
With today's internet access there are obviously many places for this type of activity. I will not try and recount his talk as I could not possibly do it justice, but one of the things he said which stuck in my mind was that it is the way in which we search that will influence what we find. Fairly obvious! :eek: BUT he meant more than that, it was with what we searched which would make all the difference. He pointed out that most students if searching will use Google and although Google is superb as a search engine it does not lend itself to search in a higher order fashion, which research and reading around a subject dictates.
He recommended that www.ask.com (http://www.ask.com) and www.answers.com (http://www.answers.com) would be a much better pair of options.
He also mentioned the following websites which I pass on as they may be helpful.
www.vivisimo.com (http://www.vivisimo.com)
www.tekmom.com (http://www.tekmom.com)
He has such a brilliantly open, but clearly focussed style and to listen to him is to do so with ease. The pace with which he speaks could be likened to lightening, but the sparks that flew in that room were indicative of the impact that he had in what he was saying.
Obviously the above are American, but maybe some of you who are more academic than me could proffer your opinions....
One of the other interesting things that he said was that in a way it was important that lecturers/teachers should reconsider what they set as essay/assignment titles as they need to reflect the way in which youngsters/today's students learn.
Getting students to compare websites on the same topic.
Look at a website as it was years ago and compare with how it is now.
Asking students to argue the case for something that they have researched not using Google, he felt would heavily influence what they return - but we the educators need to be the ones who are supporting them in doing it correctly - we shouldn't just let them use the internet without supervision.
He also went on to talk about RSS feeds and then I felt stupid...... perhaps someone could enlighten me? :rolleyes:
He also said that we should encourage children to start with a "myspace" page.
My children all have them and I am amazed at the power/committment/interest/depth with which these offer youngsters (and maybe not so youngsters) to communicate. Blogs were also an obvious offering that he mentioned too....
Anyway just thought I would share a little of what I learnt if even at a basic level ;)