A group of several US universities and colleges are designing tests intended to measure the students’ skill at using and searching the web. While many people connect to the Internet these days, many do not understand well enough what it is that they’re doing, bobbi brown brushes not aware of many of the available resources, and do not know how to measure the reliability of information:
Sample questions include giving students a simulated page of Web search results on a particular subject and asking students to pick the legitimate sources. So, a question on bee sting remedies presents a choice of sites ranging from ads to a forum for herb treatments to (the correct answer) a listing from the National Institutes of Health, identifiable by having “nih” in the URL (site address) along with the “.gov” suffix that connotes an official government listing.
On the face of it, it sounds like they stick to pretty basic stuff. It generally gives the sense that the test will indeed give low grades to people who are not experienced on Internet search and use. On the other hand, if they stick to being simple and basic, they may easily also give low grades to people who are very good at using the web. Anyone who is more sophisticated, MAC Cosmetics Outlet with better knowledge and more experience, than those composing the test is likely to know even better answers, which will not be the ‘correct’ ones.
Still, like in any subject, there are more people who haven’t a clue than people who are very skilled. And it’s likely that someone who knows their stuff will be able surmise what are the answers that they are supposed to give, even if they’re not really the best ones.
It’s a good idea, because the problem is real.
Roth notes that the bulk of the assessment focuses on critical thinking skills, being able to analyse the legitimacy of Web sites, and knowing the difference between properly cited research and plagiarism, things that “haven’t changed very much since I enrolled in college in 1969.”
Being able to decide how legitimate source are is important. I have an, otherwise very intelligent, friend who was doing a project on a somewhat obscure topic. Since the topic was far from the mainstream of the field, there were few accessible academic sources to rely on, and finding more sources and data was a difficult task. Going through many web searches the friend found some interesting sources, but also plenty of junk. But the bit that illustrates the point here best was one specific source, which seemed at a first glance to contain riches of information on the subject. My friend was certainly happy for managing to find this gem, and was going to base part of the paper on it. Since it was interesting, I took a peek myself, only to discover MAC Cosmetics this piece of research and discussion was actually a very elaborate part of a background story for a… computer game. The company did a wonderful job of putting on the web plenty of things to substantiate the game world, its history, and its mechanics and way of operation. But it was the game world, not ours. That could have been a very embarrassing thing to submit inside an academic paper.
Although, given the obscurity of the topic, and the lack of familiarity with computers of most lecturers in the faculty, I may have done my friend a disservice. It’s quite likely that the professor would have gladly accepted the paper, and the source. Not only the students need their web skills brushed and improved.
Of course, some of those text-messaging students are still being taught by professors whose idea of a personal data assistant is a fresh pad of Post-Its.
Doing those test will provide another academic advantage, though.
Jones folds lessons on Internet use into his classes. mac eyeliner gel he doesn’t mince words about students who try the “click, copy and paste” approach to homework. “I tell the students, ‘Some of you are going to put off this paper until the night before. You’re going to go to Google, type in search words and just look at the top five hits and use those. I’m going to grade you on this. I’m going to look at these sources and so let’s talk about how to evaluate sources.”‘
It is sadly all too common for students to find existing articles, and pretty much copy them verbatim. The more sophisticated ones may do a major job of reordering sentences, and replacing words, so it will not be obvious. Sometime putting so much effort into it that writing a proper paper from scratch would have been easier. Maybe there is a psychological block involved, causing writing a paper to seem much harder than it really is. Not to mention that copying and editing of become much easier when the source material is a computer file, and not a printed book or journal article.
Taking tests that include parts about searching for sources on the Internet will decrease the phenomenon. This may seem a bit counter intuitive, since apparently the test mac lipstick just help ensure that students learn how to find and copy sources better. But most manage that anyway. What they will learn is that the university also knows how it’s done. Even though most lecturers don’t, the students will have more doubts about it, and will realize that the teacher actually can do the same searches they do, and find the same sources.
So those who aren’t really sophisticated will do the work properly, for fear of getting caught. And those who are actually much better at it, they are usually the ones who don’t feel like they have to copy anyway, I think.
I wish them good luck with their tests, mac makeup brushes cheap just hope that they’ll do them properly, and make them relevant. Done wrong, written by people who don’t know their stuff, or kept out of date, it would be very easy to instead make the tests a joke that will only provide extra material for students to laugh about during breaks.
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