Fascinated Discussion

"A Talk with Howard Rheingold" through the PLPNetwork Ustream By Will Richardson.




Live Video streaming by Ustream


If you have about an hour, this is worth the viewing. Howard Reingold is fascinating to listen to. Will Richardson helped reveal many of the tools that are out there and the history of how the tools were developed.

Reingold indicates that there are two things that students should be able to do. He asks:

"How do you find the answer to any question on line?"

"How do you find out what you found was true?"

There was never an answer to the second question. However, I was surprised by Reingold's comment on critical thinking or "going beyond what is presented to me." I smiled when he said, "Critical Thinking is a communist plot that will never be aloud by school boards." He continues by expressing how patients a parent or teacher needs to be to encourage students to question them. He reminds us that questioning authority is always shut down. We need to do some soul searching when it comes to teaching our students to question things effectively.

How do we question the information that we find on the Internet?
How do we teach our students to question the information they find?