Social Studies in the Internet Age

"Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant."

-Mitchell Kapor

For better or worse, the Internet is here to stay. If Social Studies instruction is to remain viable, it is imperative that Social Studies teachers learn how to incorporate Internet Research into their instruction methods. There are many perils of Internet Research that can and must be avoided. These perils can be categorized into reliability, academic integrity, and safety. What I plan to do with my research is explore some of the available option that have been employed to avoid the perils and pitfalls if internet research for Social Studies classes.

Reliability of internet resources has and always will be a peril for Social Studies teachers as long as web sites are free and easy to put together and so long as internet access continues to expand. Just to give an example of the over-abundance of information on the internet, I performed a Yahoo search on the topic "War of 1812" and received nearly two and one-half million hits. The benefits of such variety is that students may be exposed to interpretations that they wouldn't otherwise receive (Canadian web sites about the war tell a distinctively different story than American web sites). However, the drawbacks are that students and teachers without any discerning ability are likely to run across a site that attributes all military losses in the war to UFO intervention (By the way, a Yahoo search on "War of 1812" and "UFO" produced 23,000 hits!). Most of the time, web sites produced by universities or government entities are reliable as are web sites produced by reputable companies and organizations. A professor of mine once said "You can trust it if the site address ends in .edu or .gov, everything else, verify." Most reputable web sites will have ample ways for a discerning surfer to verify the information, either through footnotes, or contact information.

Academic integrity is another area of danger where internet research is concerned. With computer publishing being what it is today, students are able to plagiarize faster than you can say "cut and paste." Most plagiarism, however, is not intentional. Nine times out of ten, a plagiarizer simply forgets to include a footnote or doesn't know how to document a source. How teachers can be on the lookout for this is to stress the importance of documentation and be up to date and current on the standard accepted methods of documentation (Chicago, MLA, APA, etc.). Teachers can also be on the lookout for deliberate plagiarizers by doing Google or Yahoo searches on specific quotes from their students' work. Most times, this can bring to the surface any academic dishonesty on the part of the student by taking you directly to the source document. This method has proved to be very helpful to college professors whose students are often unwilling to cheat from a book and choose the convenience of the internet, which turns out to be their demise.

Possibly the biggest hurdle for teachers to overcome in using the internet is the issue of safety. College students are adults to a certain degree and can watch out for themselves. Middle and Secondary students are not adults and must be protected. Most school districts and libraries have internet filters installed to protect underage surfers. The teacher can also help by giving students specific sites to go to. This will prevent aimless wandering in cyberspace, which often leads us to places we shouldn't be going to. Educating children about th einternet is also important. Webteacher.org lists the following personal safety rules for young people on their website:

1. I will not give out personal information such as my address, telephone number, parents' work address/phone number, or the name and location of my school without my parent's permission.

2. I will tell my parents right away if I come across any information that makes me feel uncomfortable.

3. I will never agree to get together with someone I meet online without first checking with my parents. If my parents agree to the meeting, I will be sure that it is in a public place and bring my mother or father along.

4. I will never send a person my picture or anything else without first checking with my parents.

5. I will not respond to any messages that are mean or in any way make me feel uncomfortable. It is not my fault if I get a message like that. If I do, I will tell my parents right away so that they can contact the online service.

6. I will talk with my parents so that we can set up rules for going online. We will decide upon a time of day that I can be online, the length of time I can be online, and appropriate areas for me to visit. I will not access other areas or break these rules without their permission.

While these rules are not necessarily specific to social studies, they are a valuable guide for young people when preparing to go online for any endeavor.

The internet is a reality that we all must deal with. While it has been demonized by some and deified by others it is simply a tool. We don't consider pipe wrenches to be evil because they can be used to harm people (At least in the game of "Clue") and we don't consider paper to be an instrument of divine properties simply because we can print a Bible on it. Like any other tool, the internet must be used properly and safely.