Jill and Karen's workshops include activities which show how easy it is for students to cut and paste reports in less than 3 minutes. Given the challenges presented by the Kafe, we must equip students with the tools and the spirit to look deeply at Life and its essential questions, probing beyond the information packages aimed their way. For students to make up their own minds, they will need the most powerful technology of all . . . Questioning is the basis for information literacy - the ability to interpret information and extract or create new meaning, to solve problems and make decisions based on reliable evidence and a thorough understanding. Questions enable us to search for pertinent information.
Questions convert data into information and information into insight.
Questions enable us to interpret information. Questions take us beyond interpretation by supporting synthesis and the development of new understandings. In order to reach this goal of teaching students strong information skills, we must dramatically modify traditional approaches to school research which all too easily fall prey to the glib nature of new information sources. If we hope to develop an appreciation for insight and a skills base which equips students to look beyond the superficial, then we must challenge them to study some questions and issues in depth over time - extending perhaps to a full year. We must focus these inquiries on real time, authentic issues, many of which elude simple answers.