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One of the most common roadblocks to encouraging the use of Internet sources when working with elementary and secondary school students is their indiscriminant copying and pasting of information to research papers. Teachers are distressed when students copy and paste directly from the Internet to "write" their final paper. The media or technology specialist is equally frustrated when students wander aimlessly, browsing the web looking for "interesting" facts about their topic. More often than not, ample time is devoted to searching for facts but students lack a focused research question (McKenzie, 1999).
In a typical classroom activity, the teacher gives students a list of topics for research and the media specialist a list of possible resources for a project. The final paper is a compilation of information reporting interesting facts and figures related to the topic. However, even with careful planning, many teachers experience less than satisfactory results from their students. Research papers requiring use of library and Internet resources are often superficial in content and lack valid conclusion statements. The solution to these problems may be in the use of a new curriculum that focuses on "21st Century Skills" for K-12 classrooms.
In 21st century classrooms, the trend is toward teaching information literacy in conjunction with technology-based tools using Internet and other digital information resources (Lamb, 2001, 2004; National Higher Education Consortium, 2005). Information and Communications Technology (ICT) literacy is one of six components of the 21st Century Skills model recommended by the 21st Century Partnership (www.21 stcenturyskills.org), a leading education advocacy organization established by the U.S. Department of Education and several member organizations including the Educational Testing Service (ETS), American Association of School Librarians (AASL), and the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). Based on a report published by the Educational Testing Service (2005), components for ICT literacy include several processes leading to a successful information search. Students must be able to:
* define the information need
* collect and manage information from digital environments
* interpret information using ICT tools for comparison, analysis and synthesis
* evaluate information for authority, bias and timeliness
* communicate their findings through the creative use of ICT tools and resources
In elementary, secondary and college classrooms, skills for formulating a clear and concise research question...