Musings on information

I completed the pre-course reading assignments over a week ago, so I'm a bit rusty. Right now I have the other tab open, so I can re-read David Warlick's article, "How Has Information Changed?"

I believe that we are now living in an age of information overload. Though this is satisfying to my inner news-junkie (I can visit several different news websites - such as cnn.com, nytimes.com, and even the BBC every five minutes when at my desk job), it does mean that research can become overwhelming!

Research used to involve the card catalog (rifling through hundreds of cards), books, and a stack of index cards. While research is still like that for me (I work in a library department that has yet to be automated), today's K-12 students can use Google, their school library's website, blogs, even ebrary and Google books! Especially today, the old adage, "Don't believe everything you read," is important. How will students learn what is, and what is not, valuable, factual information?

The answer lies with us (and our other partners in crime, the classroom teachers). Evaluation of information is a critical skill for survival ... and to be heard in this world, one's message must be coherent, concise, and, to borrow from David Warlick, compelling.