6.+Synthesizing+and+Interpreting+Information

//Pirates have been sailing the seas for hundreds of years, gettin' awfully good at treasure huntin'! Modern scallywags however, face new challenges that make their doubloons a little trickier to find. Read on to learn how your mateys will need to adapt if they want to remain successful swashbucklers!//

Online internet texts are part of a dynamic open-ended information system that offers various opportunities and challenges that printed texts do not. For example, printed texts do not offer hyperlinks that may enrich your reading experience, or lead you astray. In this way, many aspects of reading online texts may require new comprehension skills and strategies that stretch over and above those used when reading printed books (Coiro, 2011).
 * INTERPRETING **

Research done by Afflerbach and Cho (2008) suggests that online reading requires processes that are unique from those employed for offline reading. Variations of previously defined offline comprehension processes were found in their online reading study, including: identifying and learning text content, evaluating, and monitoring. Realizing and constructing potential texts to read was a newly identified process that is unique to online reading. Coiro's work (2011) further supported other research in the field that suggests online reading uses processes that are both similar to and more complex than those used when reading offline. The following video explains some research findings on the topic of how online comprehension differs from offline reading.

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It is essential to recognize that new comprehension demands placed on students by reading online are __reading__ skills and strategies, and __not__ technology skills. Classroom teachers and teacher librarians, take note!

//Pirates need skills to evaluate if their treasure is real gold or fool's gold; bringing home worthless treasure is certainly a walk-the-plank worthy offense! In the same way, a student that does not critically evaluate information found on the internet, may find themselves in turbulent academic waters!//

**EVALUATING** What makes online more difficult than offline reading? Online readers tend to require higher degrees of critical evaluation skills than offline readers, as online texts often contain hidden social, political, and economic agendas. Before the advent of the internet, people could mostly trust that the information sources they used were authoritative (Bush, 2012). This is no longer the case, as anyone with access to the internet can post whatever information they like. Finding the answer to a question may be as easy as typing the question into Google, thus the focus of research has shifted from finding the information to evaluating it. As Bush calls it, online readers must learn to “question the answer” (2012).

Over the last decade and a half, various tools and strategies have been created to help people learn how to evaluate the validity of a website. Some examples include Everhart’s webpage evaluation checklist (1998), Baugh’s ‘well-built website’ strategy (2000), and Johnson’s S.P.I.D.E.R strategy (2011). When choosing a tool or strategy, it is important to consider how current it is; Everhart’s checklist is dated now, as some newer key points are missed out (such as domain, for example). A summary of both Baugh’s and Johnson’s acronyms can be found in the table below. These are just two examples, but your class could work together to create one that suits their needs as well.


 * = Strategies for Website Evaluation ||
 * = ** Baugh’s ‘well-built website’ ** ||||= ** Johnson’s S.P.I.D.E.R. ** ||
 * = ** B **  ||= Bibliography, references and resources ||= ** S ** ||= Source ||
 * = ** U **  ||= Unbiased ||=  ** P **  ||= Purpose ||
 * = ** I **  ||= Intent and integrity ||=  ** I **  ||= Information ||
 * = ** L **  ||= Links and libraries ||=  ** D **  ||= Domain ||
 * = ** T **  ||= Timely ||=  ** E **  ||= Educational ||
 * =  ||=   ||=  ** R **  ||= Reliability ||

In addition, there are also plenty of tutorials available online for how to evaluate a website. As with websites, some tutorials are far better than others. The following video may be a useful tutorial.

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The importance of teaching students how to evaluate websites should not be underestimated; as Brisco writes, “the reality is that most students don’t believe that there is a need to double-check their online sources” (2006).

**__Mini-lesson for evaluating websites__**
 * Objective**:
 * 1) Students will identify important points to consider when evaluating a website, then use those points to determine whether or not 2 websites are reliable or not.


 * Activating Prior Knowledge**:
 * 1) Ask students if you can believe everything you find online, and why or why not. What examples can they give?


 * Acquiring New Knowledge**:
 * 1) Students will be introduced to the S.P.I.D.E.R. strategy listed above.
 * 2) They will then use this strategy to browse the [] website, and make notes on each of the S.P.I.D.E.R. points.
 * 3) Class will discuss what the students found while they were looking at the website.

[] [] OR [] []
 * Applying New Learning**:
 * 1) Students will then be given one the following pair web addresses, and asked to view both sites and determine which one is a reliable source and which one is not.


 * Assessment**:
 * 1) Could the students accurately identify the reliable and unreliable source? In both cases, the first link is the spoof site.


 * Note**: More lessons for teaching students how to evaluate websites can be found on the [|Instructional Strategies for Critically Evaluating Online Information]page of Julie Coiro's website.

//Pirates also need to be able to take their loot and turn it into something of their own. A stone from an ill-fitting ring could be re-set into an earring, for example, but this requires some knowledge of jewellery craft. In the same way, students need to learn how to take what they find on the internet and make it their own. Web 2.0 offers lots of opportunites for students to share what they have learned in engaging audio and visual formats, but students must first have some knowledge of how to use these tools.//

**SYNTHESIZING** Synthesis has long been considered as higher order thinking, due in large part to Bloom’s traditional taxonomy. Coiro (2011) acknowledges that inter-textual connections, among other things, present new complexities for readers who are trying to synthesize and communicate information that they have read online. Thus, reading online can make an already demanding task even more difficult.

The chart below shows Bloom’s original taxonomy, as well as an updated version. At the top of the new pyramid, you will see ‘create’, which is a more complex form of synthesis.

Will Richardson refers to Web 2.0 as the "read-write web" because it encourages reading and writing online to lead to more reading and writing online ( i.e. you read a post, write a comment, read and respond to other comments, create a related post, etc.). Students have plenty of tools at their fingertips that allow them to communicate their learning and create something new out of what they have read online. However, these tools alone are not enough. In order to effectively synthesize their learning, students will first need to be capable in the other aspects of reading online discussed in this presentation. As mentioned above, synthesis of online materials is a demanding task that will take time and practice for students to become proficient in.

**__Mini-lesson for Synthesizing Online Reading__** //**Note**: This is intended to be a general/open-ended lesson that can be adapted to any subject, for upper elementary school through high school.//


 * Objective**:
 * 1) Students will show what they have learned about a topic by creating a mind map that details key information.


 * Activating Prior Knowledge**:
 * 1) Using a topic that you are currently studying, ask students to brainstorm open ended questions around this topic.
 * 2) As students offer suggestions, create a sample mind map to record and organize these questions.


 * Acquiring New Knowledge**:
 * 1) Students will choose one of these questions to pursue further.
 * 2) Using the internet, they will find a minimum of three sources to help answer their question.
 * 3) Students should take note of these sources, or link them to their mind map.


 * Applying New Learning**:
 * 1) Using [|Spicy Nodes] or [|Bubbl.us] students will create a mind map that contains information relevant to the question they started with.


 * Assessment**:
 * 1) Was the student able to effectively transfer learning to a new format?

References

Afflerbach, P., & Cho, B.Y. (2008). Identifying and describing constructively responsive comphrehension strategies in new and traditional forms of reading. In S. Isreali & G. Duffy (Eds.), //Handbook of reading comprehension research// (pp. 69-90). Mahwah, NJ : Erlbaum.

Baugh, I. (2000, November). Choosing well-"built" Web sites. //MultiMedia Schools, 7//(6), 50-51. Retrieved March 16, 2012, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 63318458).

Brisco, S. (2006, February). Internet or Databases? //Library Media Connection, 24//(5), 44-45. Retrieved March 15, 2012, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 984918641).

Bush, G. (2012). Information transliteracy in the 21st century classroom. Retrieved March 15, 2012, from []

Coiro, J. (2011). Predicting reading comprehension on the internet: contributions of offline reading skills, online reading skills, and prior knowledge. //Journal or Literacy Research//, //43//(4), 352. Retrieved March 21, 2012, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 2537660371).

Johnson, T.. (2011, May). S.P.I.D.E.R.: A Strategy for Evaluating Websites. //Library Media Connection, 29//(6), 58. Retrieved March 15, 2012, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 2346834461).