Course Objectives

Students should:

·         Develop an understanding of how young people evaluate electronic information.

·         Recognize that adults and youth evaluate and assess digital information differently and begin to identify some of these differences.

·         Recognize many of the educational values and limitations of electronic information resources.

·         Gain a familiarity with and knowledge of the major research related to young people and digital information.

·         Improve their electronic resource evaluation skills.

Organization of the Course

This course is designed as an introduction to and an overview of young people's interaction with electronic information from a user-centered perspective. The weekly course content will include a mixture of required readings, online threaded discussions, and specific written assignments, all related to this general topic. Emphasis will be on reading and research outside the electronic classroom environment.

Unit 1 - Introduction and Welcome

Unit 2 - Age and Electronic Information

Unit 3 - Gender and Electronic Information, Part 1

Unit 4 - Gender and Electronic Information, Part 2

Unit 5 - Youth Information Search Patterns, Part 1

Unit 6 - Youth Information Search Patterns, Part 2

Unit 7 - Youth Evaluation of Electronic Information

Unit 8 - Adult Evaluation of Electronic Information

Unit 9 - Young People and Video Games

Unit 10 - Electronic Information and Homework

Unit 11 - Issues in Education, Part 1

Unit 12 - Issues in Education, Part 2

Unit 13 - Course Conclusion

Major Assignments

1:  Student Profile.  Write a few informal paragraphs (totaling roughly 100 - 200 words) introducing yourself to your fellow classmates.

2. Youth and Electronic Information Research Paper.  Research and write a scholarly research paper (roughly 10 - 15 pages) related to a specific aspect of young people and their behaviors with electronic information.  To guide you in your thinking and topic selection, consider the following questions.  Do not feel that you have to address them all in your paper, and do not feel limited to these topics:

·         How do gender and/or culture affect youth interaction with digital information?

·         How do youth information search behaviors differ from adult behaviors?

·         What are some misconceptions that young people have about electronic information?

·         What are some of the unique educational values and limitations of electronic information resources?

·         How can young people be taught improved digital information evaluation skills?

·         How can instructional systems designers work to make their products of increased appeal to juvenile users?

·         What are some of the research gaps that exist in relation to youth and electronic information?

·         How have the Internet and the World Wide Web impacted youth library services and/or formal education since their inceptions? What has been the evolution of their roles in these areas? What are some of the current and likely future issues in further integrating these resources into library and classroom settings?

3.  Recommended Websites for Youth Annotated Bibliography.  Select a topic of interest to young people, such as art, American history, museums, music, etc.  Based on your research in young people's interaction with electronic information and on your research in evaluating the quality of electronic information, create an annotated bibliography of recommended websites for youth, all relating to your chosen topic.  You may create a Web-based annotated bibliography or a paper-based annotated bibliography.  Your bibliography should be comprised of two sections:

Section 1: User profile and author's philosophy

Write a basic profile of the audience for which your bibliography is intended, including audience age, other important demographic characteristics, the basic setting in which your bibliography would be the most useful (such as in a school library, or as a link to a larger website for young people, or as a handout in a public library, etc.), and the objectives, philosophy, and selection criteria underlying your evaluation and selection process.  Be sure to give examples of and links to websites that you rejected based on your selection criteria, and explain why you rejected these sites.  (This section of your bibliography is not directed to your intended audience and should not be made visible to users.)

Section 2: Annotated bibliography

Create an annotated bibliography of 20 to 30 websites related to your chosen topic [See Agosto, D. E. (2000).  Recommended science and technology websites.  Retrieved August 25, 2000, from the World Wide Web: http://comminfo.rutgers.edu/special/dagosto/sciintro.html as an example.].  Be sure to give suggested age ranges for each site and to write concise, engaging annotations.  This part of your assignment will be posted to the electronic classroom so that everyone in the class can use these bibliographies in our work with young people.

Assessment

Readings and assignments are due on the first day of the week for which they are listed, except for threaded discussion contributions, which may be posted any time during the week listed.   Assignment grades will be lowered one full letter grade for late work.  Non-participation in the electronic classroom will also result in lowered grades.  Assignments carry the following weights:

Student profile:  5%

Youth and electronic information paper:  35%

Annotated bibliography of recommended websites:  35%

Class participation/threaded discussion contributions:  25%

Required Texts

You will receive a course packet that contains required readings for the course, such as:

Agosto, E. D. (2000).  Propelling young women into the cyber age: Gender considerations in the evaluation of Web-based information.

Beeson, B. S., & Williams, R. A. (1985).  The effects of gender and age on preschool children's choice of the computer as a child-selected activity.  Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 36, 339-341.

Bilal, D. (1998).  Children's search processes in using World Wide Web search engines: An exploratory study.  Proceedings of the ASIS Annual Meeting, 35, 45-53.

Borgman, C. L., Hirsh, S. G., Walter, V. A., & Gallagher, A. L. (1995).  Children's searching behavior on browsing and keyword online catalogs: The Science Library Catalog project.  Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 46, 663-684.

Brunner, C., Bennett, D., & Honey, M. (1998).  Girl games and technological desire.  In J. Cassell, & H. Jenkins (Eds.), From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and computer games (pp. 72-88).  Cambridge, MA: MIT.

Comber, C., Colley, A., Hargreaves, D. J., & Dorn, L. (1997).  The effects of age, gender and computer experience upon computer attitudes.  Educational Research, 39(2), 123-133.

Fidel, R., Davies, R. K., Douglass, M. H., Holder, J. K., Hopkins, C. J., Kushner, E. J., Miyagishima, B. K., & Toney, C. D. (1999).  A visit to the information mall: Web searching behavior of high school students.  Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 50, 24-37.

Gorriz, C. M., & Medina, C. (2000).  Engaging girls with computers through software games.  Communications of the ACM, 43, 42-49.

Gross, M. (1999).  Imposed queries in the school library media center: A descriptive study.  Library & Information Science Research, 21, 501-521.

Hirsh, S. G. (1999).  Children's relevance criteria and information seeking on electronic resources.  Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 50, 1265-1283.

Jacobson, F. F. (1991).  Gender differences in attitudes toward using computers in libraries: An exploratory study.  Library and Information Science Research, 13, 267-279.

Jacobson, F. F., & Ignacio, E. N. (1997).  Teaching reflection: Information seeking and evaluation in a digital library environment.  Library Trends, 45, 771-802.

Kafai, Y. B. (1998).  Video game designs by girls and boys: Variability and consistency of gender differences.  In J. Cassell, & H. Jenkins (Eds.), From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and computer games (pp. 90-114).  Cambridge, MA: MIT.

Kafai, Y., & Bates, M. J. (1997).  Internet Web-searching instruction in the elementary classroom: Building a foundation for information literacy.  School Library Media Quarterly, 25, 103-111.

Kuhlthau, C. C. (1991).  Inside the search process: Information seeking from the user's perspective.  Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 42, 361-371.

Kuhlthau, C. C. (1998, Winter).  Literacy and learning for the information age.  EMAnations, 3-11.

Marchionini, G. (1989).  Information-seeking strategies of novices using a full-text electronic encyclopedia.  Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 40, 54-66.

Miller, L., Chaika, M., & Groppe, L. (1996).  Girls' preferences in software design: Insights from a focus group.  Interpersonal Computing and Technology: An Electronic Journal for the 21st Century, 4(2), 27-36.  Retrieved August 25, 2000, from the World Wide Web: http://www.helsinki.fi/science/optek/1996/n2/miller.txt.

Papert, S. (1994).  School: Change and resistance to change.  In The children's machine: Rethinking school in the age of the computer.  New York: Basic.

Solomon, P. (1993).  Children's information retrieval behavior: A case analysis of an OPAC.  Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 44, 245-264.

Subrahmanyam, K., & Greenfield, P. M. (1998).  Computer games for girls: What makes them play?  In J. Cassell, & H. Jenkins (Eds.), From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and computer games (pp. 46-71).  Cambridge, MA: MIT.

Tally, B. (1996, September).  History goes digital.  D-Lib Magazine.  Retrieved August 25, 2000, from the World Wide Web: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september96/09tally.html.

Turkle, S. (1988).  Computational reticence: Why women fear the intimate machine. In C. Kramarae (Ed.), Technology and women's voices: Keeping in touch (pp. 41-61).  New York: Routledge.