Flow of Information
Over vacation I was putting my portfolio together and wanted to include some artifacts from the classes that I’ve taken at Columbia University, Teachers College toward my MA in Computing and Education. Putting the portfolio together was a good experience because I was able to revisit many of the thought-provoking, interesting bits of information you so often get in graduate classes. The Flow of Information model was something that we worked with in Howard Budin’s Computers and Uses of Information in Education class. So I will credit him with these ideas.
The underlying premise is that information technology is changing education. We clearly have much more information available to us with the Internet. We have new tools for presentation and publication. There are new skills involved in getting and processing information.
Finding information - What do I need? How do I find it? What do I use to find it? Do I need any new skills to find what I need?
Evaluating information - Is the information correct? How do I know?
Acquiring information - What skills do I need to ‘capture’ the information I find (text, graphics, sound, video)? How do I manipulate these into a format that is usable?
Analyzing information - What am I going to do with this information beyond copy/paste? Do I need to use other technology tools, such as a spreadsheet, to analyze the information?
Presenting information - What kind of presentation will I have? Do I have the skill to assemble and deliver an effective presentation?
Attributing information - Do I clearly understand which information is mine and which is someone else’s? Do I know how to give other authors credit?
With the need for new skills, we now have to think about these areas differently than we have in the past. They are all important, but when using technology, the analysis stage is often left out. Technology integration is not the world of copy/paste. Student must gather information, and then be led in ways that encourage them to think about the information they have gathered and what new information they can create from it. They must be engaged in meaningful activity, not simply finding information and putting it into a web page or PowerPoint.
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