HOT TOPIC: News Online
Volume 2, Issue 6 - October 9, 2005"Welcome to the Information Age. How do we know we have arrived? Every day we are inundated with information from all kinds of media in formats that weren’t even available ten years ago! While that is an amazing notion to stop and ponder, the reality is that people are on information overload. From the time we turn on the radio to the time we log offline, our minds are bombarded with facts that not only impacts us intellectually, but emotionally, personally and even physically at times. There is a need to get a handle on all this data!
This imperative is the battle cry for information literacy: caveat emptor! Consumers of information need to be armed with the strategies and skills necessary to deal with this explosion of information in our lives. I would suggest as a first step that we get a handle on those news sources online which are doing the best job of both delivering fair, accurate, timely information and formatting that information in easy-to-digest formats. This includes not only traditional news sources, but Web-based sources that facilitate access to quality news and information.
To this end, I offer you this week’s digital dozen; a collection of news agencies, online directories and portals that represent the breadth and width of news in the Information Age. While these sites do not actually teach information literacy to students, they provide a solid foundation on which you and your students can operate in finding and assessing quality news online. From there, your class can compare and contrast other sources of information you find online for quality and reliability."
Want this and every issue of 2005-2006?
