Twelfth International Conference on e-Learning & Innovative Pedagogies

Abstract

Traditional paper-based research for the secondary school student was pre-curated, either by the editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, or by the school librarian who selected the books and resources that were included in the library’s collection. News articles were written by journalists, and the quality of the journalism generally correlated to the physical size of the newspaper itself. The school student of today is living in the midst of an information overload, or as Mark Andrejevic (2013) terms it, an “infoglut.” Whilst it sounds clichéd, the era of fake news is very real. Never has the need for critical thinking skills been greater. The need is particularly pressing for students whose education takes place exclusively online. By nurturing a respect for the values of inquiry such as clarity, significance and relevance (Kuhn, 1970; Lipman, 2003; Ellerton, 2017) in the online classroom through both questioning and feedback, students become curators and critical consumers of information.