From an academic perspective, educators have the potential to teach students, who are also consumers of information, to be cautious of the information that is posted on the web and to examine the sources in order to avoid being programmed to just click and accept information on the web. As long as educators are able to practice what they preach, students can learn to be wise consumers of the web. Being skeptical is not necessarily a bad thing because it allows the student and consumers to ask questions and see things differently. According to Wineburg, “What once fell on the shoulders of editors, fact-checkers, and subject matter experts now falls on the shoulders of each and every one of us” (16). The question is “Who will teach them?” Educators should help their students understand the various points of learning to examine and evaluate their sources as a beginning stage of the historical thinking process. Wineburg provides a great suggestion and that is the digital toolbox. He proposes 2 questions for students to think about when examining and evaluating an online source: “Who owns a site? Who links to it?” because “we teach students how to evaluate sources by asking questions about the author and the context, and by asking questions about their supporting evidence” ( Wineburg 16). Instead of just clicking away at the links that appear at the top of a Google search (or other search engines), students should learn to examine the links by asking questions.
Teachers may consider providing a lesson with at least 2 or 3 activities on how to examine search engine results. To begin the lesson, students can learn key terms such as SEO, Search Engine Optimization, and read articles by Nicholas Carr and Sam Wineburg. The teacher might even consider having the students read about Eszter Hargittai’s Northwestern University study on college searches in Google, which is mentioned in Wineburg’s article. The other lesson will include activities on how to examine, evaluate, analyze, and edit Wikipedia entries. Since “the internet has obliterated authority” (Wineburg 14), “search engines should play a role in building ‘digital literacy’ in order to help searchers more effectively find, analyze, and use information. The goal is to encourage searchers to integrate information effectively and efficiently by evaluating the credibility of a source, and using and citing information ethically and legally” (Rieger). Teachers can provide credible and reliable websites with historical evidence to help students begin examining primary sources. It will help students have an idea of what a reliable, historical website with primary sources would look like. The next lesson is to teach students to work with primary sources by asking questions, analyzing them, and learning to appreciate them as part of history. Eventually, the students will learn to create their own history projects for a historical topic that is hidden or partially-hidden on the web. The students will learn to be wise consumers as long as teachers provide the educational platform that allows them to ask questions, investigate questions, and analyze historical evidence.
