Internet Safety News
Students and "Net Thinking"
by Anne Collier
"Net thinking" might be described as the way students with Internet access approach being a student. It's a form of reasoning that characterizes many students who are growing up with the Internet as their primary, and in some cases, sole source of research.1
The good news is that "net thinkers" generate work quickly and make connections easily they can marshal facts, detect trends, and come up with original ideas because of the immediate access to information the Internet provides. The bad news is they value information-gathering over deliberation, breadth over depth, and other people's arguments over their own.2
The need is to move students into "post-net thinking." Net thinking is described as a realization that great ideas require deep reading, incubation, and contemplation.3 This information is useful for any parent or educator who wants to help students use the web intelligently as a tool for developing critical thinking skills as well as for research ability.
1 Laura Sessions Stepp. "Point.
Click. Think?" The Washington Post. July 16, 2002,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9729-2002Jul15.html.
2Ibid.
3Ibid.
Anne Collier is editor of the SafeKids/NetFamilyNewsletter and president of NetFamilyNews.org, a nonprofit news service for parents and teachers of online kids.
