The
Internet is a great invention, isn't it? Here we can find
information and resources on just about every subject
imaginable...and then some! The virtual world is providing
new and much more accessible opportunities to almost everyone
- especially in the realms of education.
Unfortunately,
though, there are few filters that separate reliable information
from false and misleading data. We are presented with
piles upon piles of ideas, claims and unusual phenomena
without a tool kit to help us sort out the good from the
bad and the bogus and properly evaluate the information
we are being fed. We come across web sites that try to
convince us that the information they provide on their
page is the real thing - true beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Sure enough, though, we're bound to find another site
that presents the opposite claim and also purports to
being the real thing. Two contradictory claims can't both
be true!
How
are we to make sense of it all and avoid drowning in the
confusion and nonsense that pervades cyberspace?
How
do we decide where the evidence lies so we're not believing
everything we see and read on the Net and falling for
ideas that don't work?