xi I admit that I’ve consulted Dr. Google on more than one occasion to help identify that weird rash my kid had, and Professor Google is a great resource when I can’t remember who shot Alexander Hamilton. I’ve even been a patron of the Wikipedia Library when Netflix has me wondering if that really happened when King Henry VIII was on the throne. I will also tell you that as a mom of a special needs child, I did better research than the FBI when it came to figuring out what was best for my child and getting to know his disorder. I do what most people do (and what I guarantee you our students do) when I need a quick answer. I go to the Internet. The Internet has all the answers. And by all the answers I mean all the answers. You can find pretty much any answer you are looking for whether it’s the right one or not. This is where being a discerning Internet user becomes important. Daily we hear the “fake news” battle cry, and it’s no wonder when there is so much misinformation taking up digital space. It’s become imperative that we teach our kids, starting at the elementary level, how to evaluate information they find in an Internet search. They need to understand how to use reputable sources, how to search data- bases and not just a search engine, and how to tell if the information they are gathering is correct. We all have “those” friends who go off on rants in social media and repost articles they mistakenly believe to be true but is obviously satire. We live in a world where it is increasingly difficult to discern truth from fiction. There are blurred lines between what is within the realm of possibility and what is most certainly false. We live among a generation of adults who have trouble finding facts they can trust, which means it is more important than ever that we teach our children, at an early age, how to find the information they are looking for, how to deem it worthy and truthful, and what to do with it once they find it. Teaching Elementary Students Real-Life Inquiry Skills is a practical guide to help teach- ers and librarians teach students to use inquiry as a mode of learning and empower elementary students to find and evaluate information. In this book I illustrate how to incorporate writing into your makerspace and help students find their (educated) voice. Discover how students use library journals to collect information to pre-write for digital media such as websites, blogs, and social media and to support technical writing, creativity, and curiosity, through the inquiry process. Introduction
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