Stupid is as...

The ALA Information Literacy list is discussing how best to teach students the skills to find the best information. Many instructors let students settle for "good enough" resources found with a Google search.

Leonard Pitts noted in his article Not voting for stupid 07/27/2008 the difference between ignorance and stupidity.

Ignorance is a lack of information. We're all ignorant in one way or another.....I'm talking about stupidity, which I define as an inability to analyze, draw conclusions from, or otherwise "use" information even when one has it.

We just finished Day 5 of SCT 100. That's where we show students the resources available. We deal with the ignorance by demonstrating the resources. There's no time to walk through the thinking process on how to differentiate what is useful (accurate) and what is not.

GALILEO offers a page of FAQ's on how to find a database or an article. This deals with the ignorance factor.

I want ways to teach the thinking process, to deal with the stupid factor:

I selected Browse by Subject
...I selected Education
......I selected Colleges & Universities
.........The only database noted is Career & Technical Education. I decided that wouldn't do.
......I selected Education and the search list has 7 databases that seemed reasonable (including ERIC)
I typed in critical thinking, limited to full text, 2008-2008 -
A nice selection came up with some titles pointing to specific curriculum.

I think I'll go and read a bit!

-kls