Critical thinking challenge/opp

Here's the challenge many librarians have these days: You're a research specialist, but you're also a "digital immigrant" instructing "digital natives." They're extremely familiar with *one* research tool (for socializing and entertainment), which is where they reflexively go for all information. What smart media-literacy specialists are saying now, though, is that's not all bad. As one information-studies professor told the Hartford Courant, it's not whether they use Web search engines that's the issue it's *how* they use them (and whether they know when to use other valuable resources too). In fact, librarians are using kids' Internet fluency as a teaching tool too: "The trick," the Courant says they've found, "is to get students to approach school research with the same zeal with which they pursue leisurely information" – like cheats for videogames and friends' comments in social-networking sites. Not just in terms of enthusiasm, but also in terms of critical thinking. As then-9th-grade teacher Marel Rogers in Connecticut told me way back in 1997, she teaches critical thinking by telling her students: "Start out with your favorite things - a sports team, a music group, a friend who's moved to a different city, and go to those Web sites. You already know a lot about those subjects, and this will make you more discriminating." [See also "Critical thinking: Kids' best research (and online safety) tool".]