Is learning how to navigate the internet the same as learning how to use a library?
At first glance, it would seem like it.
You decide what you need, you search for it and you find it, right?
Wrong.
As Adrian said in ‘Network literacy: The new path to knowledge,’ “Network literacy is, in a nutshell, being able to participate as a peer within the emerging knowledge networks that are now the product of the Internet, and to have as ‘deep’ an understanding of the logics or protocols of these networks as we do of print.”
Simple in theory, tough in practice.
How can we learn to apply similar principles to using the internet when books have a definitive beginning,middle and end?
As was said in the lecture, the internet is porous, with any given aspect of a webpage belonging to someone else or linking to another place. How can we possibly learn to document the things we use when there are no clear lines of who was written what, and where information has come from?
Should children learn Network Literacy from primary school, or is it simply something we will forever fumble our way through as a society, attempting not to tread on the wrong persons toes?
