Page 214 - Foundations of Learning, 4th Edition (Revised)

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

At the end of this chapter, you should be able to:

• Increase your awareness of what is available to you through the use of technology and to become
aware of one two new tools and their help systems

• Come to appreciate and use the Information Processing Methodology as a tool for gaining accurate
and appropriate information

• Transfer some of the skills from this chapter to learning about research in Chapter 10

Fred is in his first semester of college, studying graphic design. He has been drawing
since he was a kid and his favorite pastime is developing designs on his computer,
using a graphing tablet. He has toyed with the idea of becoming a games designer or
an animator, but he doesn’t know how hard it would be to break into that field. He uses
iTunes and can move around Google, and use a variety of different software programs.
He really enjoys working on his blog. He shares some of his designs with friends and
sees what they are doing with their
designs. They’ve even shared some
pretty funny home-made videos. For
more professional purposes, Fred also
has a web site of his work. When he
does a paper for class, his first stop is
Wikipedia, though his teacher said she
will explain why there are much more
efficient ways to search for information
when writing college papers.

READING

The Information Age

Why is this called the Information Age? Never in the history of the world has information been so available
and important. Not many decades ago, someone could read all there was to read about a particular topic and
call themselves an expert. In fact, many people depended on an encyclopedia for much of their information
and many homes had a set. Now, the expert is the person who has the skills to keep track of what information
is available, from anywhere in the world. Just thirty years ago, students in college had hard cover books
for class. For more information, they had to walk over to the library, go through the card catalog and then
go into the stacks to find the book or journal. Have you ever used a card catalog? Does the very concept
seem archaic to you? Just imagine typing a fifteen-page term paper on a typewriter!

208 Foundations of Learning