As high schooler, I was taught that websites were not a good resource when writing a research paper. That was 10 years ago and I still hear teachers arguing that same point:
I have tended to be wary of students using websites in research. My experience has been that students who rely heavily on websites tend to write pretty superficial work, because the websites that they use are pretty superficial.
When website research is not even considered to be a reliable research method, then teachers close their doors to having meaningful conversations about digital literacy. Students are very quick and figure new platforms and apps very quickly, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t need guidance to find reliable academic resources.
Because websites and social media have not been a part of their classrooms for so long, students have come to view them as personal entertainment. In reality, they are holding powerful computing devices.
Let’s open our classrooms and help students see how powerful these devices really are.