In this day and age teaching technology and using multimedia materials are just as important as teaching the three "R's". Although it should never replace a standard curriculum that includes pencil and paper, it should be used as an inclusion into the curriculum. I believe that we would be doing our children a huge disservice to keep multimedia away from the classroom, they need to learn these skills because that is the direction the future is headed. Smart boards, interactive lessons, and computers are also proven to be fun ways to keep children entertained and involved. I would be prone to teaching my 8th graders how to use the Internet to do research. Provided it is used correctly the Internet is fast, colorful, and informative. Research skills are so important and finding information on the World Wide Web is fun; however, paraphrasing skills are just as important. Children need to learn to think for themselves and rewriting what they read should be a huge part of the lesson in researching.
http://www.powertolearn.com/articles/teaching_with_technology/article.shtml?ID=152
Fascinating that you should have mentioned paraphrasing, I wouldn't have thought of that as a necessary skill, though of course it is, and that is pretty much what a large part of research papers are.
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