What I like about your Learners Today model, Carol, is that it reminds us that although our students are comfortable with the technology, they are still naive about thinking critically about the range of information they encounter. The thinking frameworks that good instructional models include are essential to developing this deeper thinking.

I do get tired of adults who excuse their own naivity with new technologies (particularly the web) by saying that kids know so much more about technology than they do. That may be so, in terms of exposure and comfort, but those are surface skills. Besides, I think teachers, and most particularly teacher-librarians need to actively work on staying up with innovations in technology, to help students develop the critical thinking framework that they need.

I strongly agree. As a teacher-librarian, I feel it is my responsiblity to keep up with new technology so that I can guide the students at my school to use it productively. I am a long way away from where I know I need to be; however, I refuse to let that deter my personal quest for more knowledge in this area.

Today I attended a session a Super Conference called Re-Wiring our Youth.The focus was cyberbullying but I made so many connections with what we are trying to do with the wiki environment.One of the first statements that Sgt. Robyn MacEachern made was if you are doing any work with youth today you have to go where they are and social networking is 'their world'.
In her research with young people and her analysis of behaviours she has dicovered that one of the problems today is that kids have only other kids as role models in the web 2 world. Adults do not play and work in their spaces so they pattern their behaviour after other kids.
Do you see a window of opportunity here for educators? In the world of educational applications of Blogs and Wikis we have the opportunity to model appropriate social networking behaviours for our students and give them the opportunity to become positive role models for each other.