A letter to my seniors (updated) Joyce Kasman Valenza May 20th, 2012 A recent conversation on ALA’s INFOLIT list–By graduation, what should K-12 students know about web search?–inspired me to update a post I did a few years back for eVOYA. I’ll share this letter with my seniors in the next couple of weeks.
Congratulations, Dear Senior Class! Secretly, I wish I could go along with you to Penn State or Pitt or Temple or wherever the academic wind or your passions blow you. (I really do.) But short of that, I’ll settle for being able sending my best advice–a letter to stick in the pockets of your gowns at graduation. Because your gowns do not have pockets, I’ll send you my advice digitally. Here are some thoughts and tips for using your information and communications landscapes powerfully. As a mom, the graduation experience always brings to mind that weekend I took the training wheels off both my own kids’ bikes. We were determined to ride those two-wheelers like big kids for the first time. We’d been falling and getting up a lot. I was a little nervous, but the moment came when all that practice paid off. With a little push, and some you-can-do-it shouts, my two kids successfully flew down the road balancing on their very own. And so, I wonder. As you lose your research training wheels, what should you take along to balance your course and fly straight through even bumpier information and communication challenges? Will you demonstrate transliteracy and distinguish yourself from other freshmen without similar skills? What would my you-can-do-it shouts of advice sound like? In general: When you have the opportunity to search, I hope you will stop and wonder first. I hope you will ask meaningful questions, questions that fascinate or provoke. I hope that the next step of your research journey allows you to inquire about things that help you stretch intellectually and make meaning of your world. I hope that you continue to learn by connecting and sharing with others. And I hope that the products of your journey allow you to demonstrate creative thought. I hope that you make work that makes a difference. When you search: Imagine your dream documents. Those that best address what you are wondering about. What words would the author of those documents include? Think about words. When you search, enter the most important words first. Try nouns first. When you are looking for images, adjective searching often results in powerful, evocative stuff.