The average American household now has access to 3 or more phone connections and 50 or more television stations. The real measure of the data explosion can be found on the World Wide Web, where one and one-half million Websites are added every day, and the number of websites doubles every 8 months. It took between 9 and 10 years for cell phones, cable television, and VCRs to become a part of the daily life of 10,000,000 American consumers. The Internet took half as long.

To manage this data onslaught, we have become comfortable with the half-second video edit, the 5-second sound bite, the 10-second Web page visit, the 30-second commercial.  The average number of minutes a TV watcher stays on one station has dropped like a rock in the last decade, and an Internet surfer remains on one site for only a minute or less. Of course, these habits just put us in contact with more data - not more information!

There's no question that this massive increase in data is the direct result of our technological revolution. It helps us accumulate, format, sort, and deliver data so easily that such effortless access is now simply taken for granted. This is, of course, a good thing - it gives us experiences, lessons, options that are simply not otherwise present. But as educators, our attention to the responsible use of data is critical. Here are several ways we can encourage thoughtful use of data-rich technology through classroom practice:

Mix it in. Technology is a wonderful and exciting tool, but it should be an everyday part of your student's educational experience, not a once-a-month special visit to the lab! Integrate it into the higher-level thinking skills you expect students to use in every lesson! Examples of good mixed-in technology include TALK, or Literary Book Club. Samples of both are regular features in TIPS on the Literacy On Line page.

Define your content. If you're a business teacher, it's appropriate for your lesson to be just on the construction of a PowerPoint presentation! If your lesson is about social studies, require and grade your student's social studies content - don't lose your curricular goals in all the bells and whistles!

Monitor it's use.  In a data-rich environment that has many distractions, you must monitor students. You should insure the presence and importance of content over simple attention to the mechanics of technology - if your lesson is on tribal life in western Alaska, don't let the students spend all their computer time surfing the 'Net to find cute Eskimo pictures!

Be selective. Data is neutral - it is significant merely by its presence. Due to the free and easy manner in which things are published there, the Internet contains masses of data that, through closer examination, lack depth, accuracy, and even good taste. It is important that you, as the teacher, model the healthy skepticism necessary to negotiate this ocean of data. Even better, choose your sources, and require your students to use them! Fayette County's own on-line resources can help - see this month's Into the Classroom for an example use of the View of the News page.

A mouse click can take our students to up-to-the-minute world news, essays by famous literary minds, historical photographs and perspectives, the great works of art and music . . . and it also takes us to the mass of commercial advertising, agenda-driven proselytizing, and vacuous hucksterism. The digital age may deliver some of what used to be a teacher's responsibility, but as long as the airwaves are cluttered, the process of converting data to information will require critical and thoughtful expertise. That's where we must shine, where we are needed!

- Jeffrey L. Jones