East China Normal University Research On Children Internet Literacy

In the era of Internet, it is inevitable for children "fall in love" with Internet. However, it is impossible to isolate children from their specific social, historical and cultural context. And his/her relationship with the internet is not a simple process that a vulnerable, separated individual is shocked by the internet culture. Instead, children make meaning and construct relationship when they explore the online world, which means they are the interpreters and constructors of the "meaningfulness" in the internet world, rather than the passive "recipient". Children's interaction with the internet is a process to inquiry the relationship between the internet world and the individuals, between the virtual worlds and the real lives, between the real ego and the virtual one. By such interaction children develop their internet literacy, which further affect the quality of their e-leaming and e-living. Therefore, it is a vital issue to develop children internet literacy. It is important to guide children's interaction with the internet, and to improve inquiry ability in the Internet world. Driven by the child-centered ideology and aiming to develop children's internet literacy, this study attempts to investigate children's internet literacy's essential characteristics, internal structure and functions, and the developmental mechanism and approaches. From the multiple dimensions of the interaction between children and the internet world, the study tries to find out the values and meaningful space of internet inquiry. Furthermore, the ideas and methods of children's internet literacy education based on the internet inquiry have been provided, by putting the development of children's internet literacy into the tension of children's internet inquiry practice and educative guidance, and by the internal composition and external performance of children's internet literacy. This study aims to resolve the following four questions:What is children's internet literacy? Or what kind of internet literacy should children have? Why do they need such literacy? What is the status quo of children's internet literacy? How can such literacy be developed? These issues are identified in the perspective of the relevant literatures at home and abroad. By employing various data collection techniques such as questionnaire survey, content analysis, case study and interview, this study investigates the status quo of children's internet literacy, understands the developmental needs of the children's internet literacy, and constructs the inquiry-based internet literacy developmental path. This study establishes the development of children's internet literacy on the the internet practice and educational guidance. From multi-perspectives, such as ontology, value theory, methodology and so on this study investigates the relationship between web-inquiry and internet literacy education. The inquiry-based internet literacy education is advocated.Children are the future of our society. Children's development is relative to the promise and hope of our society. Children's internet literacies directly impact children's personal development and society development. By bringing the internet literacy into the dual perspectives of children's personal development and social development, by adopting the approach of interactive constructivism theory, it has important theoretical value and practical significance to focus on children's literacy enhancement. It will help children study in a positive interaction with the technical development.