Contains essays in which the authors explore the ways in which children and young adults seek, process, and use information, especially from electronic resources, focusing on young people who have developed beyond the picture book stage.

Research on help seeking has primarily focused on classrooms interactions that consist primarily of students asking teachers and peers for help. The rapid emergence of information and communications technologies and interactive learning environments, however, requires expanding the help-seeking landscape and rethinking such critical theoretical issues as the distinction between help seeking and information search, and whether help seeking is inevitably a social self-regulated learning strategy. There is also the need to focus attention on help seeking in the broader learning enterprise, which includes its role in the collaboration process, how to support adaptive rather than the over- or under-reliance on help seeking, as well as to scaffold help-seeking skills that render the process more efficient and useful. To examine these and other issues, the present volume assembled contributions from internationally recognized scholars and researchers to capture the state of the art and to anticipate future developments in this expanding field. Its relevance extends to anyone attempting to understand the role of technology in education, including educational researchers and teachers who do now or who expect to use technology to support instruction, and the rapidly expanding numbers of those developing new technological applications.

The difficulties in determining the quality of information on the Internet--in particular, the implications of wide access and questionable credibility for youth and learning. Today we have access to an almost inconceivably vast amount of information, from sources that are increasingly portable, accessible, and interactive. The Internet and the explosion of digital media content have made more information available from more sources to more people than at any other time in human history. This brings an infinite number of opportunities for learning, social connection, and entertainment. But at the same time, the origin of information, its quality, and its veracity are often difficult to assess. This volume addresses the issue of credibility--the objective and subjective components that make information believable--in the contemporary media environment. The contributors look particularly at youth audiences and experiences, considering the implications of wide access and the questionable credibility of information for youth and learning. They discuss such topics as the credibility of health information online, how to teach credibility assessment, and public policy solutions. Much research has been done on credibility and new media, but little of it focuses on users younger than college students. Digital Media, Youth, and Credibility fills this gap in the literature. Contributors Matthew S. Eastin, Gunther Eysenbach, Brian Hilligoss, Frances Jacobson Harris, R. David Lankes, Soo Young Rieh, S. Shyam Sundar, Fred W. Weingarten

Topics covered by these sources include: growth, development, health, physiology, sex, psychology, education, society, family, vocation, law, welfare, juvenile justice, substance abuse, violence, vandalism, sports, disadvantaged youth, and sexual abuse.