“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”

I think that in order for our students to realize the benefits of this phrase we need to encourage them to collaborate as much as possible. They need to see firsthand how putting their minds together can help them come up with amazing ideas that they couldn’t have came up with individually. Once they learn this the same philosophy will be naturally transferred to the use of web tools.

When encouraging the students to use the Internet we need to model how we are not using it solely as a resource from which information could be drawn but also that we ourselves can by contributing to various discussions become a source of information. I myself learned that if I can’t find the exact piece of information I am looking for posting a question on a forum or a blog can help. My question can further get someone else's mind going and taking into consideration different perspectives we can together come up with a solutions. So next time a student comes and says I tried to find the answer to my question online but couldn’t we can try to look for it together and post a questions, contribute to a discussions, connect to people of similar interest etc. I think that the best way for them to realize that finding information is a process is to engage them into one and let them see that there is a lot more to it than simply typing the word and pressing enter.