"Youth on the Internet" Symposium
to be held at URI, March 30

KINGSTON, R.I. ­ March 20, 2000 ­ A symposium on "Youth on the Internet" will be held at the University of Rhode Island on Wednesday, March 30, from 3:30 to 6 p.m. Free and open to the public, the symposium will take place in the Galanti Lounge on the third floor of the University of Rhode Island Library on the Kingston Campus.

Dr. Anne Hird, of Rhode Island College, and Dr. Alison Pickard, of the University of Northumbria, Newcastle, United Kingdom, will offer transatlantic perspectives on what early adolescents know about the Internet, how they know it, and how they can be supported in using it constructively. The symposium is sponsored by the URI Graduate School of Library and Information Studies and the Rhode Island Educational Media Association.

Hird, an assistant professor at Rhode Island College-Feinstein School of Education and Human Development, designs and implements strategies to integrate digital technology use into teacher education courses. She is the author of Learning from Cyber-Savvy Students: How Internet Age Kids Impact Classroom Teaching (to be published November, 2000, Sterling, Va.; Stylus Publishing).

Pickard, of the Department of Information and Library Management, University of Northumbria, is the author of "The Impact of Access to Electronic Information Resources on Learning Opportunities for Young People: A Constructivist Inquiry," a paper from "Information Seeking in Context" - an International Conference on Information Needs, Seeking and Use in Different Contexts. At Northumbria, she teaches courses in information and communication management, information and library management; among others, and researches qualitative approaches to information-seeking behavior.

For more information, contact Associate Professor Gale Eaton, URI Graduate School of Library and Information Studies at 874-4651.

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For More Information: Jhodi Redlich, 401-874-2116 jredlich@advance.uri.edu