How To Teach Kids How To Search The Internet is the New Reality: if you can't Google it it didn't happen, isn't true. Here are some of the essentials you have to know in order to navigate such a moldable reality. Google Doesn't Understand Questions When you type in something like "who won the war of 1914?" It doesn't understand that you are asking a question. Instead, it tries to find all pages on the Internet that have the words "who won the war of 1914" on them. Google Doesn't Know Best When you search something in Google they don't give the best pages or the most true ones. The results you see when you do a search are arranged by popularity: the more people like a website, the higher Google puts it in its list. google sorts by pages by how popular they are, not how good they areSometimes the most popular results are right, sometimes they're not. Sometimes the pages with the best information are not so popular. Advertisement On The Web A lot of things on the Internet are paid for with advertisement. 1. 2. Re-search
Update: "Google Search Education" Google’s search engine is a powerful and impressive tool for locating information online. Unfortunately for many students, the simplicity of the default search interface can lead to some pretty poor search habits and results. As I wrote in a previous post about Google’s efforts to provide information literacy resources, “it’s often a challenge (in my experience) not only to get students to search using something other than Google; it’s also difficult to teach them how to use Google effectively.” In that previous post, I pointed readers to something Google was calling their “Search Education Evangelism” site, a resource designed to make it easier for instructors to teach information literacy. The new site is called “Google Search Education.” The information hub provides several different lesson plans (with a Creative Commons CC-BY license) for use in the classroom: Each of the lesson plans is available in three levels: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Return to Top
Evaluating Web Pages: Techniques to Apply & Questions to Ask 1. What can the URL tell you? Techniques for Web Evaluation : 1. Before you leave the list of search results -- before you click and get interested in anything written on the page -- glean all you can from the URLs of each page. 2. 2. 1. INSTRUCTIONS for Truncating back a URL: In the top Location Box, delete the end characters of the URL stopping just before each / (leave the slash). Continue this process, one slash (/) at a time, until you reach the first single / which is preceded by the domain name portion. 3. Check the date on all the pages on the site. 3. 1. What kinds of publications or sites are they? Are they real? 3. Expect a journal article, newspaper article, and some other publications that are recent to come from the original publisher IF the publication is available on the web. Look at the bottom of such articles for copyright information or permissions to reproduce. 4. 1. a. Type or paste the URL into alexa.com's search box. b. 1. 2. 5. 1. 2. WHY?
Instagrok: A (Re)Search Engine for Education Search/Research I remember going to the library as a kid to work on a research project for school. The first stop was typically the card catalog. (I realize those sorts of memories of analog searches for analog information in a physical library mark me as "an old person.") "Search" now is synonymous with Google. Education and Search/Research When I first heard about Instagrok, a new “educational search engine,” I admit, I wasn’t that thrilled with the idea. But even so, I just wasn’t sure why education needed a separate search engine. But I spoke with Instagrok’s founder Kirill Kireyev today, and in doing so realized that calling the startup a “search engine” isn’t quite the right way to frame his project. Exploring and Learning through Web Search In some ways, Instagrok is akin to the now-defunct Google Wonder Wheel which visualized the relationship between search queries. Take for example the information that’s returned when you search for “evolution” in Google and in Instagrok:
Web Literacy: 21 Slides to 21st Century Learners by Naomi Bates on Prezi Evaluating Information - How to Evaluate Information - Library Home / LibGuides at Gwinnett Tech Library Many websites contain reliable information, but anyone can publish a website, so be especially cautious and critical when using Internet information. Is there a copyright date? When was the site last updated? Who is authoring the information? Does the information appear to be accurate (spelling, format, etc.)? What goals do the pages meet? Is the Web site still under construction? Is the site relevant to my topic? Thanks to Anne Arunduel Community College for this checklist.
Evaluating Information Found on the World Wide Web Topics Activities Reasons to Evaluate We use the information we've found on the Internet or Web for a variety of purposes. In some situations, we don't have to do that work on our own. Here are some of those virtual libraries: Thinking critically about information and its sources means being able to separate facts from opinions. Goal When we access or retrieve something on the World Wide Web we need to be able to decide whether the information is useful, reliable, or appropriate for our purposes. Guidelines Who is the author or institution? If the author is a person, does the resource give biographical information about him or her, including any of the following: educational and other credentials, position, institutional affiliation, and street address? If the page is part of a larger institution's Web site, does the institution appear to filter the information that appears at its site? How current is the information? Who is the audience? Is the content accurate and objective? Overview
Web Literacy - Reading a Web Address The goal is to make judgments about website information based upon what the URL tells you. Here are three guiding questions that can help. 1. The domain name is found after the and www. to the first forward slash /. A domain name can sometimes provide clues about the quality of information of a site or tell you what a site is about. 2. .com and .net are examples of extensions. .edu Educational organization (most US universities) .k12 US school site (not all US schools use this) .ac Academic institution (outside of US) .sch School site (some schools outside of the US use this) .com Company (usually .co in the UK) .org Any organization .gov Government agency .net Network .mil Military institution New extensions to look for are .biz, .name, .pro, .info. Extensions can also include country codes, such as .uk, .ca, .za, etc. Some extensions may provide more reliable information than others, but there are no guarantees. 3. A personal page is a website created by an individual.
Ten ways to TakeCharge of the Web When it comes to using the Internet in elementary and intermediate education, critics and proponents agree: it’s a powerful tool that has the potential to inform, teach, and facilitate communication in ways barely imaginable before the 1990s. Because it’s so vast, however, trying to master the online world as a teaching tool may be daunting. But you can teach effectively with online tools once you develop some smart safety and privacy policies and teach your students how to think critically about the sites and apps they use. School-Wide Internet Policies Before you introduce the web as a resource in your classroom, check with your principal or employer about school-wide Internet and app rules. Rules for Underage Students Students will undoubtedly have already encountered the digital world by the time they enter your classroom, but they may not have considered the consequences of their online actions. Do not share any personal information online. Be cautious in online conversation.
How to navigate on a website - HELP ME I AM NEW Hi! Boy, this internet stuff can be really intimidating... Before you can really get into researching your family tree, you will need to understand the internet. The first thing to learn is how to get around within a website. You should see this in a window at the top on your screen on your web browser, locating will vary depending upon your browser. (All URLs start with this) www.rootsweb.com (This is the server name) ~wiwood (This is the first directory where all the website sub-directories and files are stored - the ~ means it will default to the index.html page of the directory and normally indicates the MAIN PAGE of the website. YIKES, another example??? (All URLs start with this) www.rootsweb.com (This is the server name) ~wiwood (This is the first directory) links (This is a sub-directory) wood.html (This is the file or webpage you will be viewing when you go to that URL) Once you are at the main page, NOW WHAT??? NAVIGATION hints for MAK websites:
Becoming a Web Critic - Home Page Becoming a Web Critic Your Task: Become a web critic by using the link index below to answer the questions that follow in your notebook. Answer the Following in your notebook. (Be Sure to write the question for each in your notebook as well.) Section One- Website Author information: 1. a. 1. b. Who is the author of the website? Section Two- Reading a website: 2. a. b. Section Three- Purpose of a website : 3. Section Four- Currency of a website: 4. a. b. Section Five- Website Relevance: 5. a. b. Section Six- Website Objectivity vs. 6. 7. Back to the Handouts Page Back to Life Skills Page Back the LMC Main Page