[MACEP] searching with Google--appropriately

Mon Feb 12 09:12:43 PST 2007

Wow! This thread along with the posts about Google apps seem to be
generating the types of discussions we should be having at a state
level! A number of things come to mind for me.

First, Mary, can we share your activity with teachers who may benefit?
Does anyone else have activities they can share? I've got
many...probably enough that I shouldn't post them to the list. If anyone
wants them, let me know and I'll put them in Google Docs and you can
retrieve them;) 

I've included a snippet from the class I developed for students at OSU.
Unfortunately, the Overture bids tool isn't working right this minute so
you can't do the activity. It might be up later (it's very moody) if you
are persistent. This document is a collection of information from my
brain after years of learning with kids and listening to speakers like
Jamie McKenzie and Alan November.

In my experience, there is no "accidentally" hitting inappropriate
websites. They WILL come up during searching. The questions are: do your
kids know enough about using the internet to avoid clicking the sites
that don't apply to their subject? If they aren't getting useful
information from the internet, do they know where else to look? Do they
know how to change their search to get different results? 

If your students do hit sites deemed educationally inappropriate it's
either your fault for expecting them to know too much or their fault for
not following the implicit set of guidelines for using the internet that
I'm sure you have implemented in your schools. I'm also sure you've let
students know when it makes more sense to use a resource other than the
internet for finding information. You're practicing this with them all
the time...I'm sure.

We proved, just the other day, that using books over the internet for
research is sometimes just better. An 8th grade teacher had challenged
his students to find out if the historical "facts" in what appeared to
be an urban legend were true or not...a pretty cool activity. I'd seen
the fact list over email. It traces the lives of Abraham Lincoln and JFK
and points out strange parallels. Maybe you've seen it too?

Anyhoo, he put students on the internet and they diligently searched
with total disregard for whether or not the information they found was
from a reliable source (okay, that's why I was there, we're working on
that). They spent their class period looking for the facts and printed
countless trees-worth of paper - "Oh, it printed three, I'm sure I only
clicked once! That's weird." No one was ready to confirm the truth about
these statements by the end of the period.

In the next session, we had a group of fifth graders. After the first
ones finished their activity, I challenged them to find the same facts
but we searched in the biography section...of the library. The kids
pulled two biographies of Lincoln and two of JFK. They started to read
the books from the front page. I taught them to use the index.
Immediately, one of the kids pointed out that there was a timeline in
her book near the index. Behold! ALL the books had timelines. We had
answers to whether or not 50% of the statements were true within about 5
minutes because they had years attached to them. The rest of the answers
we had within another 10 minutes using the index in each book.

It has also occurred to me that we always tell kids what they can't do
on the internet. How often do we give them good suggestions about what
they can do on the 'net? IMing (prior to widespread filtering) was some
of the best, free typing practice my students got. We had little task
cards that they got when they came to the lab. They said things like "IM
a friend whose name begins with H and tell them what you plan to do
after school. Ask them what they are doing after school." After
switching with friends and fulfilling three different task cards, kids
could IM with whomever they wished within the class. Guidelines were
clear. We got to talk about guidelines for what you put on the internet,
social aggression, conventions, semantics, conversations w/o body and
facial expressions, etc. 

At a time when media specialists are few and far between and we are
expecting educational assistants and classroom teachers to pick up the
slack without giving them adequate training in media skills, it's
unrealistic to expect that kids use any of the abundant resources with
awareness or even logic. We need to work on this, but first, we need to
admit that it's an issue. Lynn's question, Paul's guidelines and Mary's
activity are steps in the right direction. What else are we going to do?

--Corin

Corin Richards
Educational Technologist
Willamette ESD
Salem, Oregon

-----Original Message-----
From: macep-bounces at macep.net [mailto:macep-bounces at macep.net] On Behalf
Of Lynn Lary
Sent: Wednesday, February 07, 2007 1:45 PM
To: macep at macep.net
Subject: [MACEP] searching with Google--appropriately

Hi,

I had a conversation today with a person who told me that their 
school is not allowing students to use Google because inappropriate 
search results were coming up. The example that she had given was, 
"bunnies" and sure enough nothing really related to rabbits came up 
when I searched for this word.

My suggestion was that rather than block Google, perhaps the staff 
should teach the students how to search effectively. Having students 
enter a single word into a search engine and having both the teacher 
and student think that this is a good search is a not a good thing. 
When I suggested that perhaps they do a more meaningful search such 
as bunny habitat, the results were vastly different than the initial 
search.

My experience is that adults think that students know how (without 
ever being taught) to search effectively. This just doesn't seem to 
be the case...How can we get folks to understand that that it isn't 
the tool, but the user, that is the problem?

Do any of you have a search curriculum that you are using at elem, 
ms, and hs levels that you think is effective?

Thanks in advance.

Lynn

>HI All,
>
>I am interested in learning what/how other districts are using 
>Google domains and web pages, along with the many other features of 
>Google. With the exception of the Goolge search, I don't see much of 
>a downside to using the many other features of Google, and in fact 
>can think of many advantages to using these in instruction (Google 
>notebook, docs and spreadsheets, Page Creator, domains, etc.)
>
>Maybe I am naive...
>
>I would like to get a wider perspective from all of you about the 
>advantages and disadvantages, and ways to effectively use these 
>tools districtwide.
>
>Thanks in advance for any info you can give!
>
>Tricia George
>--
>Tricia George
>TOSA Instructional Technology
>georgep at nclack.k12.or.us
>503.353.6117
>
>_______
>
>"The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity." 
>~~ Dorothy Parker (1893 - 1967)
>_______________________________________________
>MACEP mailing list MACEP at macep.net
>Archive: http://macep.net/pipermail/macep/
>http://macep.net/mailman/listinfo/macep

-- 
Have a good day,

Lynn

Lynn M. Lary, Instructional Technology Specialist
Lane ESD
1200 Hwy 99N
Eugene, OR 97402
(541) 461-8216; FAX (541) 461-8335
http://www.lane.k12.or.us/insttech/

"Helping schools make effective use of current and future 
technologies as tools for improving student learning."
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