Lesson: Safe and Effective Web-Searching



Lesson: Safe and Effective Web-SearchingLaurie WarnerColorado State University-GlobalSocial, Ethical, and Legal Issues in 21st Century LearningOTL 504-1Dr. Denise GeierJuly 25, 2014Lesson: Safe and Effective Web-SearchingStudents are often called upon to research various subjects and have many resources available to them. However, students do not know how to evaluate the sources they use and often need help in finding credible sources. For this reason, I chose to teach a lesson on conducting an effective search and evaluating sources. This lesson was taught to a small group of four nine- and ten-year-olds over the summer.The lesson began with getting to know the students and learning what they already know about doing research on the Internet. All four kids had conducted research on the Internet and had also previously learned about how to conduct searches. Google was the search tool they had all used in the past. When asked how they would search for information on the habitat of a jaguar, only one said he would type in “jaguar habitat”. The other three said they would type “jaguar”. At this point it was time for the first activity in the mini lesson.Students were asked to get on their laptops and search for information on the jaguar habitat in the way that they normally would. Three did indeed search for “jaguar”. They were quite puzzled when they got search results about luxury cars and even the Jacksonville Jaguars football team. These students asked why they didn’t get information about the animal but the one child who typed “jaguar habitat” got a wealth of information about the animal. I asked them why they thought that happened. The student who added “habitat” to his search said he learned from a previous teacher that he needed to type in more information to find what he wanted faster. The other students said most of their searches were through sites that past teachers gave them that were specific to the topics they were learning at the time.Addressing the difference in the prior learning of the students was important because I wanted to validate the prior learning of both the students who had been provided particular sites and the student who had learned to search for his own sites. I explained to the students that when we know of particular sites that have information we are looking for that they are a great place to start. However, sometimes it is only a starting place and that we might find more detailed information by conducting a Google search. The quick review of conducting a search went very well and the students were very accepting of the idea of starting with sites that are known and expanding to a greater search. Students spent a few minutes searching diet and speed of jaguars. When a student said he kept trying to find “jaguar speed” and kept getting information about the cars, it was a perfect opportunity to teach more about effective searches.I asked the students to try typing in “jaguars and speed” to see what they could find. The students quickly discovered that they did get information about the speed of jaguars, but most of it was about cars, not cats. The next task was to think about how we could make the search words more specific to get better results. Once again the student who had more experience with doing his own searches said they should try “jaguar cats and speed”. All of the kids were excited and expressed an understanding that the more specific they were, the more accurate the search results.Now that the children had the idea about conducting searches with more effective word choices, it was time to talk about credibility of sources. All four students said Wikipedia was a good source and you can find almost anything there. I asked all of the students to search for jaguars again and to click on the link for Wikipedia. The page happens to be protected, but I asked the children to look at the top of the page and it says, “Why is the page protected?” The students immediately notice that most Wikipedia pages can be edited by anyone. One boy said, “You mean if it wasn’t protected I could say jaguars run a thousand miles an hour?” I told him yes, many of the pages on Wikipedia can be edited by anyone and people can write whatever they want, whether it’s true or not.Now my students were ready to learn more about finding out if they could trust what they were looking at. The students spent a few minutes looking at sites to see what they could see that might tell them they could believe what they were reading. One student said, “I think these sites that have .org look like scientists or researchers are writing the articles. And .gov means the government put the information on so it should be right.” Another teaching moment. Yes, these are two sources that would be credible because these are people who are knowledgeable or have hired knowledgeable people. We looked at a few other sites and discovered that the people who seemed to know what they were talking about had either conducted research personally or had spoken to someone who had conducted research. Some people had backgrounds that showed they did a lot of studying on the subject. Finally we had a working background for these students to move forward with research. The students had a better understanding of being more specific in word choice for searches and an idea of how to determine credible sources. The students were ready to do more effective searching. The lesson came to an end with children excited about what they had learned and ready to move on. In the future, when using technology, I will spend a little time getting to know my students and the background knowledge they already have. Once I know where my students stand, I will know how to proceed. I will build off of student knowledge, adding to what they already know. When the students mentioned their teachers had them search using specific sites, I realized I needed to enforce what past teachers had taught but also teach students how to begin a search on their own. I will always encourage students to look for ways to expand their knowledge and to expand searches. Just-in-time lessons are meant to be quick and to address a present need. If new needs arise, those can then be addressed. I will use just-in-time teaching in technology to find out what my students know. Students will be in various stages of learning technology, just as they are in other academic areas. Therefore, just-in-time learning can be used for individuals as well as a group. When I find that there are students who already know the mini lessons I am teaching the class, I can discover new ways to challenge those students to learn more. For example, the student who knew how to do effective searches might be put to work trying to evaluate sources on his own while waiting for other students to discover effective searching methods.Teaching technology is essential to today’s students because they will be faced with technology throughout their lives. Many of the standards we must teach are students are amenable to technology. In addition to using the Internet for research, students can’t create presentations in PowerPoint, create videos, or use SmartBoard interactive lessons, among many other things. Students can create using these tools and meet many of the standards in core curriculum. As ebooks and ejournals are becoming the norm, students are starting to read on Kindles, Nooks, computers, tablets, and even their cell phones. Technology opens many opportunities for learning and meeting the standards we are tasked to help our students meet.I like to use the SmartBoard whenever I can, so I will continue searching for lessons and interactive tools for the SmartBoard. I know how the SmartBoard works and how to use it, but I have never learned to create lessons. One of my goals is to find training for creating these lessons so that I can create lessons in all subjects. Children love technology, so we should embrace their interest and feed their hunger for knowledge in this area. By doing this, we can also increase their knowledge and meet state and federal standards in education. ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download