Inquiry Project 1: Finding and Using Information on the Internet Anne Cutsinger

What Do Kids Know About Searching for Information on the Internet? Goal: to observe how students search for resources on the Internet. Focus Group: 7 th grade public school students.

Focus Questions How does a student decide which resources to use when researching a topic? What sites do they think are valuable? What do they know about how to choose an Internet resource? How can teachers / instructors help students learn to evaluate resources on the web?

Predictions Students will want to use resources that: 1. have interesting looking graphics 2. seem easy to read 3. provide a fair amount of information Students will want to type into the search window: 1. the smallest amount of information 2. an entire question

Rationale for Predictions Seventh grade students like events to happen fast. Students will be excited about resources that have pictures because pictures help students to quickly understand more about a subject. They will pick resources that have larger print because they want to be able to accomplish their information gathering as easily as possible.

What will they search for? Students will look for information about Global Warming. In order to personalize it and add relevance to the subject, they will specifically gather 20 ways that they themselves or their families can work to STOP Global Warming.

The Plan Students will be provided a work sheet that outlines their task and gives them room for reflection. Students will use 3 specific search engines that are kid friendly and will facilitate a safe search. The search will also be conducted whole group for modeling purposes.

Three Search Engines It is not recommended for students at the middle school level to “free” search. I chose these search engines because they are created for kids and are science or academics centered. The next few slides show the home page of the search engines and observations of what the students did at each.

100topkid.com

What happened? Students wanted to type in Global Warming. The first hit said “5 step plan”. They wrote those down and wanted to move on. I had to encourage them to look around the site more thoroughly. The next hit down looked very interesting to them, good pictures, categories, etc. but didn't look promising for the focus question so they knew to move on.

Next? Looking around the websites and reading about the causes and definition of global warming was interesting to them, but they knew they needed to focus on the action items. They found a site that was a data driven collection that didn't have a lot of suggestions for the focus question but was interesting to them and easy to understand.

They decided to refine their search.

Awesome Library.org By the time they were at the third site they knew what they were looking for. Searching helped them focus on the question. They skipped the first few hits and went down to one that said “prevention efforts”.

What did we notice? Kids became better at searching as they conducted their search. Kids learned how to look all around the page and “scan” for key words that were in their focus of study. Kids come up with more questions and new interests as they study a topic.

Are Special Engines Necessary? As this project got underway, I wondered if it was really necessary to have the students use the kid cleared search engines or if they could be “safe” with just a straight up Google search? I tested Google by typing in a refined, specific search and added “for kids” at the end of it. We hit many of the same websites and a few more that were very kid friendly.

Conclusion: What do kids need? 1. Modeling of search strategies whole group are a great benefit. 2. Very specific key words in the search field work the best to narrow the subject as much as possible. 3. Clearly defined expectations for what subject matter is being sought (specific focus questions). 4. Reminders to pay attention to authors or source of information.