The SweetSearch

Web Research Tutorial

By Mark E. Moran, Dulcinea Media

EdLabTeachers College

Columbia UniversityJanuary 4, 2012

Mark E. Moran Twitter: @findingDulcinea

• Corporate Attorney• Pioneering Internet Executive• Parent of three in grades 6, 9, 12• District Curriculum Committee• 15 education conferences per year

Our mission: to help educators teach students how to use the Web effectively.

findingDulcinea

SweetSearch

Educator Reviews

Educator Reviews

Educator Reviews

Educator Reviews

Are “digital natives” experts at effectively finding information on the web, evaluating it and putting it to use?

“Digital natives are extraordinarily

sophisticated and strangely narrow.”

Elementary Students Intractable

After a year-long information literacy program, most 5th grade students continued to rely entirely on Google and “never questioned the reliability of the websites they accessed.” 1

-- Vrije University Netherlands (2008)

Even when high school students found a good source...

... they did not recognize it and instead launched a new search.

“Students’ high level of browsing… at the expense of thinking about information need, planning for strategies and evaluating obtained information.” 2

-- Shu Hsien L. Chen (2003)

In 2010 Dulcinea Media surveyed 300 middle school and high school students in New York. 3

Conclusions….

A majority of students:

don’t know how to form a sound search query;

don’t have a strategy for dealing with poor results;

can’t articulate how they know content is credible;

don’t check the author or date of an article.

“[S]tudents’ level of faith in their search engine of choice is so high that they do not feel the need to verify for themselves who authored the pages they view or what their qualifications might be.” 4

-- Eszter Hargittai, et alNorthwestern University

Int’l J. of Communications 4 (2010)

College Students in 2010?

Not one of the 600 college students surveyed “could give an adequate conceptual definition of how Google returns results….the word ‘magic’ came up a lot.” 5 --ERIAL study (Illinois 2010)

Students’ Primary “Strategy”

... wildly firing randomterms into a search box, and hoping they’ll get lucky.

Why Teach Web Research?

“[T]he millions spent to wire schools and universities is of little use unless students know how to retrieve useful information from the oceans of sludge on the Web.” 6

-- Geoffrey Nunberg, Professor UC Berkeley School of Information

An Informed Internet Citizenry

“[I]nitiatives that help educate people in this domain – whether in formal or informal settings – could play an important role in achieving an informed Internet citizenry.” 4

---Eszter Hargittai, et al

Improving Internet skills starts with educators

Emerging research indicates that many teachers do not have the necessary skills to navigate the Internet.

-- Barbara Combes, Professor, Edith Cowan University, Australia

“Students need to see educators modeling an effective research process and learn from it.”

- Colette Cassinelli librarian/ technology teacher Portland, OR

“Participation Gap”

Students with support are finding ways to thrive in complex digital information environment. 7

A “New Divide”

Students with access to librarians teaching Web research skills “take prize of better grades” in college.8

Those without access to web research training show up at college “beyond hope”….with an “ingrained coping behaviour”… “they have learned to ‘get by’ with Google.”8

-- University College London

There is No Quick Fix

Effective web research skills cannot be learned in a week, a semester, or a year.

Not Integrated into Curriculum

Research skills often are taught only by librarians are not always reinforced by classroom teachers.

“[L]leaving information literacy to librarians alone suggests a failure to understand the scope of the problem.” 6

-- Geoffrey Nunberg

Web research skills must be taught throughout primary school years to break the “culture of use” currently seen in this generation of users.

-- Barbara Combes

Existing Tutorials are Lacking

Big6 model:

created in 1987 for offline research;

retrofitted to incorporate the Internet;

student version not written for the way students learn today.

A New Approach?

Educators must teach broad concepts and strategies, not how to use specific tools.

-- Authors of ERIAL study

A New Approach?

“We have shown the importance of looking at the whole process of information seeking and content evaluation from the first decision about which search engine or Web site to consult initially to the final stage of settling on a page with the sought-after content.” 4

---Eszter Hargittai, et alNorthwestern University

Int’l J. of Communications 4 (2010)

"Unless we can demonstrate some measurable payoff to searching, students aren’t going to do it.” 5

- Lisa Rose-Wiles, Librarian Seton Hall University

What the Web Needs Now…

A research tutorial that:

is created for the Web; brings teachers along; examines the whole process of information

seeking and content evaluation; offers a practical “payoff” approach; and engages today’s students.

SweetSearch Web Research Tutorial

An e-book with 16 Chapters that include:

instructions summaries videos links quizzes posters

Foundation of the Tutorial

Studies of students’ Web research skills.

Studies of habits of skilled Web researchers. 9

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: How a Skilled Researcher Behaves

Chapter 2:  How the Internet Works

Chapter 3: How Search Engines Work

Copyright Dulcinea Media, Inc. 2011-12

Table of Contents

Understanding Your Tools

Getting Started

Chapter 4: Planning and Adjusting Your Research

Chapter 5: Using All of Your Resources

Copyright Dulcinea Media, Inc. 2011-12

Table of Contents

Searching, Searching, Searching

Chapter 6: Using Special Search Functions

Chapter 7: Digging Deep in Search Results

Chapter 8: Keeping Track of Your Sources

Copyright Dulcinea Media, Inc. 2011-12

Table of Contents

Know the Source of Your Source

Chapter 9: Finding and Using Primary Sources

Chapter 10: Are You Looking at a Counterfeit?

Copyright Dulcinea Media, Inc. 2011-12

Table of Contents

Evaluating Your Sources

Chapter 11: Who Wrote This?

Chapter 12: Why Did the Author Write This?

Chapter 13: When Was This Written?

Chapter 14: Thinking Critically

Copyright Dulcinea Media, Inc. 2011-12

Table of Contents

Synthesizing Your Sources

Chapter 15:  Turning Many into One

Chapter 16: Avoid Plagiarism; Paraphrase & Quote Correctly

Copyright Dulcinea Media, Inc. 2011-12

Prototype of Chapter 4

http://litteacher.com/sweetsearch/chapter-4/

Quiz Questions for Chapter 4

How can students gain an increased understanding of an assignment before they begin researching?

Why is it important for students to write down questions about their research topic?

What are some good methods for identifying search terms?

Why is it important to adjust your search terms after you begin searching?

Activities for Chapter 4

Take a recent homework assignment and rewrite the homework assignment in your own words.

Write out questions that you have about your assignment topic and from these questions, choose the most important words from these questions.

With these words come up with keyword search terms in combinations of two or three.

Give two examples of keyword bias using the terms above.

Prototypes of Chapter 11

http://litteacher.com/sweetsearch/chapter-11/

Quiz Questions for Chapter 11

What are some of the reasons that the top results in a search engine may not be the most authoritative results?

How can you learn about an author or publisher?

Why can’t you necessarily trust the content on a website that ends in .Edu?

Why is Wikipedia not a source on which you can entirely rely?

Activities for Chapter 11

Choose three websites and write down the name of its publisher and management team.

Research the publisher and management team online and write down what you find.

Enter a search term in Google and using just the first page, write down the name of the publisher and or management team for each site. Evaluate if the publishers are experts in the search term you entered.

Works Cited:

1. Els Kuiper, Monique Volman and Jan Terwel. “Students' use of Web literacy skills and strategies: searching, reading and evaluating Web information.” Information Research: Vol. 13, No.3, (September, 2008.http://www.informationr.net/ir/13-3/paper351.html

2. Shu-Hsien L. Chen. “Searching the Online Catalog and the World Wide Web.” Journal of Educational Media & Library Sciences, 41 1 (September 2003) 29-43

3. Mark E. Moran and Shannon Firth, “A Study of Students Online Behavior,” March 2010.

http://blog.findingdulcinea.com/2011/06/a-study-of-students-online-research-behavior.html

4. Eszter Hargittai, Lindsay Fullerton, Ericka Menchen-Trevino and Kristin Yates Thomas, Northwestern University, “Trust Online: Young Adults’ Evaluation of Web Content° International Journal of Communication 4 (2010), 468–494 1932–8036/20100468

http://ijoc.org/ojs/index.php/ijoc/article/view/636

5. Steve Kolowich, Searching for Better Research Habits, Inside Higher Ed, September 29, 2010

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/09/29/search

(cont’d)

Works Cited:

6. Geoffrey Nunberg, “Teaching Students to Swim in the Online Sea,” The New Yrok Times, February 13, 2005. http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~nunberg/infolit.html

7. Project Information Literacy Smart Talk, no. 3, John Palfrey, "Rethinking Plagiarism in the Digital Age?" September 1, 2010. http://projectinfolit.org/st/palfrey.asp

8. UCL. “Information behavior of the researcher of the future”: 11 January 2008. http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/reppres/gg_final_keynote_11012008.pdf

9. Media Post: Google Research Focuses on Search Failures, September 21, 2010 http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=136114&nid=118854