Today’s students have almost
endless options when they are learning. Information is only helpful though when
students know what they are looking for and how to find it. Authors Frey, Fisher, and Gonzales speak to the fact that teachers need to show
students not only what information is available, but how to evaluate it (p. 33,
2010).
For me evaluating it
goes beyond credibility, especially when young students are involved. They need
to know what to look for. If for example a student is looking for types of food
an animal eats, they might be bombarded with information that is irrelevant
making their work harder. I love the idea of a customizable search engine for
this dilemma. Students will spend less time searching, and more time finding
the information they need. That will only go so far though.
I would like to try
teach my class how to use the Boolean operator as a strategy. I would probably
model this first with the class on the projector. Limiting the operators to
just one or two when introducing the topic is something else I would try. Giving them a way to practice using the
strategy before giving them an assignment is the final step I would use.
Admittedly, I am a little nervous about trying such a lesson, but I think that if
the class is given a chance to use such techniques it would benefit them
greatly in future research.
References:
Frey, Nancy, Douglas Fisher, and Alex
Gonzalez. Literacy 2.0. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press, 2010. Print.
Elfie,
ReplyDeleteI do agree that it is really hard for students to narrow down all the information they get. It can get very overwhelming for them. A custom search could be extremely helpful for students to have their search results narrowed down. Plus, it’ll make sure that they actually find information that is relevant to the topic they are researching.
The Boolean search operator was a question we put on our end of course assessment. Students had no idea what that was. It can really help filter their search results. Does anyone know if you can still use the Boolean operator with Google? I played around with it for a minute, typed in mustang-car, and only got the mustang car. I’ve heard they do not utilize it anymore.
Here are a list of the search operators that work on Google:
Deletehttps://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433?hl=en&ref_topic=3081620&vid=1-635775327988396963-918280470
The space makes a difference. For example, here are my search results for "mustang -cars":
https://www.google.com/search?q=mustang+-car&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#safe=off&q=mustang+-cars
The images and ads are for Mustang cars, but the search results are for mustang the horse.
Using the advanced search form allows students to easily build an effective search.
Hope this helps.
Dr. Dell
Thank you both for the useful information. I hadn't tried in Chrome without the advanced search option. With our school heavily invested in Chromebooks and Chromeboxes it is good to know there are specific ways to search using Boolean operators. I will definitely have to play around with it before using the requirement in an assignment.
DeleteI second the thank you to you both! I'm definitely going to have to teach this to my students to help them narrow their searches. I know last year my students would sometimes get frustrated because they couldn't find information related to their topics or because it was taking longer than they anticipated. I would remind them of how I used to look up information with only books. Then they usually would settle down a little. I'm going to try this in a couple of weeks for my next unit. Thanks again you two!
DeleteElfie,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that it is important that our students are able to learn how to search for topics. I also understand the frustration of students having to broad a topic. Helping our students understand how to narrow down the information and what to search is difficult, even at the high school level. Students will have too broad a topic and they will feel overwhelmed when they do a google search.
I like the way of creating assignments where the students are getting more feed back and they are able to place the information gradually through mind mapping and other organizational tools. The way of assigning items in smaller portions helps the students see that they are on the right track as well as making sure the reader is understanding what they are reading. I love the peer evaluating process. It helps students collaborate with one another and it also helps students see how well others are grasping their concepts, their positions on a topic and what they are writing about in general. Peer assessment and teacher assessment allows the student to see what they need to keep and what they really don't need.
Thanks for sharing
Elfie,
ReplyDeleteI agree that teaching a lesson on Boolean operators seems nerve wracking. I wrote my blog post about Boolean operators this week. While I feel like they are important tools to teach students, I think I need to become more comfortable using them before I ask my students to use them. Since reading the text, I have tried to be more conscious of how I search for different topics online. Hopefully I will be more comfortable with Boolean operators by the time by students are researching online in the next few weeks.
Thanks for sharing!