Searching the web 101

What your students (and you) need to know

SEARCHING THE WEB 101

THE INTERNET…• A global collection of computers that makes the sharing of ideas and information possible

• The source of a great deal of knowledge

• Access to experts, real-time video feeds, and eye-witness accounts

THE INTERNET…• Requires students to analyze, evaluate, and synthesize great quantities of information

• Makes it difficult to control information/content to which our students are exposed

THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER• No longer the sole source of facts/information

• Facilitate the learning process through adequate collection, analysis, evaluation, and synthesis

TEACHING STUDENTS TO EXAMINE RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY OF ONLINE SOURCES IS IMPORTANT

SEARCH ENGINES• Companies (or individuals) purchase key phrases to ensure placement in a search

• Certain search engines are better suited for particular searches

• www.noodletools.com will help choose the best search engine

• Often, a domain name is purchased to garner business or support an idea

• Ex. MartinLutherKing.org is owned and operated by a white supremacist group

TEACH STUDENTS TO EVALUATE THE SEARCH RESULTS• .com—commercial site

• .gov—military site

• .edu—educational site

• .org—anyone with a credit card can purchase a .org domain name

• Special characters in the URL may indicate a deviation from a main page:

• ~, %, “member” all indicate personal opinion/bias may be present

TEACH STUDENTS TO EVALUATE A WEB SITE• What links are there? Links only to web sites by the same author are suspicious.

• Is there advertising present? Decent sites will have paid advertisers.

• What is the author’s purpose?

• Look back at the site’s history (www.archive.org)

ALLOW STUDENTS TO ACCESS AND USE THE WEB!• Access an author’s blog or website

• Access an expert or eye-witness’s blog

• Have students create a class blog to teach course content

• Have students post online discussions with each other of their readings, experiments, learning, ideas