Can 4th graders search?

Under the mistaken belief that I actually know something, people often tend to write asking my advice. Now I love giving advice (solicited or unsolicited) as much as the next guy, but there are lots of areas where any suggestions I can give should be considered extremely suspect. And just having an opinion is not the same as having a something valuable to say.

Here's a good example that came in yesterday's e-mail:

Our district recently purchased NetTrekker to help us in "filtering" inappropriate websites.  Some people believe that upper elementary students (4th - 5th grades) have the capability to search for valid information by surfing.  My experience has been that NetTrekker should be used by the to find specific websites and direct their students to those sites. I have found that most elementary students have a difficult time just reading the information - let alone distinguishing the difference between legitimate and illegitimate information.

What is your opinion regarding this issue? 

And here was my lame reply...

Good question. Since I don't work with elementary students on a daily basis, take my response with a grain of salt.

First, I DO think we should be teaching 4-5th graders to do effective Internet searches. Personally, I hate the word "surf" which implies a recreational, casual approach to finding websites. Can 4-5th graders do effective searches - yes, but only if we take the time to actually teach them strategies for doing this. Should they be "surfing?" No.

Is there a place for using pre-selected sites found with Nettrekker or elsewhere with 4th-5th graders? Absolutely. If the focus is for kids to learn about a particular topic rather than learn to do effective searches, this is probably the best strategy - not dissimilar to creating a webquest (or in the olden days, pulling a cart of books for kids doing research on a particular topic.)

I'll put your question on my blog too and you can see if other people have an opinion.

 OK, educators who work with upper elementary students on a daily basis, how should I have answered this question?

Comments

[Dave]

I believe that we need to teach the kids to search for information within a controlled environment. Our district subscribes to Grolier Online which gives the kids access to age appropriate encyclopedias, atlases, almanacs and current events. When kids are given the opportunity to go straight to Google they often enter a single key word (like "Michigan" which gives them 295,000,000 sites from which to choose). We all know the problems that go along with that. By searching within Grolier, even when the search is too broad, at least we are sure that the reading level will be appropriate and the material relevent.

[Liz Ditz]

Judging by the searches that lead to my blog, very few people know how to search effectively (let alone 4th graders!). I suspect the teachers don't know either.

Dr. Al-Ubaydli wrote a great "searching 101" article for physicians, which could be generalized for all:

http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020228

[Graham Wegner]

Doug,
Your reply was on the money as far as I'm concerned. No child should be just surfing the internet because that term implies just having a leisurely look around. Any child (especially fourth graders) need to be explicitly taught effective search skills, how to determine the quality of information and ethical use of those resources. But, if the teacher can't do it effectively themselves, what chances do the kids have? I would say a if a teacher is going to create a prior prepared list of links (they could get organised via del.icio.us) then surely they have the skills to give their kids a little more and skill them up. I have thoughts about the old proverb about feeding fish and teaching how to fish - you know the one! And just using Grolier reinforces the old notion of trusted encyclopedic resources where you don't have to verify anything while the internet is all about the skills of validating informnation. Now fourth graders skills may be hit'n'miss initailly but you have to start somewhere and their learning will be more relevant to the future distribution of information

[Dennis O'Connor]

For the past few years I've been working on how to teach advanced search skills to library media specialists, teachers, and students. Out our group (the 21st century information fluency project) works skills that go beyond the big 6. As such we focus on middle & high school students.

I was an elementary teacher for a number of years and did teach search skills to kids as young as the third grade. It can be a daunting task. That's why the free curriculum Cybersmart & Cyberbee materials are so useful. I've put together a page of annotated links about information fluency for elementary students at: http://21cif.imsa.edu/resources/links/elementary.html

I hope this helps!

Dennis O'Connor

Online Curriculum Developer
21CIF

[Brightideaguru]

The question is can fourth graders type?

First, I believe all fourth graders should be taught how to type and then followed up with 2-3 writing experiences a week on a keyboard. (This prevents forgetting!)

Secondly, fourth graders can absolutely surf and e-mail for that matter. Not only to I work with fourth and fifth graders on a sporadic basis but I live with one of each.

I taught my kids typing before fourth grade and set up an e-mail. I do have filtering but I gave each a lesson in Google.

The students I bring in are taught basic searches. If Google is too broad, yahooligans is a good place to start. It is helpful to have a directed experience and specific results such as a webquest or research topic.

I hope some other teachers will post what they do. I'm sure we're not the only ones who've discovered that fourth and fifth graders are capable of performing meaningful experiences on the Internet.

[Sara Kelly Johns]

Take a look at the Jan/Feb. _Multimedia Schools_ article that is Ken Haycock's chapter of Joyce Valenza's _Super Searchers_ book. In the article/chapter, Ken talks about the fact that kids of that age CAN do good searches but should not be searching Google since they really can't read the pages it retrieves! It's why he wrote the 2003 book _The Neal-Schuman Authoritative Guide to Kids' Search Engines, Subject Directories, and Portals_ with Barbara Edwards and Michelle Dober. So, yes, teach them searching but with search engines designed for kid searches...They'll "surf" away without good direction if teaching them good searching is ignored.

However, I do believe that every good research assignment should have a pathfinder with suggested sites to start off the project. The pathfinder sites and sources can be supplemented with good searches after kids are taught search strategies and web evaluation skills. And teachers need to accept "good enough" sites...

[Sara Kelly Johns]

....and teachers need to NOT accept "good enough" sites....

Guess I'd better use that "preview post" button more often. Sorry about that--Sara

[Janice Friesen]

There are some basic literacy skills that I think are really important to begin teaching to 4th and 5th graders.

* Choosing keywords
* breaking down a URL
* beginning evaluation of web sites for accuracy and appropriateness
* Scanning and skimming to find information online
* Knowing what NOT to look at and waste time on

The thing about searching is that it is very time-consuming. Time is something that is not easily found in classrooms. So, I think that searching should be strategically taught. A teacher should never have an assignment where they say to 4th graders "go search Google or Ask Jeeves to find information about the [Indian Tribe, State, Famous person, etc...] that you will be writing about."

Janice