Getting students beyond Google

From the e-mail inbox this past weekend:

I was recently re-reading your article on Managing Digital Resources from September 2007.  We are in the process of a GALE trial with World History in Context and US History in Context.  I am trying to come up with an evaluation rubric and online questionnaire for students and staff who are currently using these resources.  While I have some general ideas of what I want to get in the way of feedback, I am not finding any answers on how to come back to those students who basically say “I don’t want to the district to tell me what to use for my research, I just want to Google it”.  

...can you point me to anything that I can provide to teachers and library techs in response to those students who just want to Google?  Part of the problem too, is that teachers are not teaching website evaluation skills, and think (or just assume) that students know what they’re doing....(egads...and these are the kids who are going to vote and make health care decisions for me???) - Sharon

Sound like a familiar problem? (I could never convince my own son that he needed to go beyond Google when doing research.) According to a recent study (shared by Stephen Abram) Learning the Ropes: How Freshmen Conduct Course Reseach Once They Enter College by Alison J. Head:

4) Most freshmen said their research competencies from high school were inadequate for college work. As they wrapped up their first term, freshmen said they realized they needed to upgrade their research toolkit.

5) Many freshmen were in the process of trading out Google searches that satisfied high school assignments for searching online library databases that their college research papers now required. Yet other students said they still relied on their deeply ingrained habit of using Google searches and Wikipedia, a practice that had been acceptable for research papers in high school.

So, Sharon, it's common and important that teachers and librarians figure out how to get our students (and peers?) choosing vetted, reliable sites instead of the first thing that pops up in Google or Wikipedia. If they are to be, what's the buzz phrase?, "college and career ready."

Part of the solution may be simply making sure students and teachers KNOW about our online resources through effective promotional activities. I suggested some strategies in an LMC column last fall (10 Ways to Promote Online Resouces, August/September 2013). Online resources do not jump out at students and staff and scream “use me” any more than our library books jumped off the shelves. Digital resources also need to be promoted and displayed.

Again, this is just part of the solution. This is a problem not just for librarians, but for all teachers, staff development specialists, and curriculum developers.

But librarians, can and should, lead the charge

Other strategies, readers? 

 

Comments

[Tom Donovan]

I think the burden is on us, as educators, to improve the questions we're asking students to research. If a student *can* complete an assignment by googling, then I think it's wrong to impose an artificial restriction against using Google. And just because a source is found by googling doesn't mean the source isn't legit. (The same can be said of Wikipedia, btw.)

If the student is asked to write an argument, evaluate, or otherwise demonstrate original thinking, then the information he or she uses as a foundation should be judged on its merits, and the source of any piece of info is a part of that judgement.

[carlos tawer]

Well, I do not consider technology as an enemy of traditional education, because that way we confuse the "path" to the "Searches result"

In traditional education and technology are only modes of learning.
I work as a web developer projects and I surveyed users who visit my projects (Hispanic audience) about the appropriateness of traditional education vs education through technology. The result is that 90% of users opt for the combination of both methods.

Sorry for my Inglés. I only speak Spanish

[Kenn Gorman]

1. I don't believe we should put ANY blame on teachers, unless they are technology teachers only.
2. Most technology classes that I have taught and that I have seen are for either the 6th graders (in middle school) or the freshman (in high school).
3. It's not just whether we expect the 6th or 9th graders to remember everything without review or repetition, but think about all the changes that occur in technology in three years (6th - 8th) and then again in four years (9th - 12th)?
4. My experience with most high school seniors is that they planned their junior year to make sure that they would have a light schedule as seniors (with many knowing that they would have only four or five classes, be able to arrive early or leave early, and possibly have one or two electives). What would be so wrong with a "How to Survive College Technology" course as a senior?

[Doug Johnson]

Kenn,

I'd be happy to see more "how to survive life" courses in HS. See my math curriculum here:

http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2011/2/8/if-they-let-me-design-the-math-curriculum.html

Doug