Education 2.0 & 3.0

Twelve years ago I had student come up to me in the library and declare, “Mr. Byrne, Google has nothing on this!” Her topic was the Civil War. It was then that I realized my students needed a bit more guidance on how to conduct online research. In the years since that incident in the library I have spent a lot of time developing search lessons for students to help them become better at search. All of the lessons that I’ve created incorporate at least one of the following ten tips.

The key to unlocking the educational potential of the virtual world is through knowing how to effectively search it with the minimum time and efforts possible. Effective search in this sense refers to the ability to locate targeted information online using ‘informed search queries’. It does take time and practice to develop such an ability but it is worth every single second you spend learning it.

In our new remote teaching and learning environments students may find themselves having to look things up online more than ever before. Even if you're hosting online class meetings in Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams there will still be lots of time when students need to do some research on their own. This is a good time to remind students about some basic search strategies like creating a search checklist and consulting vocabulary lists as part of the search process. Once they've done those basics it might be time for them to try some other search tools that often get overlooked.

Students often think that because they can type a phrase into Google or saying something aloud to Siri they know how to search. Of course, any teacher who has heard a student say "Google has nothing on this" or "there's no information about my topic" knows that students don't inherently know how to search despite growing up in a world filled with Google and Siri. When your students need help formulating or refining a search, have them review the following ten tip. Better yet, have them review these tips before starting their next searches.