Purpose & Objectives
This session strengthens participant’s skills in using the Internet to find credible information. Since 2004, Power Searching workshops have been presented to over 1,000 Illinois teachers, librarians, technology coordinators and administrators. Participants report that they learn many new search and evaluation techniques and, as a result, are better able to find high-quality information they need for instruction and better equipped to pass these skills along to students.
Digital information fluency is a necessary 21st Century skill for all teachers and learners. A statement issued this year by the American Association of School Librarians underscores the importance of teaching students to “access up-to-date information from around the world, to evaluate its relevance to the questions at hand, to assess its authority and reliability, and to apply it to information problem solving.” (American Library Association, 2006). To fail to do so, the report contends, leaves students at risk, “inadequately prepared for the workplace and adult life.”
This workshop approaches the need by training the trainers, giving them strategies and tactics they can use to enhance their productivity and pass along to those they teach.
As a result of this session, participants will…
1. Become more efficient Internet searchers:
• Knowing when and how to use search engines, subject directories and browsing optimally;
• Building powerful queries with the right keyword and operator strategies;
• Finding the best databases to search for the information they need;
• Searching the Deep Web;
• Analyzing search results for important clues;
• Overcoming common information “dead ends,” such as “page not found” and finding relevant information buried in millions of returns (and raising it to the top).
2. Become more effective digital evaluators:
• Credibility criteria: Authorship, Publication, Date, Accuracy, Links To and From, Bias, Evidence, External Support and Expert Reviews;
• Red flags: domains, unendorsed pages, links.
3. Practice with tools for teaching these skills to students:
• Instructional tools for advanced searching, evaluating digital information and citing it accurately;
• Interactive tutorial games that provide instruction and feedback in search and evaluation techniques
• Self-paced MicroModules on strategies and techniques;
Outline
Introductions, 21st Century Information Fluency, and identifying the need (15 minutes)
Searching Efficiently: (1.5 hours)
• Five minute search: find today’s workshop materials online*
• Analyzing what went right and wrong in the first search (discussion)
• Digital Information Fluency process (presentation)
• Turning questions into effective queries: The Buffalo Search*
• Keyword selection: Keyword Challenge Tutorial*
• Keyword power: Professional vocabulary, synonyms, hyponyms and hypernyms*
• Search Engine Strategies, understanding literal matching (demonstration)
• Keywords, operators and special operators (demonstration)
• Choosing the best database for searching (demonstration)
• Deep Web searching: Broadway Search, Page not Found Search*
• Recognizing relevance: Find command and scanning: Gold Rush Challenges*
• Finding better keywords: Great Wall Challenge*
• Learning cycle: Live Internet Search Challenges and MicroModules*
Evaluating Effectively: (45 minutes)
• Credibility criteria: What do you use? (discussion)
• Digital Information Fluency process and the Revision decision (presentation)
• Analyzing author, publisher, and links To: Truncation, browsing, searching with special operators (demonstration)
• Encountering red Flags: domain, ~ (unendorsed pages)
• Three Live Evaluation Challenges*
MySearch and Questions (30 minutes)
Fifteen minute search on an individually selected topic*
* the asterisk represents an online activity for learners |
