Harris discusses how we live in an era of “information saturation” and that “the proliferation of low-quality content is the latest, possibly greatest threat to student researchers” (2011, p.31). This has implications for teachers and teacher librarians (TLs) when guiding students through the research process. Lederman (2016 ) discusses the importance of educating students about the three layers of the web and teaching them how to access the second layer, the deep web, which includes databases and subscriptions to online encyclopedias and reliable research information. I have seen many versions of this image below and like using it with staff and students.

Lederman (2016)

My practice has focussed on directing students to the deep web, with our school subscriptions, and I blogged about this in Physical and digital formats for reference material. I work with staff to try and embed the use of our online encyclopaedias Britannica and Pebble Go and we are currently trialling BrainPop.

Despite this direction, most students (and teachers!) will continue to default to Google when searching and therefore it is very important to teach them how to use google well. This includes teaching them how to use tools to modify the date content was published and to use advanced settings. They need to be taught how to use keywords, how to do advanced searches, how to skim and scan and how to identify bias. This will ensure they are not just using the web superficially. Many will also continue to use Wikipedia as a reference source. I wrote about my shift in thinking regarding this in To Wiki or to not Wiki?

It is also important to introduce staff and students to a web evaluation tool such as the ones I included in the blog, Reading V’s Understanding.  Through this subject I also learnt that there is no such thing as the wrong search engine, it just may be that one search engine is better for a particular search.

In ETL501 I have found some interesting tools that I wanted to share here as a record of places to come back to.

Goog A Who  is useful to compare results from two different search engines.

Duck Duck Go is a safer search engine without advertising.

Sweet Search is a search engine for students created by librarians.

Finding Dulcinea is a search which only searches and finds high quality and trustworthy websites.

And that is just the very tip of the iceberg!

References

Harris, F.J. (2011). The school librarian as information specialist: A vibrant species. Knowledge Quest, 39(5), 28-32. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.csu.edu.au/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lih&AN=61819926&site=ehost-live

Lederman, A. (2016). Google just gets to the tip of the iceberg: How to get to the gems in the deep web. Refer, 32(2), 16-20. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/docview/1803449019?accountid=10344