[This is kind of a long post, so even if you don't get to the bottom, I'd like to feature this fantastic page by Debbie Abilock: Choose the Best Search for your Information Needs.It's a guide to all kinds of search engines organized by type of information. Well worth a bookmark.]
It's been a while since the last installment of my Web 2.0: How Teens Use Technology series (every time I say "Web 2.0," Tim O'Reilly lets another angel into the great /home in the sky and I get the warm fuzzy feeling that comes from having my own article series), but I had a great conversation last week with my old school librarian/internet search education guru/Noodletools founder/jetsetting educational consultant Debbie Abilock that touched on the issue of search education, and it has me itching to say more.
In the technology world, people use search all the time. My Personal Search History on Google shows that I do an average of about 800 searches a month, or more than 26 a day. This doesn't include the numerous searches I do on CPAN, news sites, subscription database services like Nexis and JSTOR, my own personal clippings archive, source trees on my local disk, etc... I don't memorize information anymore, I search for it. Need to know the capital of Kazakhstan? Just search for 'capital Kazakhstan' and you'll know that it's Astana in half a second or so. Actually, I really just searched for 'capital khazchstan' -- since Google will spell check automatically, I didn't bother to figure out the spelling. I don't memorize information anymore, I just remember the search query I need to find it. Search is my second memory, my spell checker, my calculator, my friend, mentor, and advisor.
None of the above should be at all shocking to the technically inclined readers of this blog. Likely, you scoff at my lowly 800 searches a month average and wonder how you could survive with less than 1,200. But walk into a school and observe how most students use search, and you'll find search skills sorely lacking. Few know that Google and most other popular search engines allow users to search for phrases by wrapping them in quotes. Fewer still know when and how to effectively use this technique to find information quickly. Choosing effective search keywords, a skill that is vitually automatic to most of you, is an area that many teens haven't had much experience.
Yet search is one of the most valuable resources available to education. True lifelong learners view search as an essential tool; with a few simple queries, or a lot of complex ones, a learner can find out practically anything they want to know on nearly every subject. Schools that set out to create lifelong learners (and really, this should be all schools) should Search engines are powerful tools, and just like the Dewey Decimal System or the [electronic] card catalog, it is up to school libraries to teach students how to properly use them.
All this is to say that I'm excited to see that my school has decided to hire a Director of Research to teach information literacy skills. This is a great step for my school, but I think there's a broader issue here. What can search firms do to provide better search education and to make search tools easier to use? Why doesn't Google have a team putting out information literacy lesson plans for kids?
tags: web 2.0/web2.0, teens, search, google, education,library
Posted by zach at February 3, 2006 10:23 AM