I sent out an email to the teacher who sent her kids down stating "Let's touch base before kids are sent to the lab in search of information. I would really like to know when kids are coming to the lab unsupervised. The past several times kids have come down, they've wasted a ton of time because they don't know that they're looking for and they are using Google, which shouldn't be the first website of choice. When searching for pictures using Google, they are coming across many pictures that are inappropriate/useless for what they need. Let's try and find sites for them ahead of time or at least me know so I can have them using the proper search tools."
Later that day more of her kids came down and one came over to me while I was working on some stuff and said they were going to be in the lab working on Civil War stuff. I asked what they were going to be looking for and he said pictures and information.
Obviously, my email wasn't clear enough for this teacher. Maybe I just need to come right out and say "NO KIDS SHOULD BE IN THE LAB UNLESS A TEACHER IS PRESENT!
Don't even get me started on printing issues - with this class or any other.
Google Frustration - follow up
Friday, April 27, 2007 | computer lab, google, unsupervised kids | 4 comments »
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How do elementary students know that Google is the best place to look? Someone showed them. Staff members should start the students off early in their computer training with more appropriate sites--and probably better techniques for searching, such as how to frame a query. "Civil War" seems a little broad, doesn't it?
I took a class on online researching a few months ago, and it was a real eye-opener about how little I know about searching! It was even encourage that we should preselect sources for students to use and guide them to those sources. I have mixed feelings about this, but it really depends on what your objective is. Is it research or assmilating information?
I don't think students should be unsupervised, and BTW, your students are lucky they aren't blocked from searching images. My students are blocked out of most search engines that look for images--in Google, they can search, but the site it links to will come up blocked. I find it frustrating when I'm trying to find images from school. I don't know how my students find enought for their projects, such as slide show presentations and i-movies.
I think they are so familiar with Google is because that's the easiest one to remember. I think they are so used to using Google at home, also. I also have seen teachers telling kids to use Google for images. You're absolutely correct that they need to be taught better searching techniques - something I must continue to do.
For younger students, preselecting the sites is the way to go - both for content and for the sake of time.
We have the same problem at my school. I can't tell you how many times I will find STACKS of paper near the printer of pictures of rap artists.
wow, i can definitely understand your frustrations with that stuff. i don't really have any advice, unfortunately, but i wish you luck in getting through to the teachers.