40 minutes to better Google-fu
March 20, 2012 12:14 PM Subscribe
Seeking activities, tutorials or resources designed to impart academically-oriented Google skills. Bonus points: fun?
Assume a late-adolescent audience, comfortable with technology but not necessarily very search-savvy. I'd really love to gather some resources that'd work in ~40-50 minutes, in a lab setting, aimed at teaching the kinds of basic skills necessary to locate background information for papers and projects. Maybe a tiny bit of introductory Google Scholar to boot. Ideally, these would be at least a little bit lively and enjoyable.
What I've found so far:
--Google Guide (exhaustive, but not very usable, particularly for flighty teens)
--This infographic (infuriatingly un-printable)
--Google Teacher (some great lesson plans, but it looks as though it'd take about a month to cover all this material at this level of detail)
Actually Googling the topic (heh) produces vastly more noise than signal, so I wanted to ask if anyone has recommendations or suggestions from personal experience. Anything else I should be investigating? Anybody have tried-and-true activities they use for this?
Assume a late-adolescent audience, comfortable with technology but not necessarily very search-savvy. I'd really love to gather some resources that'd work in ~40-50 minutes, in a lab setting, aimed at teaching the kinds of basic skills necessary to locate background information for papers and projects. Maybe a tiny bit of introductory Google Scholar to boot. Ideally, these would be at least a little bit lively and enjoyable.
What I've found so far:
--Google Guide (exhaustive, but not very usable, particularly for flighty teens)
--This infographic (infuriatingly un-printable)
--Google Teacher (some great lesson plans, but it looks as though it'd take about a month to cover all this material at this level of detail)
Actually Googling the topic (heh) produces vastly more noise than signal, so I wanted to ask if anyone has recommendations or suggestions from personal experience. Anything else I should be investigating? Anybody have tried-and-true activities they use for this?
Just needed another minute -- here's the article I mentioned. Article and/or bibliography might have something useful.
posted by jabes at 12:26 PM on March 20, 2012
posted by jabes at 12:26 PM on March 20, 2012
The infographic you linked to is easily printed, if you're willing to do just a little bit of copy/paste, then some cut/paste a few times to break it down into pieces that can easily be printed on one page for each piece.
posted by dancestoblue at 4:16 PM on March 20, 2012
posted by dancestoblue at 4:16 PM on March 20, 2012
The Inside Search Google Blog is great, one of my favourites. Lots of posts with tutorials or demos on various features. I just saw a link to A Google a Day - huh, interactive practice.
These more technical sites might help you find resources, or the big geeks in your group might like them :)
- Google also has an Official Blog PLUS they have a ton of other more focused blogs e.g. for Google Scholar.
- Health Libraries Wiki: Out Google [Your Students]
- Greg Notess & Search Engine Showdown has been around for a long time, good for other search engine info too.
posted by SarahbytheSea at 5:31 PM on March 20, 2012
These more technical sites might help you find resources, or the big geeks in your group might like them :)
- Google also has an Official Blog PLUS they have a ton of other more focused blogs e.g. for Google Scholar.
- Health Libraries Wiki: Out Google [Your Students]
- Greg Notess & Search Engine Showdown has been around for a long time, good for other search engine info too.
posted by SarahbytheSea at 5:31 PM on March 20, 2012
Your unprintable infographic using Google image search :)
posted by Muirwylde at 6:22 PM on March 20, 2012
posted by Muirwylde at 6:22 PM on March 20, 2012
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by jabes at 12:25 PM on March 20, 2012