Super Searchers Go to School: Sharing Online Strategies with K-12 Students, Teachers, and Librarians

273 Pages·2005·30.194 MB·English

by  Joyce Kasman Valenza, Reva Basch, Doug Johnson

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Sharing Online Strategies with K–12
Students, Teachers, and Librarians
Joyce Kasman Valenza
Edited by Reva Basch
Medford, New Jersey
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First Printing, 2005
Super Searchers Go to School:Sharing Online Strategies with K–12 Students,
Teachers,and Librarians
Copyright © 2005 by Joyce Kasman Valenza
Super Searchers, Volume XIII
A series edited by Reva Basch
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems
without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may
quote brief passages in a review. Published by CyberAge Books, an imprint of
Information Today, Inc., 143 Old Marlton Pike, Medford, New Jersey 08055.
Liability
The opinions of the searchers being interviewed are their own and not necessarily
those of their employers, the author, editor, or publisher. Information Today, Inc.
does not guarantee the accuracy, adequacy, or completeness of any information
and is not responsible for any errors or omissions or the results obtained from the
use of such information.
Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their
products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book
and Information Today, Inc. was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have
been printed with initial capital letters.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Valenza, Joyce Kasman.
Super searchers go to school : sharing online strategies with K–12 students,
teachers, and librarians / Joyce Kasman Valenza ; edited by Reva Basch.
p. cm -- (Super searchers ; v. 13)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-910965-70-6
1. Internet searching--Study and teaching. 2. Web search engines--Study and
teaching. I. Basch, Reva. II. Title. III. Series.
ZA4230.V35 2005
025.04’071--dc22
2005015058
Printed and bound in the United States of America
President and CEO:Thomas H. Hogan, Sr.
Editor-in-Chief and Publisher:John B. Bryans
Managing Editor: Amy M. Holmes
VP Graphics and Production: M. Heide Dengler
Cover Designer: Jacqueline Walter Crawford
Book Designer: Kara Mia Jalkowski
Copy Editor: Dorothy Pike
Proofreader: Pat Hadley-Miller
Indexer: Enid L. Zafran
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To Dennis
About The Super Searchers Web Page
At the Information Today Web site, you will find The Super Searchers Web
Page, featuring links to sites mentioned in this book. We periodically update
the page, removing dead links and adding additional sites that may be use-
ful to readers.
The Super Searchers Web Page is being made available as a bonus to
readers of Super Searchers Go to School and other books in the Super
Searchers series. To access the page, an Internet connection and Web
browser are required. Go to:
www.infotoday.com/supersearchers
DISCLAIMER: Neither publisher nor authors make any claim as to the results that may be obtained
through the use of The Super Searchers Web Page or of any of the Internet resources it references or
links to. Neither publisher nor authors will be held liable for any results, or lack thereof, obtained by
the use of this page or any of its links, for any third-party charges, or for any hardware, software, or
other problems that may occur as a result of using it. The Super Searchers Web Pageis subject to
change or discontinuation without notice at the discretion of the publisher.
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Contents
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
by Doug Johnson
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xi
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
Pam Berger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
The Information Searcher—Teaching Teachers and
Librarians to Search
Debbie Abilock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
The Importance of Messing Around and Clumping
(Teaching Our Youngest Searchers)
Marjorie Pappas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
The Role of Process
David Barr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Knowledge, Skills, and Attitudes for Successful Searching
Deb Logan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Finding the Marbles, Opening the Geodes (Helping
Learners Understand Through Story)
Alice Yucht . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Searching as Metaphor
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vi Super Searchers Go to School
Linda Joseph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Advice from the Cyberbee
Frances Jacobson Harris. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Thinking About Innards: Why Infrastructure
Is Important
Sue Fox. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
High School Searching Outside the Library
Ken Haycock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
From the Administrator’s Perspective
Peter Milbury. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
How Teacher-Librarians Should Behave
Kathy Schrock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Web Guide and Diva
Appendix: Referenced Sites and Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
About the Author. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
About the Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
Foreword
Surviving the Information Jungle
For most of us who finished our formal educations before 1995, research
was conducted in an Information Desert. Those five or ten sources required
for a research paper were darned tough to find in our schools and even our
public libraries. Teachers and librarians performed much the same role as
that of any desert guide: helping the student locate scarce resources in the
educational environment. Remember how happy you were to find that last,
perhaps only partially relevant, magazine article that met the minimum
number of sources required? I do—vividly.
We teachers and librarians were pretty good as desert guides. We taught
kids to use the card catalog, the Readers’Guide to Periodical Literature, the
vertical file, reference sources, and indices. We knew where to look for that
hidden waterhole, patch of shade, or edible lizard. We could because we
were taught these exact skills ourselves as students. Libraries didn’t change
much in the first nine decades of the 20th century.
Today’s student, who has access to online sources of information, has
been thrust into the Information Jungle. A quick search using Google alone
can yield thousands of potential sources. And “free” Internet access by the
common search engines is just one trail in this great tangle. Wandering
slightly off the well-trod path, the searcher discovers subscription data-
bases,the “invisible” Web, massive online union catalogs from which print
materials can be interlibrary-loaned, newsgroups, digital multimedia col-
lections, chat rooms, and e-mail contact with individuals. Now educators
have the challenge of acting as jungle guides—helping learners to find,
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viii Super Searchers Go to School
evaluate, and select resources of genuine value. With the number of
resources now overwhelming rather than scarce, avoiding snakes, telling
the good berries from the poisonous ones, keeping away from the quick-
sand, and finding a way out of the undergrowth are the “skills” we as teach-
ers and librarians need to help our students rapidly acquire.
The challenge is that this change from desert guide to jungle guide has
been so rapid that many educators have not had time to learn the skills of
an Information Jungle guide. I don’t remember being taught anything
about Boolean logic, advanced search pages, or metasearches in my B.C.
(Before Computers) library school classes. Yahoo! was a just a term of
endearment for seventh graders, the library catalog was still a bunch of
wooden boxes, and the arrangement of most reference sources could be
mastered by quietly humming the alphabet song. I was trained to use a
walking stick and map, not a machete and GPS!
Every aspect of doing research has been impacted by the Information
Jungle closing in around us. Not only do today’s learners need new search
skills, but they also need to be able to do the following:
• Carefully articulate the problem to be solved or the
question to be answered
• Effectively evaluate the reliability of the information
found
• Use their research findings to develop original solutions to
problems of personal relevance
• Use information technologies, such as multimedia pre-
sentations, Web pages, and digital video, to communicate
the findings and conclusions of problem-based activities
• Develop assessment tools that help improve their infor-
mation searching, evaluating, and communicating skills,
and that encourage reflection on the efficacy of these
activities
• Develop a love of researching, reading, problem solving,
and learning
Foreword ix
Thankfully, my friend and colleague Joyce Valenza has put this book
together. Not only is she, herself, about the sharpest tracker in the
Information Jungle, she has found other real experts who know their way
through this techno-maze. Through these interviews, they teach us their
methods, so we in turn can teach them to our students and teachers.
H. Rider Haggard could not have created a group of more intrepid explor-
ers. Sheena—I mean Joyce—thanks for doing this for all of us who not only
have to preach life long learning, but practice it as well.
Information problem-solving skills are the most critical skills any school
can teach its students. Savvy citizens will be using these skills throughout
their lives. And the information necessary to intelligently select a commu-
nity in which to live, a political candidate for whom to vote, a lawnmower
to purchase, or a business proposal to accept will increasingly be harvested
online.
Don your pith helmets, folks. Let’s plunge into the Information Jungle’s
dangers and delights!
Doug Johnson
Mankato (MN) Area Public Schools
www.doug-johnson.com