Search Like an Expert: New Google Search Lessons Unveiled at NECC 2009

Released at NECC 2009  are a new series of education friendly lessons .  

Looking for something? First stop might be the Google search box. Becoming a skillful searcher is an essential skill for teachers and students in our media rich environments. The search box provides abundant amounts of information quickly at our fingertips. So, how do you use the Google search box to get just the right amount of information, analyze it for authenticity, and get it quickly? The new Google Search Lessons are aimed at helping teachers and students learn the inside scoop about skillful searching.

Check out nine compelling and practical lessons for students to understand and be successful with the Google search process. The lessons are divided into three modules; Understanding Search Engines, Search Techniques and Strategies, and Search Features. Each topic contains three lessons that build on the skills taught in the previous lesson. Teachers can mix and match lessons depending on the skills they want to emphasize. The lessons provide a guide for teachers, inquiry questions, a slide presentation, and search challenges for students.

Web search can be a remarkable research tool for students - and we've heard from educators that they could use some help to teach better search skills in their classroom. Search lesson authors are three Google Certified teachers Lucy Gray, Cheryl Davis, and Kathleen Ferenz. They used the work of Dan Russell, Senior Research Scientist, Search Quality & User Happiness at Google to organize and determine the search content and the domains of search.

The lessons are short, modular and not specific to any discipline so you can mix and match to what best fits the needs of your classroom. Additionally, all lessons come with a companion set of slides (and some with additional resources) to help you guide your in-class discussions.

Module A: Understanding Search Engines

Understanding the fundamentals of how search engines work will help your students become better searchers. This module starts with basic concepts and concludes with something that educators overwhelmingly asked us to cover: teaching students how to judge search results and validate the authority of sources they use

1. Start your engines (Basic) 
   Web 101; search engines overview; online content that is indexed and searched.
   


2. Which link should I follow? (Intermediate) 
   How Google search works; anatomy of a search results page.
   


3. Believe it or not (Advanced)
   
Validating site authority; taking a research stance when using a search engine.

Module B: Web Search Technique and Strategies

Search is easy but some practice and technique will take your students a long way. This module will help you teach basic tips and tricks and conclude with methods to deal with even the most challenging searches.

1. The Keys to Search City (Basic) 
   How to organize and approach a search. 
   


2. Your search toolbox (Intermediate) 
   Best practices for keyword selection and use of search operators.
   


3. The advanced search squad (Advanced) 
   Different types of content indexed by Google; using it to address search challenges.

Module C: Google Web Search Features

We are constantly trying to improve search and making Google more useful. Help your students take full advantage of Google's search technology with a solid understanding of its features and functionality.

1. Start Out (Basic)
   Every day search features, tips and tricks. 
   


2. Step Up (Intermediate)
   Using Google's search options, Advanced Search and operators. 
   


3. On Top (Advanced)
   Taking advantage of language tools; experimental features and more.  
   

More resources: 

• Google Search - The Essentials
  
• Explore Google Search: Search tips videos, Google search engineer stories, user testimonials
  
• Google Search Help: Basic and advanced Google Web Search help.

Use these lessons in your classroom. Post your thoughts, ideas, and ways in which you use them. We want to hear from you. 

Posted by Cheryl Davis, Kathleen Ferenz and Lucy Gray 

Expanding Your NECC 2009 Experience

View and edit NECC 2009 Washington, DC in a larger map. Please add your recommendations!

It's that time of year again... The International Society for Technology in Education will celebrate its 30th birthday in a few weeks by hosting the National Educational Computing Conference in Washington, D.C. For me, it's a particularly exciting time to be visiting our nation's capital in light of our new president and a renewed focus on improving education.

NECC 2009 promises to be professionally rejuvenating event for anyone interested in educational technology. It is a potentially overwhelming conference with nearly 13,000 attendees and approximately 500 vendors presenting their wares. For the record, educational technology has never been about the tools for me (although I do revel in the cool factor of many technologies), but about leveraging learning for kids. That said, I hope that educators from a wide variety of backgrounds and interests will attend for similar reasons. I would actually like to see the excitement about educational technology filter down more to those who aren't necessarily techie geeks like myself.

For the past few years, I've posted a blog entry highlighting a few tips and tricks for making the most of your NECC experience. Review my ideas for 2007 and for 2008; I still stand by that general advice. Pick an area of focus, spend time planning before you get to Washington with that theme in mind, and give yourself plenty of time to digest everything. Bring your laptop for taking notes and accessing additional content; I suspect more people will be using iPhones for this purpose, however. Finally, get connected with other educators through the plethora of events that are scheduled. For the second year, ISTE has an online community for conference conversation. Networking isn't just for job seekers or administrators anymore!

If you are not able to attend in person, you should be able to participate virtually as well. Some presenters may elect to post their materials online and to stream video feeds of their presentations. At Edubloggercon, an informal "unconference" to be held Saturday, June 27 as a precursor to NECC, many sessions will also be broadcast via tools such as Ustream. Finally, similar sessions called NECC Unplugged will be taking place in the Blogger's Café during the actual conference at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.

In addition to all this, people will be blogging, posting pictures, and twittering away about conference happenings. You can find this stuff by searching various sources using tags (keyword labels) such as NECC, NECC2009, and NECC09. For instance, search Twitter using #NECC and you'll find a steady microblogging stream. I recommend searching Technorati for blog posts and Flickr for photos in a similar manner.

Finally, I like to make the most of any travel experience by doing a little research ahead of time. I usually do a cursory search in iTunes for content related to my destination that I can put on my iPod or iPhone. For instance, I purchased the audiobook of A Cricket in Times Square for my daughter when we traveled to New York City prior to NECC 2005. In 2006, I traveled to Europe with other Apple Distinguished Educators on a project and I brought along a Passport to Europe episode on Berlin and a No Reservations episode on Paris (this show isn't necessarily for kids, by the way). In addition to these items, there are tons of free podcasts available in iTunes if you do a search for your particular destination.

I've taken the liberty of putting together a few Washington DC related resources. I have not reviewed all of these; I just explored and plucked ones that look potentially interesting. If you have any additional recommendations, please add them to the comments. Enjoy and see you in DC. I'll be in the Google booth from time to time and presenting as part of Larry Anderson's Podcasting and Podcatching for the Absolute Beginner panel. Stop by and say hello!

Washington DC and NECC Resources

Lucy's NECC Calendar - Each year, I use the NECC conference planner to plot any sessions interesting to me. I'm focusing on math, science and interactive whiteboards this year.

Lucy's NECC '09 Map - Join this Google Map and add your info and recommendations.

NECC Ning - NECC's online community; attendees and virtual attendees are welcome to join.

GovFresh - one stop shopping for multimedia produced by the U.S. governent. Everything is aggregated in one place; web 2.0 at its finest!

Apps for your iPhone:

• iTransDC Metro - (99 cents)
• iMetroMap DC (99 cents)
  
• Dubbele.com (99 cents)
• Washington DC Public (free)
• Washington Post's Going Out Guide (free)
• Washington DC Travel Guide (99 cents)
• Washington DC - GPS Tour (99 cents)
  
• U.S Historical Documents (99 cents)
  
• iCongress (99 cents)
  
• politicoTrack ($9.99)
  
• Presidents Match Game (99 cents)
  
• USA Presidents (free)

Podcasts:

• Cityscapes - Washington DC
• Tourcaster - Washington DC City Guide
• Mobile Tours
• Cultural Tourism DC: Audio Journeys
• Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Podcasts
• ARTSEDGE: The Kennedy Center's Jazz in DC
• The International Spy Museum SpyCast
• US Holocaust Memorial Museum iTunes U Page
• Smithsonian Podcasts
• LearnOutLoud's US Presidents Podcast
• The Washington Post Video Podcast
• Washington Week Video Podcast
• President Obama's Weekly Address

TV Shows and Movies:

• Smithsonian Channel ($1.99 per episode to purchase)
• Anthony Bourdrain's No Reservations - Washington DC ($1.99 per episode to purchase)
• All the President's Men ($9.99 to purchase, $2.99 to rent)
• Mr. Smith Goes to Washington ($14.99 to purchase only)

YouTube Channels:

• Smithsonian Channel
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
• Newseum
• Library of Congress
• C-SPAN
• The White House

Friday 5: 21st Century Skills

This week, it's my turn to come up with a thoughtful list of resources for teachers, and I have chosen the theme of 21st Century Skills. Recently, in the main stream press and in the edublogger/eduTwitter world,  there has been debate about the validity of such a skill set. This particular blog post will not do justice to this ongoing argument, but I do have one observation to add. 

I recently had the amazing opportunity to travel to Singapore to visit schools and assist with the 2008 Apple Distinguished Educator Asia Institute. A more comprehensive blog post about my experiences will follow one day (I'm still mulling over everything I experienced), but I was really struck by the attitudes of the people I encountered. It seemed to me, from my conversations with administrators and teachers from Singaporean and international schools, that many agreed with the basic idea that students and teachers today are require to employ a different mindset and set of abilities in this changing world. There was no ongoing debate; it was accepted that education had to change in light of this, and that this change happened through collaboration and exploration of global best practices. 

In my opinion, U.S educators need to stop arguing semantics on this topic and need to get down to the business of educating our peers about teaching and learning in the 21st century. Here we are, nearly 10 years into this new millennium, poised to start making meaningful, substantive change happen. Let's get on with it, people! We've got hard work to do!

That said, I'm off my soapbox and I recommend the following resources for investigating the idea of 21st Century Skills:

1) The Global Achievement Gap by Tony Wagner (Tony's website: http://schoolchange.org)

http://tinyurl.com/globalachievementgap

2) The Partnership for 21st Century Skills

http://www.21centuryskills.org 

3) 21st Century Literacies: Tools for Reading the World

http://www.noodletools.com/debbie/literacies

4) 21st Century Learning

http://tinyurl.com/21stcenturylearning

5) The Emergent 21st Century Teacher, Mark Treadwell

http://www.i-learnt.com

6) The Metiri Group: What's So Different About the 21st Century?

http://www.metiri.com/features.html

Feel free to offer any other recommendations in the comments here!

Horizon K12 Report

As part of their Emerging Technologies Initiative, the New Media Consortium annually publishes a document entitled the Horizon Report, which addresses new technologies and associated trends and challenges related to learning institutions. The production of this report is led by NMC staff with assistance from an advisory board. Recently, the NMC has branched into creating specialized reports such as this one addressing the implications of emerging technologies for education in Australia and New Zealand. Currently, work is underway on a K12 global edition of the Horizon Report.

Last week, I had the privilege and pleasure of attending the first advisory board meeting for this particular K12 venture in Dallas, Texas. Advisory board members hailed from around the world and work in various capacities for a variety of organizations. Some work for corporations and non-profits; others were employed by elementary, secondary, and higher education institutions. While much of the preliminary work for the K12 report is completed online through the use of a wiki, this face to face meeting facilitated a remarkable process for digging into the project. NMC documentation refers to this method as a modified Delphi process. (Incidentally, I was able to get a better grasp on the goals of the Horizon Report from this real time meeting, adding evidence to my personal belief that face to face interactions are not completely disappearing from the way we work).

In order to understand this qualitative research process, take a look at the 2009 Horizon Report recently released at ELI Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida. This is the end result of a very defined process that is used and adapted as needed for all Horizon Reports including the current K12 one. Through the use of a wiki, advisory members were given materials to read and reflect upon. Participants were also asked to bookmark potentially relevant web sites using a common tag, and links to this del.icio.us social bookmarking feed are also posted to the wiki. All of this is done virtually, including addressing a research agenda established by NMC leaders Larry Johnson, Alan Levine and Rachel Smith. The questions on this agenda were as follows

• What would you list among the established technologies that learning-focused institutions should all be using broadly today to support or enhance teaching, learning, or creative expression?

• What technologies that have a solid user base in consumer, entertainment, or other industries should learning-focused institutions be actively looking for ways to apply?

• What are the key emerging technologies you see developing to the point that learning-focused institutions should begin to take notice during the next 3 to 5 years? What organizations or companies are the leaders in these technologies?

• What do you see as the key challenges related to teaching, learning, or creative expression that learning-focused institutions will face during the next 5 years?

• What trends do you expect to have a significant impact on the ways in which learning-focused institutions approach our core missions of teaching, research, and service?

Advisory board members not present in  Dallas contributed their expertise on the wiki and at our Dallas meeting, members attending added to this collection of knowledge. We vetted trends and challenges, and finally established the emerging technologies that we believe schools should adopt immediately, those that they should be looking to adopt in the two to three year range, and those that worth keeping in mind in terms of long range planning. This process was seamless and resulted a group consensus on these various topics. In general, I felt that we kept to our agenda for the day and produced tangible results by the end of meeting. 

Underlying our work was the amazing graphic facilitation by NMC Vice President Rachel Smith. Rachel has a background in art education and she gave further meaning to our discussions by translating information into a graphical format. A large sheet of paper served as a whiteboard for illustrating our introductions and Rachel also transcribed trends, challenges, and technologies already logged in the wiki on to other sheets. These images really engaged us, helped refine our thinking, and will serve as an archive to which we can look back and reflect. This technique served to bridge the virtual work in the wiki (and advisory board members not present) with the face to face meeting agenda.

Graphic facilitation is a field that previously has been unknown to me and I thought it was a very powerful way of gathering information, guiding the decision making process and for reinforcing learning for participants. Rachel mentioned that these facilitators are not just used for meeting work, but also in conjunction with keynote speakers. For more information on graphic facilitation, check out the Center for Graphic Facilitation and the International Forum for Visual Practitioners website.

The work for the K12 Horizon report will continue over the next few weeks with further refinements to the short list of new and emerging technologies. NMC CEO Larry Johnson, CTO Alan Levine and Vice President Rachel Smith will also be engaged with the research and writing of the final report scheduled for release at the annual Consortium for School Networking conference March 10 -12 in Austin, Texas. Also, I will be a guest on the Seedlings podcast to talk about the work of the advisory board sometime in March. It is my hope that this practical document will serve as a catalyst for K12 educational institutions to examine their own practices related to technology and to plan for the future. Now is the time to get ahead of new technologies; we must align ourselves with changes in the way the world works and communicates.

For more information on the New Media Consortium, visit them at http://www.nmc.orge. See also information on the Horizon Project and check out their YouTube channel, their photos in Flickr, and their twitter channel!