How to teach online research skills to the 'google generation'?

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Information Behaviour of the Future Researcher - Report CoverThe Young Researcher Network is supporting 15 groups of young people aged 13 - 25 with training that will enable to them deliver high quality research on issues that matter to them.

One topic we hope to cover as we provide support and advice to projects is online research. You might think that young people, as members of the google generation, would be far ahead in their ability to use the internet for research, but as a recent study has shown - young people still need training and support to make the most of their familiarity with the digital world. The 'information behaviour of the researcher of the future' paper tried to explore some 'myths' about young people's 'information behaviours', including this one:

They [young people] are expert searchers
Our verdict: This is a dangerous myth. Digital literacies
and information literacies do not go hand in hand.

Of course - we're interested in the 'information behaviour of the young researcher of the present' - but it's important that we look deeper into this.

When I studied for my degree, the internet was only just being widely introduced as a research tool, but now it seems that young people's skills in using the internet are often assumed in a way that means they don't have an opportunity to learn the important concepts to help in critically assessing information online.

But I'm sure there must be good resources out there to support young people as researchers.

If you're a young person, perhaps as a young researcher, have you had any good training in how to use the internet well? Or have you just always known how to make use of the internet? Do you think you're an expert searcher - or are there things you want to know about?

And if you're involved in research - are there any good resources you can recommend for teaching good online research skills to the google generation, and supporting young people in online research?

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3 Comments

Tim Davies Author Profile Page said:

This post from Graham Wegner over at http://gwegner.edublogs.org/2007/08/08/starting-next-round-of-personal-research-projects/ looks interesting around teaching young people to use online research in the classroom setting.

It's not about rigorous research, but some of the visual search engine tools it suggests could be useful at the start of a research process to build up mind-maps of relevant concepts and ideas...

tasteach said:

I love teaching students research skills especially regarding history and one website I have found useful is http://www.kn.att.com/wired/21stcent/index.html

alex said:

I read the link to this on Tim Davies blog

I am a young Dad with three children, two of whom use the internet. We live in Scotland.

If you would like them to be involved, let me know. We could ask their school as well.

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About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by Antoinette Long published on January 23, 2008 2:09 PM.

'Training for Young Researchers coming up...' was the previous entry in this blog.

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