Helping Students Become Better Online Researchers

Students are probably Internet authorities. When it comes to Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, they might know far more than you. All of that time spent tweeting and chatting doesn’t necessarily translate to deep learning though. As students progress through school, online research skills become more important — for good reason.
Both college professors and employers will expect young people to know their way around the academic side of the Internet; a skill that for many students, needs to be taught. In a Pew survey, a majority of teachers said that their students lacked patience and determination when doing difficult research. A majority of teachers also said that their students didn’t know how to use multiple sources to support an argument. We’re about to change that. Read on to find some of the best websites for teaching digital literacy.

Search terms

For many students, doing research means typing a word or two into a Google search and using information from the first link that pops up. Students need to know that the quality of their search terms helps determine the quality of the information that they find. If you’re new to strategic searching, or need fresh ideas, we’ve gathered some lessons to get your students’ brains turning.
Common Sense Media
You will find lesson plans to teach strategic searches to middle school and high school students. As with everything on the Common Sense Media site, these lessons are focused on finding quality material and keeping children safe online.
Google
Of course Google will be a go-to source both for doing searches and for finding related lessons. Google has lessons on selecting search terms, narrowing searches, and evaluating sources. Options range from beginning to advanced, so you can tailor the lesson to students from elementary school on up. For some brainy fun, try the Google A Day Challenge, which poses difficult questions that students might be able to answer with their new searching expertise.

Credibility

Do you have a complicated relationship with Wikipedia? You’re not alone. While the site is packed with interesting information, students tend to use it as a one-stop shop for research. Often, they don’t realize that they need to check the reliability of that information. The Internet is overflowing with all sorts of biases, and students must learn to sort fact from fiction. This can be a challenging lesson to teach, but it’s usually fascinating as well.
Teaching Channel
Here, you will find a short video of a lesson on assessing websites. The Teaching Channel also has lesson ideas for teaching online research and fair use. This is a great site for teachers who can’t devote a full class period to research skills and need quick, succinct lessons.
Read Write Think
This is an in-depth lesson plan for teaching students to evaluate web sites. Students will learn to consider the author, audience, and purpose of a website and to ponder the role of advertising. There are good resources here, such as a website evaluation form, even for teachers who don’t want to use the full lesson.
Kathy Schrock’s Guide to Everything
Find an amalgamation of resources here to teach critical evaluation. There are links to lesson plans and articles on the importance of digital literacy. The 5 W’s of Website Evaluation worksheet is a handy reminder of everything that your students — and you — should be thinking about when gathering information from a website.

Digging Deeper

Though the Internet offers breadth on every topic, it sometimes doesn’t offer much depth. And a simple Google search often won’t lead students to the meaty resources they should be using. We’ve gathered sites that will give students the detailed research they need quickly, saving them — and you — hours of frustration. Along with these sites, remind students that many newspaper websites have searchable archives.
Kentucky Virtual Library
This portal guides children from kindergarten through high school on how to select keywords, take notes, and more. It also allows children to search kid-friendly databases, such as Grolier Online, so that they find information that is right for their reading level and age.
Google Books
Students can search millions of books for information, and they will find previews of pages or even an entire book. Some students might use this to avoid a trip to the library. But with some helpful teacherly guidance, this could be a stepping stone that gets kids into the library to dig deeper.
Google Scholar
Google’s academic search site sifts through scholarly articles and even law cases. This is best for high school students who already have some research experience. Send them here when they need authoritative information to support their views.

Plagiarism

Explaining plagiarism with books is clear-cut. The author’s name is there on the cover, and the author was paid for the work. The Internet can be trickier to work with. Sometimes no author is named, and much of the information is provided for free, so students might not see any harm as passing the work off as their own. Any lesson on research will also require a lesson on citations and fair use. Many teaching websites offer ideas, and we’ve found a few more.
Purdue Online Writing Lab
The writing lab has links to lessons both on understanding plagiarism and teaching students how to avoid it. Use these ideas to have students create their own ethics policy or one for the whole class.
The New York Times
If you think a discussion of plagiarism might be a snooze, check out the resources here. You’ll find lessons involving plagiarism in music and even school textbooks. Students can also respond to questions about whether cheating is increasing and whether they consider this a big problem.