Smart Searching

Two of the scariest words to a teenage student 20 years ago were “research” and “paper.” Even now, the words conjure up in my mind stacks of encyclopedias, piles of dimes for copies, and lots of time with the microfilm machine. Before “Googling” became a verb (I Googled it and found it in the Merriam-Webster dictionary), students did most of their research in libraries. Today’s students can answer their pressing life questions quickly and easily without ever setting foot in one.

For better or worse, students are able to research the best cat-beard, tips for passing a driving test, and facts to support their upcoming research paper in one sitting. They don’t have to find a library, just anywhere with Wi-Fi. The amount of information students can find in library research is limited by the size and budget of the library, but its quality is mostly consistent because someone has deemed the resource fit for inclusion in that particular library’s collection. The growth of the Internet has greatly increased the scope of information freely available and accessible to students, but the fact that information can be posted by anyone means that it might not be accurate.

Modern students must learn to be smart about how to conduct a search and to be critical about the information they find. This may seem like second nature to students who have grown up with Internet-connected devices, but it is important to reinforce smart searching skills. Common Sense Media created a comprehensive curriculum for K-12 students. Their CyberSmart! Curriculum covers topics from effective searching and sending email to preventing cyber bullying and protecting your online reputation. The lessons are divided into three age ranges and they do a nice job of bringing interest for each age group. ReadWriteThink also has a lesson plan to help middle school students choose effective keywords, an important skill for finding good search results.

A student searching for information on the Internet can literally come across anything. Aside from the fact that the information they find might not be accurate, some results of the search may be inappropriate, especially in a school setting. As Internet access started becoming more prevalent in homes and schools, the Internet connection was often limited to one family computer, a classroom computer, or possibly a computer lab or library computer. Concerned parents and teachers could monitor the content on the few computers with access. Today’s saturation of Internet-connected devices has given many students the ability to search for anything, anytime, anywhere. This is definitely a boon for lifelong learning, but the almost unlimited access leads to a lot questions for parents and teachers about how to keep kids safe.

Google has a Safe Search feature that filters the results and pictures returned in searches. I thought it was very helpful to at least look into the Safe Search options already in place, since many students are accustomed to using Google and are using it at home. If the default Safe Search settings don’t meet your needs, you can create your own custom search engine fairly easily. Read this post from Richard Byrne of Free Technology for Teachers to learn how to create one that only searches the sites you select for your students to access. A problem some teachers have found with using Safe Search is that older students might decide to turn it off, but you can lock the settings with a password.

If you don’t have the time or patience to create your own custom search engine, there are quite a few that are set up for kids. These search engines are built around Google’s Safe Search and can be accessed through a browser. You can set one of these as the default homepage on your classroom computer or computer lab computers so that kids will be searching the way you want them to search. Safe Search for Kids is one good option. It keeps Google’s Safe Search turned on and the search results list come back without picture icons. Sweet Search is nice, too, and you can install it as an add-on for Firefox and Internet Explorer or include it as a widget on your school website or class blog. There are quite a few other search engines built around Google’s Safe Search, but it seemed to me like they filtered out too many good results to be useful. Be sure to also check out ASK for Kids. I was really impressed with the search results, even when I searched for one of my test phrases: naked mole rat. Some of the search engines wouldn’t give me any results for that one!

As I was writing this column, I began to wonder how we can keep kids safe while web surfing on the myriad of other Internet-connected devices all around. They are learning to search safely on the school and home computers, but what about the tablet, the iPod, and the cell phone? This New York Times article gives a good overview of how to protect the devices your students may be using. The article suggests disabling the default browser and YouTube and installing a filtered web-browsing app instead. This is definitely something to look into, especially if you are using handheld devices in the classroom.

Providing a kid-safe search engine and safeguarding handheld devices in the classroom is a good start for keeping kids safe on the web at school. As parents and teachers, there is only so much we can do to prevent kids from seeing inappropriate material online. We have to figure out where to draw the line between sheltering students from harmful information and teaching them to protect themselves from coming across it in the first place. This is where the lessons from Common Sense Media will be really helpful. Discussing Internet safety, etiquette, and search strategies with these well-planned activities will help ensure that students bring this learning home or wherever else they go online. Be sure to search the Gateway for more Internet safety activities and join us on Facebook and Twitter!