Teaching third grade students how to effectively, and safely, search online is a big undertaking in my district. However, it is a skill that students will use for the rest of their lives. How often do you search out the answer to something on Google on a daily basis? I know I use Google search at least 2-3 times per day. My students come to me with very limited experience using technology in the school setting. The kindergarten through second grade teachers in my building have access to a full laptop cart, but do not use it. They have 2-3 desktop computers in their classroom that occasionally students rotate through throughout the day on certain programs, but like I said, their experience is limited. When they come to third grade, they are 1:1 with laptop devices. Not only do I use many hours of instructional time teaching them how to properly log-in, unplug, plug in, and store their computers, but I also have to teach them basic Internet skills.
In addition to learning the difference between Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Edge, one of the first things I teach them is basic online search skills. My students use Google Chrome for everything, so we start by explaining the differences and similarities between searching in the Google address bar (which is the same as searching on Google.com) and typing in a specific website in the address bar. The next thing I do is teach them how to use keywords. This is a difficult skill for third graders! I actually have my entire classroom library inventoried online, and students can “check out” books from our classroom just like they would a library. I use this site to help students practice using keywords. Because my students are so young and need a bit of extra scaffolding, I then provide them with a tile on their Symbaloo page (they set this as their homepage the first day) called "Safe Search" that links them to different safe-search sites. Students are then allowed to use any of our safe-search sites for research throughout the school year. All of these strategies help me and my students get started successfully and responsibly searching online, a skill they will use for the remainder of their lives.
Jessica,
ReplyDeleteI am sure that it is very hard to teach such young students to use the internet wisely. I know that I have searched topics that are completely innocent and gotten some pretty graphic results. I know at the high school, the students are trusted to be responsible and there are not many blocks in place. Is it the same for the elementary or are there more blocks in place? I like how you give them a symbaloo page in which they are able to do a safe search. That would make it much safer for these young impressionable students.
Jessica,
ReplyDeleteRE: "I then provide them with a tile on their Symbaloo page (they set this as their homepage the first day) called "Safe Search" that links them to different safe-search sites."
This is an effective practice. I have had to teach beginning internet search skills (to teachers and students) as well and at times it can seem like a daunting task. I have a friend who teaches senior citizens basic computer skills and she chuckles about the number of times she has to say " click on the big E". :-) (Their computers at the time only had Internet Explorer loaded on them.) She said even the seniors were delighted when they started to understand the power of technology.
Dr. Dell