He starts by saying that young people tend to be the most tech-savvy among us. But they are wretched at searching. A group of researchers led by College of Charleston business professor Bing Pan tried to find out. Specifically, Pan wanted to know how skillful young folks are at online search. His team gathered a group of college students and asked them to look up the answers to a handful of questions. Perhaps not surprisingly, the students generally relied on the web pages at the top of Google’s results list.
Other studies have found the same thing: In a recent experiment at Northwestern, when 102 undergraduates were asked to do some research online, none went to the trouble of checking the authors’ credentials. In 1955, we wondered why Johnny can’t read. Today the question is, why can’t Johnny search?
But it may not be your fault. Professors assume you already have this skill, even though it is rarely taught. "The buck stops nowhere." Why not let students start a class blog on a subject and see how long it takes for it to show up in search results? I may just try this.
But it may not be your fault. Professors assume you already have this skill, even though it is rarely taught. "The buck stops nowhere." Why not let students start a class blog on a subject and see how long it takes for it to show up in search results? I may just try this.
Read more... We'll talk about this more in class, but one of the reasons I post other websites is to get you AWAY from using Google (and YouTube) for EVERYTHING. Try some critical thinking. It will help you in the long run.
3 comments:
Interesting! I think that some students get lazy and don't understand the proper way of doing detailed based research.
In Junior High most of my research was developed online, but in Middle High a lot of my papers were written from books. I had to use my school library and local library to write an effective research paper, even if it was only a couple pages.
There's also the technical side of search engines that people who don't read about it, won't know.
For example, putting " " around a certain word of phrase means that you must have that exact phrase without variation. Or that simple math equations can be written in just like using Excel.
Google searching is probably an indication of how students read. Also in our readings. If you are honest with yourselves, do you really read more deeply online? For example, do you read beyond the headlines? Moreover, if there is heavy reliance on news feeds, how reliable are those? For that matter, how do you KNOW what is reliable information? Did you learn that in any of your classes, or do teachers/profs just assume you know what the heck you're doing? No criticism, just curious.
Well I am a heavy reader of articles and blogs online. I definitely read beyond headlines and continue to find more articles at the bottom or side of the website where it's "related." It definitely keeps me interested for hours.
I don't rely on Facebook news feeds for articles because some things that my friend's post I'm not really interested in. I get a lot of articles worth reading from Twitter and post some articles worth reading myself. Because from there I follow reliable sources like: business authors, company executives, companies, etc. Usually they lead to his/her own blog or to a news website.
And by reliability I usually trust accredited new websites. If it seems "random" I'll check the "About Us" tab or something similar to see what the objective of the website is.
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