Guided Search Challenges

Taking a lesson from my last post, I refreshed the Needle and Haystack Challenge series I created a couple years ago on the Information Fluency site. I realized that the "game" didn't teach much about search strategy. Instead, it was focused primarily on language skills. 

Over the weekend I refreshed my earlier work to embed search hints instead of having students try to figure out mystery clues that would guide them to the right information. In the process, I replaced the Identity Challenge with a new one that reinforces the keyword selection process instead of selecting the right database to search. The Identity Challenge, trying to find the unidentified author of an image, would be better as part of a series on knowing WHERE to search, not WHAT WORDS to use.

There are four search challenges in the current set:

• ACORN -- finding the name of an obscure part of an acorn
  
• INTRUDERS -- finding the first known instance of a wall that failed to keep out intruders
  
• HAUNTED-HIKE -- finding the location of a hike reputed to be one of the most haunted places
  
• RECLAMATION -- finding out the budget for a massive land reclamation project in Singapore

Each one is worth up to 5 points. The scoring follows the 1-in-5 Rule: on average, you have a 1 in 5 chance of using the same keywords on your first search as the person who wrote the information you are looking for. Find the answer to a challenge on the first try and you earn 5 points. If you take more than 5 tries, you earn nothing but we explain the answer. Along the way, search hints are provided that an expert researcher might use.

Curious? Give it a try. It's a free tool to help students test their ability to find better keywords. It also reinforces the practice of looking for better words in search results when the information there doesn't answer your question. 

Needle and Haystack Challenge

Haunted Search Challenge

At this time of year, scary attractions abound: yard displays, haunted houses, horror film festivals. It's also possible to find creepy hiking trails open year-round.

Where can you find this year-round haunted trail?

Use these clues to locate the name of the park, all associated with this allegedly haunted location.

Haunted
Trail
Park
Think of keywords associated with Halloween

Once you locate a likely place, verify you found the right one
by reading its history of mysteries that go back well over a century.

Keyword Targets

As a follow-up to yesterday's post, here's a glimpse inside the Fall 2018 Full Circle Resource Kit. As an instructional and assessment technique, create a wall poster of an archery target, or just buy one. Use sticky notes for each word in a student's query. Some words are bulls eyes: Proper Nouns and numbers. Others land on the target, coming close: nouns. The rest are likely to miss altogether, unless they are accompanied by a noun or number: verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, articles, conjunctions, prepositions and exclamation.

A graphic way to make this point is to place sticky notes on the target. It can also be used to provide feedback to students on the effectiveness of their queries.  For example, in the query, Who is the Latina Bronx Tarzan.... The first three keywords miss the target. The proper nouns, when used together, pinpoint the desired information, as shown below:

When one of the effective keywords is removed, however, the two remaining miss the information, coming close.

Next time your students try using complete sentences to search, the target exercise can get the point across that more words is less effective.

Access all the Kit resources with an annual school subscription for $249 (any number of students and staff can enroll for the same price).

Refining and Finding Keywords

The keywords you start with are often not the keywords you need.

A good example of this occurred recently in a summer program I was leading. It wasn't an Information Fluency workshop, but it did give me an opportunity to show some middle schoolers how to find the information they were seeking.

The program was "Lifecycle of a Startup" at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy in Aurora, Illinois. Middle school students attend who want to experience being in a startup. We compress the first year of a startup into five days as a simulation game. Most of it is real--they pitch their ideas to real investors in a shark tank experience to raise (simulated) capital to get their business off the ground.

One team was having trouble developing its idea. It was Day Three and they hadn't firmed up what their new product was going to be. They had been toying with the problem of CO2 emissions and wanted to develop an ink that could absorb CO2 from the atmosphere. They just hadn't found a way to do this.

As I watched them search, this was a typical query:

how to remove carbon dioxide from the air using ink

The first article they found was one about using carbon nanoscale fibers to remove CO2 from the air. But since this didn't have anything to do with ink, they moved on, growing frustrated. Fortunately, improvements to search engines allows them to use a long natural language string and get results (it wasn't always that way).

They missed seeing a couple better keywords in the reading which I pointed out: carbon sequestration--the name of the process.

I suggested they query: carbon sequestration ink

I'm not sure the students had ever heard of sequestration before, but it's an effective term to query. Would they have used it on their own? Doubtful. But students should be encouraged to look for better terms in the results, even (especially) if the words aren't familiar. 

This produced a link to some Google Scholar articles which opened doors to what they were looking for. Of course, the girls had to skim the articles to see if they were relevant. Another search term popped out of the first article: reduced carbon-footprint concrete.

The girls eventually found a connection between what makes concrete absorb CO2 and what could be added to ink. It took persistence. They changed their idea to carbon sequestering paint, since that covers more surface area.

See if you can find the compound or chemical that may be added to paint to suck CO2 out of the air.

Search Challenge 002

A very popular search challenge is the Kermit Challenge.

I'd rate this a novice challenge and a good one to introduce elementary level students to search strategy, search engines, keywords, snippets and urls.

When it was first created, we posted a time to beat of 10 minutes. The only thing that would ever take this long is an inability to describe in words what is in the picture. If someone failed to use the character's name, that could slow down the search.

 Today I lowered the time to beat to 5 minutes. It takes less than a minute if you know what you are looking for.

Search Strategy 
Start by asking, "what am I looking for?" The directions call for finding a URL of a matching picture of Kermit, a URL where Kermit can be heard talking. If students don't know what a URL is, this is a good opportunity to point to one. No need to define it, just call it the address where a page on the Internet lives. Show a URL.

Keywords 
Also part of the search strategy is, "what words do I already know that I could use to find the matching picture?" The most important is given in the directions: Kermit. This is a proper noun and as such, has a very specific meaning. We want to use words that have specific meanings--if we can--when looking for information on the Internet. Other words need to come from the picture. "What do you see in the picture?" Describe it. "What is Kermit wearing?" "At what kind of an event would you wear clothes like that?"

Search Engines 
Search engines use Keywords to find matching information. The engine used here is Yahoo. Students should know that there is more than one search engine (Google). You can put any combination of words in a search engine, but it's best to use just a few. The order of the words doesn't really matter. Like most searches today, this one does not require any Boolean operators, but I'd leave that topic for older grades.

Snippets 
Search engines return matches to your keywords on a page as snippets, shortened sections of text that include the URL of the page where matching words were found, maybe the date the page was last updated, some text from the page so you can see how the words are used, a link to the page and some other information that can be topics for older grades (cached, similar). Snippets are REALLY important in finding information that matches the keywords. The search engine just finds the words, you have to determine if the way the words are used makes sense. The top result may not be the best one. Snippets may also (often) contain better words than the ones you started with. Maybe the words commencement or graduation show up. That's where people wear caps and gowns. Those words could be put in a new query such as KERMIT GRADUATION.

URL 
A little more about URLS could be introduced, such as the parts of a URL and what they tell us. In this case, the answer has the name of the organization that owns the information and the names of several folders where that information is stored: first, a news folder. Inside the news folder is another folder called 'commence' and in that folder is another one labeled '1996.' Finally in that folder is the page that matches the challenge. This page is an .htm page which stands for the kind of file it is, a pretty common information file on the Internet.

Planting the seeds that information can be organized (structured) in folders is a good computational mindset to introduce. A discussion about how to organize information (one big pile, separate piles without names, all laid out in a row, etc.) might help students think about the fastest ways to find something and what works best on computers.

 Try the Challenge. Don't miss the opportunity for learning. What other lessons can you squeeze out of this experience?

2018 Update: The Kermit Challenge became quite a bit more difficult with Long Island University absorbed Southampton College and took down the latter's Website. The answer page has been updated accordingly.

Seeing the Not So Obvious

I love this sign. I first came across it yesterday as I was trying to find a Prezi on 'achieving information fluency' I thought I had uploaded. Here's the file I was trying to find, but in the process I searched Prezi for the title and found this instead. If imitation is flattery, I'm pleased to see our Model of Digital Information Fluency being replicated on the Web, albeit a bit deconstructed and the source not cited (tsk, tsk, tsk)*.

But back to the picture. It seems an appropriate metaphor for the type of skimming that untrained searchers do. Notice I didn't say 'students.'

Almost any Web page has information clues that may be valuable, but go overlooked because something else obscured the clues or made the information seem irrelevant. That's the message of the sign. If you can't read it, the small print at the bottom says "Also the bridge is out ahead."

Elsewhere I've likened this carelessness to prospecting for gold and leaving nuggets lying on the ground in plain sight.

Whether it's information about ownership or authorship, freshness, structure, purpose, accuracy, bias, etc., there are clues to be found.

Starting to see the not-so-obvious is sure to involve the following:

• read with purpose - does the information match expectations or the reason you clicked on the page?
• slow down - sifting through mountains of details is something that would seem to take speed, but it may take longer because of overlooked information;
• don't let the obvious stuff distract you, stay on track (n.b. - there is a counter-argument that I subscribe to when the purpose is creativity and inventiveness (in that case distractions may help);

If you have a fourth point to add to this list, I'm open to it. Comments please.

Here's a Challenge to test that hypothesis. Try the Broadway Challenge: Find the URL of a site that lists the number of shows to open on Broadway since (and including) 1984.


Google some keywords (e.g., Broadway shows 1984) and skim the first page of results. The answer is there. Do you see it?  What clues give it away?

This Challenge used to be a lot harder when it was first created. Back then you had to find a database of Broadway shows. That's no longer necessary.

* As for the origin of the sign, of which there are many copies online, any clues?

Question of the Day

Another curiosity for which I'm sure there's a good answer--but how would you search for it?

We've seen pictures of the workers at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear plant who wear protective gear while on the job. While radiation levels are extremely high, this specialized clothing and other articles do afford some protection.

But how do they remove their protective layers--which are surely hot with radiation--without contaminating themselves during the removal process?

Removing Protective Gear at the San Onofre Nuclear Generator

Is it the same process as shown above? Wouldn't that be the most hazardous part of the Fukushima job?

Try this search. How do they remove those garments? What keywords do you need?

Earthquake Challenge

The tragedies in Japan triggered by the earthquake last Friday may have been much worse if national preparedness for such events was not a way of life in that country.

Effective building construction and earthquake drills put many people in better circumstances than they would have otherwise experienced. While the death toll continues to rise and our thoughts go out to the people affected, we can also learn from this how better to be prepared ourselves.

Several years ago we created an Earthquake Challenge to test searchers' abilities to select the best keywords for finding this information:

Which toy demonstrates a construction principle that can reduce damage from an earthquake?

It's not a very difficult challenge since all the information needed is in the question

So what happens if you query the question "as is" (not eliminating any words)? The first two returns in Google are from Answer.com. Interestingly, a lot of Internet Search Challenge questions have been posted in Answers.com. Like most of them, the answer to this challenge is incorrect (sorry, Legos is not the name of the toy).
The next result is the original article I wrote introducing the Earthquake Challenge. It also does not contain the solution.

Down the page is a link to a patent page for a device that is "an object protection system." The page references a trampoline toy that is "a prior art." Patents have to disclose artifacts that may be considered similar to new inventions. This is not the answer.

Another result, this one from Blurtit.com quotes the question verbatim and provides another incorrect answer: "Toys can be perfectly used as models that can reduce damage from earthquake." Too general.
Life123.com has the same incorrect answer to the question as Answers.com. Makes you wonder where Life123.com gets their information.

What's going on?

With improvements to search engines I thought it would become easier and easier to locate a correct answer without having to decide which keywords to use. This is not yet the case.

Not until you start to eliminate extraneous keywords will the result start to show up.

If you are looking for an information fluency challenge that ties in with recent news, the earthquake challenge offers both. You can make the following points:

• it is possible, using the right construction principles, to prevent damage from earthquakes;
• just because you can find an answer to the question online doesn't mean the answer is correct (it takes fact-checking);
• choosing a limited number of keywords rather than querying a whole question is a more powerful way to search;
• if you use this challenge in a science class, you could explore why the principles seen modeled in the toy are effective in reducing damage caused by earthquake forces.

While I'm not the one responsible for the wrong answers that are posted online, I ask that you don't fix these. It makes a much better lesson with inaccurate information floating in the stream.

P.S. I changed the wording of the question today, so the challenge you see online differs from the question shown above.

Looking in the Wrong Place and the Power of Words

When Google introduced background images for its search page, I was an early adopter. I selected an image of a landscape that I found particularly pleasing (see below).

Whenever I went to Google to search--which is often--I'd see this image. My interest grew. Where is this city?

Trying to get information about the image wasn't successful. Using view page source, I found the image file but it is not descriptive, just a bunch of letters and numbers. I searched in vain for descriptive information. Nothing worked--though this is a challenge you might like to try.

I've traveled Alaska coastal waters and this looked like it could be from that part of the world. Searches for Alaska port cities were not fruitful. I even resorted to looking at the coastline using Google Maps, looking for landforms that matched. That was similar to finding a particular puzzle piece.

Then a different shot of the town showed up in an L.L. Bean commercial on TV. Same landforms. Now I was really curious. This gave me a new set of keywords.

It wasn't until my son-in-law commented on the commercial--he was also interested in determining the mystery location--that he heard the city was in New Zealand. I'd been looking in the wrong part of the world.

That was the clue I needed. New Zealand LL Bean commercial was finally effective in determining the city. With the name of the city, I used Google Maps and confirmed that the missing puzzle piece was found: parallel peninsulas.

I'd be curious to know what other searches you might use to find the name of the town, if you didn't know the location was in New Zealand (which is a powerful keyword).

How high? The San Jacinto Challenge

On my trip to the Palm Springs area--love the desert--I learned that, due to seismic activity in the area, many of the peaks surrounding the Coachella Valley are continuously being pushed up.

That means many of the posted elevations are inaccurate.

Thinking that could make a good search challenge for freshness, I searched for information on what I read was the second tallest peak in Southern California.  Turns out there's disagreement regarding that and, not surprisingly, the same peak is listed with several different elevations.  It kinda presses home the point that, according to some, the area is in a state of upheaval.

So here's the challenge for you or your students:

What is the elevation of San Jacinto Peak? Is Wikipedia currently right or wrong? How can you tell? (what information do you need in order to verify the accuracy of the information?)

Post your answer to the challenge. How did you determine the answer is accurate?

Earthquake Challenge

I'm in the Palm Springs area for a few days. From the condo I can see the San Andreas Fault--tortured hillocks going up the valley from the Salton Sea.

This is an active earthquake zone. According to a sign I read today at an overlook in Joshua Tree National Park, the earth is sliding 3 inches a year to the southeast on the north side of the fault. It's going the other direction on the south side where I'm staying.

This morning I thought I felt a slight tremor. Doing a little research I discovered that there have been 87 seismic events in Southern California in the last week. One of these occurred Tuesday, March 02, 2010 at 06:02 AM--about the time I wondered if that gentle shaking was an earthquake.

Here's the challenge: What was the intensity of that event? What was the ID number? (every event has an ID). How did you find it?

Brainwave Challenge

A former colleague sent me an article on the neurological benefits of Internet searching that he thought I would find interesting.

I did, but for an unintended reason. It's not only good research to ponder, it's a search challenge.

Here's the link to the article, Exercise Your Brain Online. The second paragraph clearly states that the information is gleaned from a study of brain activity. What's not clear is who performed the study and that this is not a new study.  Only when you go in search of the original report do you find the research, the researcher and the fact that it is already a couple years old.

This is the type of challenge that often trips up students. They find only part of the information they need.

Here's the challenge: find the rest of the information--locate the original article, author(s) and date of publication.

Challenge #2: how would you cite it?


Leave your findings in the comments. But also take time to read the findings and use the information to make a case why information fluency is not just a 21st Century skill--it's good for the brain.

Blue Moons

If you live in the Western Hemisphere, New Years Eve was a blue moon. (Readers in the Eastern Hemisphere still have a month before their blue moon occurs.)

Lots of news sources (example) acknowledged the blue moon, citing that it is 'blue' because it is the second full moon of the month. There's no doubt this is a very popular answer, but its trendiness doesn't mean it is completely accurate. Blue moons have occurred on the 20th day of a month.

Fact: it takes the moon 29.5 days to go from full to full. Hmmm. There's no way a second full moon can happen in 20 days. What's going on?

The modern definition of blue moon is the result of an interpretive mistake, one made long before the Internet made the transmission of such errors immediate and widespread. The challenge is to use the Internet to track down the name of the individual who reinterpreted the definition and the year it happened.

This is a good example of how erroneous information, when picked up by a reputable source, becomes entrenched.

Good hunting!

Santa Challenge

If you are looking for a quick challenge to involve middle schoolers or high schoolers in a keyword search with browsing and evaluation, have them identify:

1. The name of the airline that did this
2. Whether this information is accurate (is it real or photoshopped?)

Don't necessarily take the url as the answer (I chose this location of the photo on purpose).

This activity will likely lead to a Web 2.0 search (blogs), where clues can be found. You will find that people disagree about the credibility of the photo; whether the information is trustworthy is debatable. I'd have the students discuss why or why not they think the photo is real or fake. What do they use as the basis for their decision?

Bias Literacy: Pick the Low-Lying Fruit

We all grow up in a world of bias. It's so much a part of our everyday experience that it's easy to overlook. The troublesome thing is not to recognize or discern it. The disturbing thing, as some have observed, is that the digital generation treats all information as pretty much equal. When it comes to evaluating online information, it's treated as if it's all good.

Back in the analog age, when I was a kid, things were different. I'm not saying this was preferable, but it was obvious to me that there were points of view that were just plain wrong. With education and experience, one starts to see some good even in opposing points of view. But that's not the same as treating all information as equal.

I believe most educators feel it is important for students to learn to identify an author's point of view. Doing this in the context of teaching digital information fluency is one approach, although I think language arts or social studies is a better context. For me, this is an opportunity to integrate online search experiences within standard courses. Students will learn something about information fluency while focusing on authorship and point of view, instruction that naturally fits in language arts and social studies.

Rather than rely solely on textbooks (e.g., book reports) to have students describe point of view (aka bias), I'd bring in blogs and online editorials. Textbooks and reference books are probably the hardest places to detect bias. Works of non-fiction and fiction are respectfully easier. But the real low-lying fruit is the common daily blog post. It's an unparalleled opportunity to see bias up close.

I'll limit myself to one example for now. Let's say you are studying a current event; something students might find interesting like 'climate change'. To make the point that there are different points of view on this subject, you could select (in advance) several blogs written about climate change. Have the students read them, and from the keywords used, identify the author's bias (single point of view) or objectivity (multiple, even opposing points of view). Compare the views. Are they all the same? How are they different? Are they all correct? What makes one better than another? Should everything be believed as written? Why or why not?

Here are three blogs on climate change. I've started to unpack the first one in terms of the keywords and phrases used. The challenge is to do the same with the other blogs.

1- 56 Chicken Little newspapers on climate change 

Keywords and phrases highlighted from just one paragraph may be used to detect bias: "Today, the eco-herd of papers published a collective editorial whipping up hysteria over the issue in the face of massive data manipulation, suppression, and bullying of dissenters." Whether the author considers herself among the dissenters may take more reading and online searching; she's clearly opposed to the position taken by the newspapers.

2- U.S. Unions Join Climate Change Talks in Copenhagen

3- The Climate-Change Travesty

In addition to differences in specific keywords that take a position, each blog also may be analyzed for its tone. Helping students to pay attention to keywords (and phrases) and tone is a positive step toward information fluency.

This activity may be suitable for upper middle school and high schoolers.

Relevance: An Easy Search, Unpacked

I don't speak Spanish, but can usually figure out the meaning of traveler's information printed in a couple of languages. My insufficiency became evident when searching online for information on La Posada, a Mexican Christmas tradition.

I wanted to know if there was traditional music for this Mexican celebration. I think I would have found it right away if there weren't other meanings and spellings for 'la posada.'

Let me unpack this search. I find it helpful to deconstruct search experiences to see what works and why.

I started with what I (thought I) knew: the name of the event is La Posada. I remember producing a musical a number of years ago with this title, so figured it would make good keywords.

My first query was: la posada
I tend to favor sparse queries, since every word creates constraints that may result in unexpected results.

Scanning the first page of results, it became apparent that la posada has other meanings. I ended up with a page of hotels, retirement communities, bungalows and lounges located mostly in the southwest and Texas.

Armed with this information, I knew I needed to add something specifically about music or Christmas to the query, so next I tried: la posada music. I hoped this combination would be unique to the activity I was looking for.

Now the results were relevant. There were enough keywords in the snippets related to my topic to make me think I was on the right trail: song, carols, lyrics, young children... These are keywords I think should be associated with the event.

Not only did I find a traditional song for La Posada, the results also provided a clue: there is another way to spell la posada: las posadas. I didn't need that to find the music, but it could have come in handy.

Thinking about the skills needed for this search, here are a few observations:

1. You have to start with what you know or what you're given
2. It's OK to start simple (my two word query)
3. You have to read and interpret search results to determine if your simple query was effective. That requires enough knowledge to know whether information is relevant or not. I suspect this could be a very deep rabbit hole to go down, since (to me) relevance depends on language skills and the making of meaning. With sufficient experience, however, most of us are able to tell that information about hotels and restaurants does not match information about a traditional Mexican Christmas practice.
   
4. You have to know associated keywords to tell if you are on the right track. I uncovered a lot of synonyms for music and those signaled to me I was getting close.

Working with younger students, I would use this search to give them an authentic experience to think about words they encounter in snippets that tell them they are getting warmer or colder. A simple question may be all it takes when looking at snippets: "How can we tell if we are getting warmer (closer) or colder?" Or, "what words do you see that show you are getting warmer or colder?"  Have the students name the keywords.

This may seem so elementary and resemble a language arts lesson rather than a search lesson. In fact, better searching could be a secondary goal.

Telling if results are relevant or not can be difficult. What if you encounter a bunch of words you don't know? Sometimes these turn out to be better keywords than you started with, but it's similar to using a foreign language. Taking time to look closely at all the keywords in snippets really can help you search better.

By the way, a single word search for 'posada' is even more interesting. Try this with students and see what they think is relevant.

Sesame Street Challenge

As you probably know, Sesame Street is 40 years old. Here's a challenge to test your ability to find reference information about the show.

On what show did Ernie trick Bert into saying, "I ate the sandbox?" Provide the number of the show.

Before you start, think about a search strategy. There's lots to think about here:

• What keywords are provided?
• What keywords are good as is?
• How important is that phrase?
  
• What words are not needed?
• What words may be needed that aren't given? (this is always the hardest part of the strategy and may rely on seeing results first).
• Who might know the answer (where would an expert put the information)?
• How do I get close enough to "home in" on the information?
• How can I check the credibility of the answer?

Thinking about how to search is often lost in the activity of searching. Everyone makes choices about terms, operators and where to look. What choices are you making?

Find the Sculpture

I'm taking a few days off from work after cataract surgery.

While trying out some glasses for reading--my distance vision was 20/20 the day after the surgery!--I came across some interesting finds. One of them is this magnetic sculpture:




Warning: some sites that have embedded this video may contain objectionable material for school-aged children.

There's no explanation on the site above about the sculpture, how it works, who created it or where the video was filmed or if this thing exists at all. That's the challenge: let's say you'd like to know where you can see this sculpture for yourself. Where is it located?

Use your search skills to track down the geographic location of this apparent marvel.

Challenge level: Easy.

Once you located the hyponym* keyword, you'll find more videos!

* in this case, it's the scientific term for the material used in the sculpture.

Basic vs Advanced Searching

You probably don't use advanced search options very often.

You're not alone. Advanced searchers--such as the members of the search group at Google--use just the basic search functions more than 95% of the time. In practice, no more than 1 search in 20 requires special or Boolean operators other than AND, which is nothing more than using the space key.

You might expect that very experienced searchers would use specialized search tools more than that. Knowing how to use special operators is only a small part of becoming a search expert.

After leading search strategy workshops for a couple of years, I came to realize how little I depended on anything other than good keywords. Boolean operators (except for AND) are not needed most of the time. In fact, unless you really know how to use them, they either limit your search in ways you don't want or yield results you don't expect.

So the first point is that you really don't need to use them. This goes for "", OR, NOT, inurl: and a host of others. Concentrate on the quality of your keywords; that's what does the heavy lifting.

The second point is to know when you really do need an operator. My advice is never to use double quotes ("") around a phrase unless you know for certain that is the exact string you need to query. "Carl Heine" will return all the references to my name, but won't return any occurences of Heine, Carl (which is just as likely) or Carl A. Heine which includes my middle initial. Quotes is a good device for cutting down on the number of keywords in a longer query, for example: bison statistics 2008 "North America" (when you are confident that North America will be included in the information you want).

The OR operator is helpful when you want to cut down on the length of a query and believe there are multiple terms (usually rival nouns or adjectives) that might be in the information. For example: bison statistics OR population OR research 2008 "North America" That's still a four term query.

If you've discovered a time when NOT was essential to a search, let me know. Most of the time it eliminates results that may be valuable without giving you a chance to see them.

I don't believe I've ever needed to use inurl:, intitle: or any of the other in_: operators to find information. Keywords get the job done quite nicely.

Can you be an expert searcher without knowing operators? Over 95% of time, yes.

The real advanced part of being an expert searcher relies on the ability to use words sparingly and recognize words that are more powerful than others in the context being searched. That takes quite a bit of experience using words and predicting how they may be used in the type of search being conducted. For most children that presents a real challenge. They will need help while their linguistic skills mature.

Read the comments for more...

Ready, Set, Search

When are children ready to search?

I didn't think much about information fluency when my children were younger. They're all married now and my grand kids are too young to be online, so I can't try searching with them yet.

My guess is that until children develop the capacity for concrete operations, they will be unable to understand, let alone use, effective techniques for searching.

So if the lead question I posed means 'at what age are children able to use effective search tactics to find information online,' I suppose we're looking at sometime between 7 and 12 years of age, depending on the child. Those are the classic years for the onset of concrete operations, described by Piaget.

Keyword searching requires the ability to think in an organized, logical fashion:

• to perform multiple classification tasks
• to order objects in a logical sequence
• to be able to think in terms of categorical labels such as "number" or "animal"
• to sort unlike objects into logical groups
  

If you think about it, searchers not only have to know a lot of words, they have to be able to sort them. Good searchers are able to take a word like "Buffalo" and know that it belongs to the more general grouping of "Animal." It also belongs to "Mammal" (a more specific type of animal). Most adolescents can think this way. What few know is that there's a term for a more specific word: hyponym. Hypernyms, on the other hand, are terms higher up (i.e., more general) on the classification typology. Typically, an effective search needs to move toward increasingly specific hyponyms. In the case of the Bison example I cite frequently, word swapping goes something like this: animal > buffalo > (ungulate) > bison.

A small fraction of students--even those in middle school and high school (stage of formal operations)--look for alternate terms or try to swap their way toward hyponyms. They CAN do it; they just don't. Younger children, prior to concrete operations would be hard pressed to accomplish this. Older students need to be taught to use this skill; young students need first to develop.

This doesn't mean that younger students should not be introduced to searching and search engines. They can be given effective queries to start with. At some point, however, they should be taught to look for more specific terms and try swapping those in queries.

Below are a pair of ineffective queries. What would you do to improve them? How would you encourage the children or teens with whom you work to improve them?

1. (Easier. First the question: What type of money was hoarded by Norsemen?) The query: money hoarded Norsemen

2. (Harder. First the question: What fish other than Piranhas is a threat to humans in the Amazon?) The query: fish threat humans Amazon

Solving these challenges without searching can be difficult. It's easier by trying the queries and looking at the results, keeping an eye open for better keywords. The challenge for younger searchers is: how do they recognize better--more specific--words? The challenge for older students is: how can you get them to swap their words?