Information Forensics Goes to School

For the virtual class, I watched the 1 hour session, Information Forensics Goes to School.  It was a presentation at the 2009 NECC conference by Carle Heine and Dennis O'Connor.  The focus of their talk was about searching and how students go about it.  The idea that todays students search differently than we older folks do and that their approach is limited.  They don't have a natural knack for it.  It needs to be taught.  We as educators need to focus on teaching this skill and reinforcing that they need to think about not just one way to search.  For every one search term they come up with there are at least 4 more they are missing (synonyms).  While I thought that the lecture or presentation was interesting and the two were entertaining, they kept my attention the seminar should have been longer to really get into what the presenters were trying to say.  If you went to their web site though you got some really great resources.  They had tutorials, lesson plans and materials that can be used by educators in the classroom with students middle school age and up.  This was the most useful part of the presentation.  I will definitely use those resources with my students this fall when I return to work.  I teach a research class to the middle school and searching, authenticating and citing are always things students struggle with.  This was a great resource I will use and share with my colleagues.