Clive Thompson on Why Kids Can't Search | Wired Magazine. Illustration: Tymn Armstrong We’re often told that young people tend to be the most tech-savvy among us. But just how savvy are they? 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. But Pan pulled a trick: He changed the order of the results for some students. Other studies have found the same thing: High school and college students may be “digital natives,” but they’re wretched at searching. Who’s to blame? Consider the efforts of Frances Harris, librarian at the magnet University Laboratory High School in Urbana, Illinois.
But, crucially, she also trains students to assess the credibility of what they find online. Awesome Library. Fact Monster: Online Almanac, Dictionary, Encyclopedia, and Homework Help — FactMonster.com. For Kids: Safe Search using Google. Web : Redz.com. KidRex - Kid Safe Search Engine. CyberSleuth Kids.com :Student Homework Helper. KidsClick! Web Search. Teaching the Ten Steps to Better Web Research. SweetSearch4me.