Let's create a better online world for our students

[Dorit Eilon]

We are a group of educators who for the past 7 months did an extensive research about on-line research and the education world. According to studies most students have difficulty conducting an efficient on-line research and most do not understand how Google or other search engines work.

Students, well versed in IM and SN (Social Networking) stumble when they conduct on-line research.

Even with technology many teachers still use the web in isolation. Teachers find great links that... stay on their computer, on their own website or their own blog.

So a group of us, educators, would like things to change.
We dream of a search engine that is unique to the education community with searches that produce text, video, audio results at the same time, where both commercial and school created material is accessible and monitored (we have a whole plan), where the resources will be identified, contributed and monitored by educators in phase one and Middle School / High School students in phase two. A search engine that it's content will grow by the education community. and we want Google to be a part of it, to work with us to develop it and provide the technology.

Think of it as when a search engine-Ning and a wiki went on a date - - Fell in love - -kissed ...and the new tool was born (we still don't have a name for it...)

But, we need librarians, teachers and students to talk about the day-to-day difficulties of navigating the web. We need educators to speak up so we can show that there is a real need not just plain statistics.

If you feel the same way please take a vote and leave a comment to have your voice and opinion heard.

Please post your comments also on our blog blog as it is dedicated for this endeavor only. http://www.cangooglehearus.blogspot.com/


Together we can make a difference

[Sherri Foreman]

I haven't had the opportunities to have difficulties yet, but students using the internet for research is inevitable with the net generation and digital natives using these tools to research. I think finding a way to bring together the experiences of many student researchers and teacher required research topics with a gathering search engine to benefit and help others sounds interesting.

[Dorit Eilon]

Thanks Sherri for your post. We are very interested and truly welcome comments from librarians as we mainly receive comments from educators on our blog.