Unit 7: Information Literacy and Internet Search

Internet search skills are crucial. The internet is such a vast rich ‘space’ that the ability to filter the information is essential. A normal search is fine but to really control the search process you also need to know how to use the advanced search features. For example if you want to find only Open Education Resources then you can filter using the ‘usage rights’ filter.

Once you have some search results what should you make of the internet sites you have? That’s when it is important to be able to evaluate them. The evaluation template we used in this lesson identifies four main criteria:

• Currency (Up to date?)
• Credible (Fact vs Opinion?)
• Accurate / Reliable (Are the providers an authority?)
• Design (easy to use, read or view, attractive?)

The skills in Unit 7 need to be mastered as you will use them over and over again and also need to train your students to master them too.