Internet Searching Strategies for School Library Media Centers
Syllabus for CSUS CCE 219Q Summer 2007
Not an official website of CSUS, nor the College of Continuing Education.
For classroom, independent study and informational purposes only.
Last updated 14May2007

Location:

Napa Hall, Room 1800
3000 State University Drive East
Sacramento, CA 95819-6103
 

Parking next to building. Check at front desk for parking pass if required.

Dates:

Classroom sessions (NAPA Hall sessions are in black)
  • Friday, June 22nd, 5:00 -8-30PM
  • Saturday, June 23rd, 9am - 3pm
  • Friday, June 29th 5:00 -8-30PM
  • Saturday, June 30th 9am - 4pm
  • Friday, July 6th 5:00 -8-30PM
  • Saturday, July 7th 9am - 4pm
Online/Independent Study sessions (OLIS) [no actual classroom sessions]
Class party is offsite: check your email for details from WC, et al

Instructor(s):

Wes Doak has a master's of library and information science and has been a CEO in private industry, state librarian, media lab director and college instructor. He currently serves as a technology consultant to various California organizations. Mr. doak has worked in and with many types of libraries, both school and public, in Massachusetts, California, Oregon, Hawaii and elsewhere. Mr. Doak is usually available via email at wesdoak@gmail.com. I also maintain a blog for this class and a delicious bookmark site. I'll be updating all four of these sites during my classes this Summer.

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

From CSUS CE website: Introduces effective search strategies for finding information in a variety of electronic resources including the Internet. Participants will use and evaluate a wide range of search tools in a hands-on setting and learn to select the best tool for a specific information need. The evaluation and use of Internet resources in the library media center is also discussed. (EDTE 219Q / 2 units)

From Textbook: This course provides the framework for learning how to do research on the Internet and the World Wide Web. It is designed to help people first learning about the Internet and the Web as well as those with more online experience. The main topics of the course are formulating search strategies and understanding how to form search expressions in various types of search tools. Also covered in detail is how to critically evaluate what is found and how to cite Internet and Web resources correctly. The course requires the student to go through the hands-on activities and perform the exercises and projects provided in the textbook.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

TEXT:

Hartman, Karen, and Ernest Ackermann, Searching and Researching on the Internet and the World Wide Web, Fourth Edition, Franklin, Beedle & Associates, 2004. Textbook will NOT be available on the first night of NAPA Hall classroom sessions NOR through the CSUS bookstore. I recommend using Amazon, Borders, B&N or any other bookseller of your choice.

OLIS Assignments:

"Virtual Field Trip" #1. Your report, verbal and written, (which will be heard Saturday morning July 7th) will be in lieu of a mid-term examination and will count as ~25% of your grade in this class. NOTE: this is to be a 2-3 page written report with not more than 6 homepages attached. The purpose of the exercise is to show that you've discovered and can use several new methods of getting to web resources. Pick your topic of inquiry then write the paper including the following elements:
  • Topic selected and why
  • Search tools used to find resources (list actual tools used, i.e. Librarians Index to the Internet)
  • Search engines
  • Virtual libraries
  • Mega Search engines
  • Directories
  • Etc.
  • Relative merits of each tool used for your particular inquiry
  • Results of your inquiry
  • Attachments (up to 6 homepages from pages discovered)
  • Be sure to provide your name and a mailing address if you want the paper returned.
"Virtual Field Trip #2: Find an article, from any source in any medium, which covers the topic of evaluating websites. Select the best article you can find then write a paper (2-3 pages at most) including the following elements:
  • Article selected and why
  • Selection tool(s) used to find resources (list actual tools used, i.e. Librarians Index to the Internet)
  • Relative merits of each tool used for your particular inquiry
  • Results of your inquiry...what did you learn from the article....
  • Attachments (up to 3 pages from pages discovered)
  • Be sure to provide your name and a mailing address if you want the paper returned.
  • VFT#2 may also be heard on Saturday, July 7th, if time permits and if there is interest....

EVALUATION: Your final grade in this course will be based on the following:

A NOTE ABOUT GRADES: This class is based upon the concept of "teaching to an A". That means one can expect to receive an A if one attends class, participates in class and completes the virtual field trips [VFT] at a graduate school level of competence, and does well on the final examination. Anything less will result in a lower than A grade, excecptional work could result in an A+. I will read every single VFT and grade the final exams.
 
COURSE SCHEDULE

Date

Topic/ Activity

June 22nd, Evening
Introduction to the course, and student introductions.
Review of Chapters 1,2 &3 in the textbook
Information on grading, virtual field trips and final exam.
Discussion of extras 1 and 2 on this website.

Review the Librarian's Index to the Internet and Gary Price's ResourceShelf and SBC's, now AT&T's Blue Web'N.
June 23rd,
Morning

Using the World Wide Web for Research and/or some excellent resources for choosing and comparing blog search engines.

Read Chapter 3 and do selected Activities and Exercises as a group.
June 23rd,
Afternoon

A Researchers Toolkit: Directories and Virtual Libraries, and/or some great materials about using the Google search engine from InfoPeople courtesy of federal funding via the California State Library.

Read Chapter 4 and do selected Activities and Exercises as a group.
June 29th
Evening

Search Strategies for Search Engines

Read Chapter 5 and do selected Activities and Exercises on your own.
June 30th
Morning

Specialized Databases

Read Chapter 6 and do selected Activities and Exercises on your own.
June 30th
Afternoon

Searching for News and Multimedia

Read Chapter 7 and do selected Activities and Exercises on your own.
July 6th
Evening

Searching Library Catalogs

Read Chapter 8 and do selected Activities and Exercises on your own.
July 7th
Morning

1. Questions from textbook readings and VFT preparation. Note: some answers may need to be researched and placed on an addendum to this website. We try to do this each year anyway]
2. Reports from the "Front" OLIS/VFT 1 & 2 reports
3. Evaluating Information Found on the WWW

Review Chapter 11 together, and do selected Activities and Exercises as a group.

Discussion of Chapter 12 along with VFT #2 which is on the same subject.

July 7th
Afternoon
1. Citing Web and Internet Resources
2. Webslinging 101 [only if Mr. Doak is back from India]. We'll also take a look at pages.google.com as an alternative to WYSIWYG software....
3. Final Examination

Review Chapter 12 together and do selected Activities and Exercises as a group.

EXTRA #1.

Some of my fav and/or unusual WWW search engines include (newer items in boldface):

 

  

Some of my fav and/or unusual Blog search engines include:
 

EXTRA #2. Some of my favorite personalized search engines include:

 

This is a fast growing aspect of the WWW and I believe Library Media Teachers should know lots about these resources. "Googling" "personalized search engines" will bring up more interesting aspects of this trend.

 
 
 
EXTRA #3. Some little known aspects of using google.com, and related materials.
 

Here are a few often overlooked resources to get started:

 

Think about your search string. Try this example form InfoPeople's workshop:

 

Perform each of the following searches. make a note about the number of results retreived and what the top results are about.

 

grass snake

Number of hits and the nature of those hits

 
 

snake grass

Number of hits and the nature of those hits

 
 

snake in the grass

Number of hits and the nature of those hits

 
 

What did you learn from this exercise?

 

Here are some additional and little-known features of Google:

What? You thought I was going to tell you how to do these simplified searches! No, that is one of tonight's exercises. Enjoy
 

 (c) 2003/4/5/6/7 Wesley A. Doak and Mouse Magic, Advanced Resources and Technologies