When possible, provide more than one site to visit in case one vanishes by the time students receive your assignment in class. Discuss criteria to think about when evaluating web documents and sites. Consider having students look at more than one site on a topic and compare the quality of the information they find. Be aware that, as search engine advertisers become more crafty, students often cannot distinguish advertising from real information on a web page. Discuss the fact that some of what appears on a web search results page is targeted advertising based on the topic the student searched.
Students often look no further than the first ten items in their search results list.
Emphasize the importance of learning to search effectively so that results at the top of the list are truly relevant. They waste hours looking at unsuitable web sites, never really finding the information they need for your assignment. Surfing the net will teach students to search effectively. The Web is a huge and unorganized world. Bumbling around the net with no guidance is not the most effective way to locate information on a particular topic.