UNIT 3: SEARCHING FOR INFORMATION ONLINE
Module
Introduction
Timing/duration
Target audience
Prerequisite
skills/knowledge
Unit objectives/expected
outcomes
Pre-workshop activities
Resources included with
unit
Additional trainer
resources
Equipment needed
Information literacy for policy makers and influencers
Introduction to internet and world wide web; search tools
and techniques
0.5 day
Policy makers and influencers
None
Understand what the internet is and what the world wide
web is; be aware of different types of search engines; be
able to carry out searchers (including using Boolean
terms, truncation, parenthesis etc.)
None
Presentation_Internet searching; Handout 1_Internet
searching; Handout 2_Internet searching; Summary
handout_Internet searching
None
Computer and projector, Flipchart paper and pens,
computer lab (session 4 only)
Comments
FACILITATOR NOTES
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Points in this script indicate things you should tell the audience. You can express
them in your own words.
Points in this script are facilitation instruction - for example, they might indicate how to run a
group discussion or brainstorming session.
SESSION 1 ‘INTRODUCTION TO THE INTERNET’: 1 HOURS, 15
MINUTES
Slide 1 (5 mins)
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Ask participants if they know what the difference is between the internet and the world wide
web?
Many people use the terms Internet and World Wide Web (aka. the Web)
interchangeably, but in fact the two terms are not synonymous. The Internet and
the Web are two separate but related things.
The Internet is a Big Collection of Computers and Cables.
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The Web is a Big Collection of Web Pages on the Internet. The web uses a
particular language-HTML. However information on the internet can also use other
languages.
One way to think of it is that the Internet is a restaurant and the Web is the
most popular dish that people order there!
Ask participants what other things exist on the internet apart from the world wide web?
Answers include email, FTP or instant messaging
Slide 2 (3 mins)
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Run through points on slide
Slide 3 (2 mins)
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Run through points on slide (be sure to check that everyone understands because some of this
info is quite tricky!)
Slide 4 (5 mins)
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Run through points on slide
Ask participants to suggest other ‘rules for communication’. These could include advice like when you meet someone you ask how they are; when someone asks a question you reply; when
someone is talking to you, look at them etc.
Slide 5 (3 mins)
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Run through points on slide
Slide 6 (2 mins)
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Run through points on slide
Slide 7 (5 mins)
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Ask participants what they need in order to get connected to the internet. Hopefully they will
come up with some or all of: a computer, an ISP, a modem and software. As each thing is
suggested get the person suggesting it to explain what it is.
Slide 8 (3 mins)
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Go over points – hopefully you will have covered most points during previous slide so this is
just a recap
Slide 9 (2 mins)
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Run through points on slide
Ask them to guess what the top three countries according to number of internet users are in
Africa?
Slide 10 (2 mins)
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Reveal graph showing top ten African countries by internet use
Slide 11 (3 mins)
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Run through points on slide
Slide 12 (5 mins)
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Run through first two points
Ask participants to think of the types of information on the web (i.e. different types of
webpages)- use flipchart paper to make a list of all the types of webpage they can think of
Slide 13 (5 mins)
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Compare this list to the one you have created- did you miss anything?
Slide14-18 (5 mins)
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Run through slides explaining different types of search engine. At end of each slide ask
participants if they have used that type of search engine and if so what one(s) they have tried.
Slide 19 (5 mins)
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Group discussion- when should you use each of the different types of search engine?
Use flipchart to note advantages/disadvantages of each
Slide 20 (5 mins)
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Run through points on list- are they similar to those you put on the flipchart? Anything the
group had not thought of?
Slide 21 (10 mins)
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Quiz- ask them to write down the answers to the questions individually (5 mins)
Go through the questions as a group to see how everyone did.
Slide 22 (5 mins)
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Any questions?
SESSION 2 ‘SEARCH STRATEGIES’: 40 MINUTES
Slide 23 (2 mins)
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This session will help them to use the search engines you learnt about in the
previous session
Slide 24 (3 mins)
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These are the different types of search strategies that we will be covering in this
session
Slide 25-33 (10 mins)
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Go through the slides getting people to stand up as indicated. Make a note of how many people
fit into each category. For example, how many are wearing a tie, how many have on black shoes
and then how many are wearing a tie AND black shoes. Do the same for OR and NOT. This
will help them to understand that AND and NOT decreases the number of results while OR
increases them
Slide 34 (3 mins)
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Ask what kind of search it would be if you just enter Cell phone? The answer is an AND search.
If you don’t use a Boolean term then the search engine will assume you mean AND
Slide 35 (2 mins)
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Go through points
Slide 36 (2 mins)
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The English language gives you many variations of the same word: dog and dogs,
give and giving. Many expressions are combination of several words: doghouse. You
may be looking for some of these combinations at the same time.
In most search engines and directories, a search for dog* will give you pages with
all words starting with the three letters dog, including dog, dogs, dogged, doggy
and dogma.
As you can see, if you were only looking for dog and dogs, you will be picking up
some unwanted hits. Truncation (or wildcards) works best when the stem is longer
and if the stem is not a root of many other common words.
Please note that a lot of search engines (including google) "stem" keywords, i.e.
they will automatically search for dog if you enter the keyword "dogs" and vice
versa.
Slide 37-39 (3 mins)
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Go through points on slide
Slide 40 (3 mins)
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Questions?
Slide 42 (3 mins)
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You can bookmark web pages in your web browser, so that you can go back and
visit them later without having to memorize the URL
Bookmarking is easier, faster, and neater than writing down all of the interesting
web pages you've visited lately. It's also better than printing out the web pages
because web pages change constantly. If you print off a page today, tomorrow it
might have changed. Now there are some cases where you NEED to print it out:
like when you're referencing it in a report it's always a good idea to print the page
you got your information from (for easy reference later, and as proof in case the
page isn't there or isn't the same in 6 weeks).
Bookmarking is fast and simple. Microsoft's Internet Explorer calls them
Favorites, but they're still the same thing. In Mozilla Firefox, you can use the
mouse to go up to the "Bookmarks" menu and choose "Add Bookmark". Internet
Explorer users will find the same thing under "Favorites"|"Add to Favorites...".
Going to your bookmarks is even easier. Just choose the title of the web page you
wish to re-visit from the Bookmarks or Favorites menu. It's THAT easy!
You can organise bookmarks (or favourites into folders).
Slide 43-44 (2 mins)
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Show how Google maps can be used (if you have internet connection in the seminar room it
would work better to do this live- get suggestions from participants where to search for!)
Slide 45-46 (3 mins)
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Show how Google translate can be used (again do this live if you can and ask for suggestions of
language and topic to search for)
Slide 47 (2 mins)
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Give a quick intro to wikis and Wikipedia
At the end of this session distribute Summary handout_Internet searching
SESSION 3 ‘SEARCH STRATEGY EXERCISE’: 30 MINUTES
N.b. there is no powerpoint presentation for this session
 Distribute Handout 1_Internet Searching
 Explain that for first few examples they need to decide which number(s) represent the search
mentioned in the title.
 Work through the first one (Ghana and elections) as a group to get the idea- the correct answer
is 1, 2 and 3
 Once everyone is finished go through the results as a group
SESSION 4 ‘INTERNET SEARCHING EXERCISE’: 2 HOURS
This session needs to be done in a computer lab. Ideally everyone should have their own
computer but it can also be done with two people per computer.
 Distribute Handout 2_Internet Searching and tell people that they can work through it at their
own pace.
 During the session make sure you go round to see how people are doing and provide assistance.
If possible it is useful to have more than one person to do this.
 At the end have a group discussion of what answers they found out AND how they found themwhat did they find most difficult? Were there any questions they could not answer?