30 Ways To Use Google Search For Critical Thinking In The Classroom

by TeachThought Staff

As the search engine that’s become its own verb, Google’s success is difficult to frame.

One of the most telling examples of their gravity in search is how few legitimate competitors they have. (Some would say they have none.) But cataloguing and indexing humanity’s digital wares isn’t easy, especially with an entire cottage industry trying to sabotage the integrity of a search for their own personal gain.

That leaves education in a sticky place. On one side we have a billion students chomping at the bit for the very information Google provides the pathway to, and on the other side we have a heaving, chaotic digital mass teaming with digital media, social media, and 10,000 new blogs per day.

To provide students with unchecked access to the internet (via Google) creates a sink-or-swim scenario that no longer works in education. To provide too much scaffolding de-authenticates not only the information retrieval process, but ultimately reduces capacity in the students’ digital literacy.

The secret, then, is to let them play with digital media. Self-direct through the impossibly complex—and impossibly personal—process of knowing what you’re looking for and trying to find it. Or not being quite sure what you’re looking for, but sifting, skimming, and scrolling through it all anyway.

So below are 30 innovative ways to use Google search in the classroom. And rather than gimmicks, or general ways by typical content areas, the intended outcome here is the students’ sustained ability to self-direct and manage the search process as the digital universe continues to evolve and grow.

30 Ways To Use Google Search In The Classroom

To build search literacy in 21st-century learners, consider having students: