November 2007

Teaching the skills to effectively search the web is a challenging task. It can be difficult to pitch the training to suit the variety of skills and experience of the audience.

Leading web search trainer, Greg Notess, has published a useful book on “Teaching Web Search Skills” that shares some very helpful points for trainers.

His simple categories of novices, know-it-alls and experienced users, and useful tips on how to train each category are a very useful foundation for tailoring training sessions to suit the experience of the audience.

Greg Notess shares his considerable experience and practical approach to training, along with the ideas and anecdotes of eleven other leading trainers that have taught web searching to secondary and tertiary students, information professionals, public and corporate library patrons.

Reading “Teaching Web Search Skills” is like being in a room with leading trainers, as they talk about how to plan, structure, and deliver web search training sessions to suit the needs of a challenging audience. Each chapter is rich with examples of training tips and helpful stories from the experienced trainers. Particularly helpful is an appendix of sample training material handouts used by various trainers.

Content on web search features, such as boolean searching and primary concepts are also covered in detail. As a trainer that has always included tips on research strategy, it was very interesting to see how other experienced trainers cover the research process.

There are some really nice “tales from the trenches” on using anecdotes, examples and exercises to keep your training fresh, spontaneous and apt to the age and make up of the audience.

Teaching web search skills: techniques and strategies of top trainers (Notess, Information Today, 2006)