Why don't students know how to type a web address?
Students were raised clicking apps that immediately load content, so they never learned what a website is or how to type a direct URL. They treat search engines as a mandatory middleman, leading to behaviors like typing "Google" into a Google search bar just to look up a definition. Because they cannot bypass this middleman, they struggle to navigate the internet when teachers block search engines to force them to type an exact .com address.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Blocking search engines on school networks to force students to type exact web addresses.Did this help you?
- 2Replacing laptops with physical dictionaries on desks to avoid dealing with computer illiteracy altogether.Did this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I told kids (high schoolers) that they could get a Chromebook to look up the definition of words in our reading. I then watched a student open up Google Chrome, type Google into the URL search bar, have Google pop up, type Google into the google search bar, and then click on the first link to Google to access Google to Google the definition of words from our reading.”source ↗
“My students are so computer illiterate. They don’t understand what a website is, or how to google something like you mentioned. I think they were raised with just having to click an App to be taken to whatever they wanted, and the content immediately loading.”source ↗
“I use GoGuardian to only allow a handful of websites, and Google is not one of them. So, to get to Gimkit for example, they have to type in the .com. It’s a lot of fun every year explaining that you can (and have to, in my class) skip the middleman by typing in the exact address you want and then still having a kid or two saying “Ms. retro Gimkit’s blocked” every time.”source ↗
Where this came up
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