The Village Green

3306 – How to be Search Engine Savvy – Patti Hayes – 6/21/07

Objectives:
• Define
• List top sites
• Filters/blocking
• Website evaluation
• Helping students search

Searching takes a long time.

Terms
• Metacrawlers – search other search engines
• Search engines – crawl the web to build/rebuild their database of results
• Subject directories – a list of sites collected and organized by people

Examples of each type were listed. I’ve added a couple to my collection of search engines, http://del.icio.us/mwoolums/search We also looked at a couple of student search sites. The PowerPoint for this session has an extensive list of student search sites. Some of these are definitely new to me. I enjoy collecting search engines.

Filters were discussed, with a link to a free filter that can be downloaded. Commercial filters were also listed in order of popularity. We looked at current Internet usage statistics. The numbers keep going up.

Students need to be shown how to search, scaffold the search with starting points, help them evaluate the information, keep it age appropriate.

Web evaluation checklist – ask questions:
• What can the URL tell you?
• Who wrote the page? Is there an institution or individual?
• Is it dated and current?
• Is the content authentic?
• Is there any integrity or is the content in conflict with ads?
• Can you identify the bias?
• Is this ironic or a spoof?
• If you have questions or reservations, how can you satisfy them?

We looked at the worksheet Patti uses with her kids. It is linked from the session entry for the conference. This worksheet gives kids some planning guides before they start searching, including listing key words they plan to use, a place to clarify the question or problem, and a place to list results. We were then given time to work through some of the lengthy list of links she provided on her PowerPoint.

This is really helpful information on searching and web evaluations.