Tuesday 3 May 2011

Search!

Until our most recent session, I was under the impression that google was the be all and end all of search engines, and this would have been where I sent my students. However, it appears there are a range of alternatives that would suit different educational purposes.

Which search engines and services would I use in the classroom?
  • SearchCloud: Allows several terms to be included in a search where each term can be given an importance ranking by changing the font size. Places search terms in a cloud showing relative importance of each term, great for visual learners and for student's to rank the importance of key words in their search.
  • Google: A great research starting point and useful to search websites only from Australia. When referring children to google, it is critical to teach them to look beyond the first few suggestions.
  • Tag Galaxy: A fantastic service that searches Flikr photos. An alternative to a google image search, I would send my student's here to find images related to a particular topic. Great graphics that would be engaging for student's, particularly visual learners. 
  • ZuiTube: Youtube for children, ZuiTube would be a great video search tool, minimising the risks of inappropriate content with youtube. Videos are a great tool for student's to get an overview of a topic and to share ideas with schools from around the country and the world.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Liz

    Thanks for this info, really helpful. Like you I only considered Google and now I can use your recommendations.

    Thanks :)

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  2. I agree - there are some good suggestions here! Remember, too, that with Google, it's worth pointing students towards the advanced features. Google is very good at learning from other search engines and services and nowadays it offers some really useful choices and functions under Advanced Search.

    ReplyDelete