how good is google? rachel shankles, lms lakeside high school hot springs, ar
TRANSCRIPT
How Good is Google?
Rachel Shankles, LMS
Lakeside High School
Hot Springs, AR
Why Google?
• Google is not the be-all-and-end-all of super duper search engines
• Google is just a good search engine to use for educational research
• It is only as good as the knowledge of boolean logic of the user
• Yahoo and MSN are great for searching for .com sites to buy tickets, find all sorts of items to purchase
• Yahoo and MSN are directory type searches more so than keyword
• Ask Jeeves is one search engine that has natural language searching and is intended for youngsters not high school students
• I used to recommend Teoma but their advanced search is too complicated and the kids are very familiar with Google anyway
• Google advanced search meets school research needs—maybe not college---but high school needs
Google’s Better Points
• Can configure a floating Google search bar right under the address bar of your favored home page instead of making Google the home page
• This remains and allows instant searching anytime and anywhere on the web
• They click on the word Google to the left of the floating bar to bring up the Google home page to do advanced searching
• Teach students to go to “Advanced Search” on the right of search bar on the Google home page
• The blue box at the top is very important
• The top two lines need to be filled out carefully
• Top line says “Find Results---with all these words”
• The second line says “Find Results---with the exact phrase”
• In 2nd line put your proper noun keyword search phrase that you want found in exact order
• In top line then put the delimiters • These would be the subtopics in the
student’s outline of their research• These would be more specific instead
of searching just for anything about a broad subject in the 2nd line
• For instance: use The Battle of Bull Run in 2nd line and death count, location, survivors, or battle details in top line depending on what specific info the student needs
• Next and very important go down the page half way and find Domain
• If your school like mine limits use on research to .edu and .gov sites, this is where they place one of those extensions OR the other---not both
• It says you can use both, but it doesn’t work well using both so use one at a time
• They can figure out if ‘Mafia’ or most history info would be found more readily on .gov sites or if famous people or controversial issues would be found more on .edu sites to try one or other first
• Then just hit ‘enter’ and all results will be specific and in the correct domain
Things to Beware about Google• Remind them that they should never have to go to
second page of hits/results or use search button• If they do not find what they need on first page of
hits, they need to find other keywords to use in the first line of the advanced search
• Remember the computer doesn’t think; it is the user who has the brain
• Also remind them that Google is not perfect; they sell the first two hits/results on every search to businesses for a fee--- so they are bogus
• For instance: “You can buy a book on the subject of ‘fast food effects on growth’ at Books-a- Million.”
• Then look over their shoulder and insist they search properly
