15 Lesson Plans For Making Students Better Online Researchers Google is usually one of the first places students turn to when tasked with an assignment. Whether it’s for research, real-time results, or just a little digital exploration … it’s important they know how to properly Google. Lucky for teachers (and students, of course), Google has a handy set of lesson plans that are just waiting to be unleashed upon the leaders of tomorrow. While I understand there’s a LOT more to research than just Googling, it’s important to note that this is where nearly all students start their research. Therefore, it’s a critical skill if they’re going to start down the right paths. Below are 15 lesson plans courtesy of Google designed to make students better online researchers. Check out the useful Lesson Plan Map too to see how all these lessons fit together and what skills they teach. Beginner Level Pick the best words to use in academic searching, whether students are beginning with a full question or a topic of just a few words. Intermediate Level Advanced Level
Ten Steps to Better Web Research Last fall I published Beyond Google which examines fifteen tools and strategies for getting students to look beyond the first two pages of Google search results. This morning I found through Kevin Jarrett a great presentation that complements my ebook. Teaching the Ten Steps to Better Web Research is a Slideshare presentation created by Mark Moran and Shannon Firth at Dulcinea Media. The George Washington University Skloog.com - Visual bookmarking made easy 7 Google Search Techniques You Don’t Know Exist Google search is a powerful tool...sometimes more powerful than you realize! Are you taking advantage of some of the lesser-known Google search techniques? Here are a few of my favorites... SafeSearch It's surprising how many people don't know about Google SafeSearch! Word Definitions To quickly pull up the definition of a word, use "define:" followed by the word. Example: define:webinar Numeric Ranges Useful if you're looking for information that relates to a range of numbers (such as a price range or years). Example: television 1950...1960 Phone numbers Curious who keeps calling your cellphone and not leaving a message? Example: phonebook:555-555-5555 Excluding words or phrases If you're looking for something a little more obscure, narrow down your search results by asking Google to omit certain results by using the "-" symbol. Example: Florida vacation -Disney Specify results by document type Looking for a PDF? Example: "World War I" filetype:ppt Recipe View Example: Pumpkin Bread -Kimberly
Free-eBooks.net | Download free Fiction, Health, Romance and many more ebooks Acronym Finder: 343,000 Acronyms & Abbreviations Evaluating Web Pages: Techniques to Apply & Questions to Ask 1. What can the URL tell you? Techniques for Web Evaluation : 1. 2. 2. 1. INSTRUCTIONS for Truncating back a URL: In the top Location Box, delete the end characters of the URL stopping just before each / (leave the slash). Continue this process, one slash (/) at a time, until you reach the first single / which is preceded by the domain name portion. 3. Check the date on all the pages on the site. 3. 1. What kinds of publications or sites are they? Are they real? 3. Expect a journal article, newspaper article, and some other publications that are recent to come from the original publisher IF the publication is available on the web. Look at the bottom of such articles for copyright information or permissions to reproduce. 4. 1. a. Type or paste the URL into alexa.com's search box. b. 1. The pages listed all contain one or more links to the page you are looking for. If you find no links, try a shorter portion of the URL, stopping after each /. 2. 5. 1. 2. WHY? More About Evaluating Web Sources
LibrarySpot.com: Encyclopedias, maps, online libraries, quotations, dictionaries & more. 100 Useful Tips and Tools to Research the Deep Web By Alisa Miller Experts say that typical search engines like Yahoo! and Google only pick up about 1% of the information available on the Internet. The rest of that information is considered to be hidden in the deep web, also referred to as the invisible web. So how can you find all the rest of this information? Meta-Search Engines Meta-search engines use the resources of many different search engines to gather the most results possible. SurfWax. Semantic Search Tools and Databases Semantic search tools depend on replicating the way the human brain thinks and categorizes information to ensure more relevant searches. Hakia. General Search Engines and Databases These databases and search engines for databases will provide information from places on the Internet most typical search engines cannot. DeepDyve. Academic Search Engines and Databases The world of academia has many databases not accessible by Google and Yahoo! Google Scholar. Scientific Search Engines and Databases Science.gov.
Teaching Students to Effectively Use the Internet A search engine is essentially a database that points to Web sites and Internet resources. The search engine database is compiled by means of often called spiders, crawlers, or bots. These spiders, crawlers and bots are programmed to find web pages, follow all the links they contain and add any new information they find to the master database. It is important to remember that when you are using a search engine, you are not really searching the entire Internet, but a database of pages and resources from the Internet compiled by the bots. Once the information has been collected by the robot programs it is turned over to the search engine's indexing program. When you submit a query or question to the search engine, a searches the database compiled by the robot programs and indexing programs, identifies items that match your query and organizes and displays them in a particular order based on the relevancy or how closely they match your query. Search engine results can be misleading