Group items tagged

There is much more to efficient Googling than what most of our students know. From the specific order of the words constituting our search query to the use of search operators, Google provides all kinds of tricks for users to implement in order to tap into its full search potential. I have recently come across an interesting post shared by LifeHacker in which they outlined a wide variety of Google  tips and tricks that students should know about. They have also shared this wonderful video which I am sharing with you below on how to quickly find exactly what you are looking for.

Power Searching With Google could be a great course for teachers who want to become better users of Google search in order to teach their students better search strategies. And, of course, students can take the course on their own to learn better search strategies.

So here is a handy improvement to Google image search, that makes it easier to encourage appropriate use . In amongst the image search tools, Google has just added a search by 'usage rights' field.

Google Scholar returns results which are classified as scholarly works.  According to Google, Google Scholar ranks documents according to its full text, where it was published, the author, and how often and how recently it has been cited in other scholarly literature.

To access Google Now, swipe up from the bottom of the Google Search app. Swiping down tucks it away and returns you to the original menu screen.

Effective searching is an important skill. Whether your students are looking through a catalogue or using Google, the search terms and strategies they use will decide the quality of the information they find. Here we take a look at a few search strategies to help you find what you need.

Investigative reporter Julia Angwin was curious what Google knew about her, so she asked the company for her search data. "It turns out I had been doing about 26,000 Google searches a month ... and I was amazed at how revealing they were," she tells Fresh Air's Dave Davies.

This search engine in Google allows you to find things suitable for K-12 students, but that's as refined as it gets.  

Here are some of my favorite tips shared by Russell at the 2012 Investigative Reporters and Editors conference. Some of these techniques are powerful but obscure; others are well-known but not fully understood by everyone.

search strategies for the web

"I decided to use the teacher console on Diigo to create groups for each of my classes. I used handouts and tips from Bill Ferriter's Digitally Speaking Wiki to get everything set up and explain to the student how I wanted them to find, annotate, and share resources and information. (I highly recommend Bill's resources. They saved me a ton of time.) The students had used Diigo for research on a project during a previous school year so I thought with Bill's handouts and the boys' previous experience we were in good shape to begin. I soon learned differently. We have a 1:1 laptop classroom and the boys have a natural tendency to head straight to Google any time they have a question, but it was obvious after the first day that they weren't finding the quality resources they needed. Additionally, some boys still didn't know (or forgot) how to share to a group while others didn't know how to write a quality annotation. I had assumed too much. They needed what Mike Kaechele calls a "teacher workshop" on searching for information and on how to use Diigo. They needed me to model what they should do."

"Every topic, every bit of learning has content that can be Googled, and we don't want teachers wasting precious enquiry time lecturing that content. We want students, instead, to be using class time to collaborate and debate around the questions that are Not Googleable, the rich higher order thinking to which neither the textbook nor the teacher know the answers. One of our schools in Brisbane, Star of the Sea Cleveland, took my "Googleable" / "Not Googleable" to a very literal end, when they pinned up two headings and got students to post-it each and every question in the class, categorising those which could be searched quickly (the lower order questions) and those which they should dwell on in class time. This is the kind of meaty discussion that we want in class, and making it explicit in this way means that we cut to the higher order thinking so much quicker."

"easily lookup domain name whois records and DNS information for any top level domain name or IP address block."

Here is where you can select images that are "free to use or share"