Group items tagged

Children are among the most frequent users of the Internet, yet searching and browsing the web can present many challenges. Studies over the past two decades on how children search were conducted with finite and pre-determined content found in CD-ROM applications, online digital libraries, and web directories. However, with the current popularity of the open Internet and keyword-based interfaces for searching it, more critical analysis of the challenges children face today is needed. This paper presents the findings of an initial study to understand how children ages 7, 9, and 11 search the Internet using keyword interfaces in the home.

Information Literacy Games: Finding Kermit This blog post features a great video of Kermit the frog singing It Ain't Easy Being Green. It follows up with an explanation of a search game that can be used with the whole class in a lab or on an individual workstation. It's part of a free series of online information literacy / information fluency games available from 21cif.com. Finding Kermit was the inspiration for one of the first Internet Search Challenges created by Dr. Carl Heine. The task is to track down a picture of Kermit ready for graduation in the least amount of time. The search game is embedded on the page so you can try it without going to the main site. Many teachers use this as a whole class lab activity. Put up a search challenge and then it's off the races! Most of these games were developed for middle and high school students. Adults find them challenging as well.

What is Wolfram Alpha? It is a supercomputing brain. It provides calculates and provides comprehensive answers to most any science or math question. Unlike other search sources, you and your students can ask questions in plain language or various forms of abbreviated notation. Contrary to popular belief, Wolfram Alpha is not a search engine. Unlike popular search engines, which simply retrieve documents based on keyword searches, Wolfram computes answers based on known models of human knowledge. It provides answers which are complete with data and algorithms, representing real-world knowledge.

drag and drop search terms to include/exclude  - cute video for kids

This very interesting search engine uses a neat keyword feature at the top that I really like. Unfortunately they have quite a few google ads, but still, if you're struggling, then it could be useful.

The Boolean Machine is a tool for visualizing the effects of Boolean operators on keyword searches. It was created to teach the importance of Boolean operators in effective search strategies.

"School librarians are information professionals, who can support and teach information, critical and digital literacy skills. Research skills from finding books via your school library catalogue to researching academic online resources such as Science in Context, helping students to navigate those online tools that can't be searched with a question (like they like do in Google), explaining and using keywords, creating good research questions and guiding them onto the internet searching with the knowledge and skills about how to do this safely."

A vast educational video site with thousands of videos on subjects across the curriculum and beyond. Search by age, topic and keyword. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Video%2C+animation%2C+film+%26+Webcams

While most teachers will not understand what this means, an API is something that lets other websites interact with a main website. OpenEd has released an API to allow others to interact with their resources and find things based on standards or keywords. What this means is that OpenEd is going to be a very useful tool for all of education in the future because of this technological tool. It also means that if you're developing for a state or for an organization that provides educational resources, you should tap into this for a huge repository of almost a quarter of a million standards aligned resources that your teachers can search. This is great news.

"A superb resource which lets users search for descriptions by keywords which have been submitted by other users. Wonderful for creative story writing."

Here is an interesting point as I research inquiry based learning and move to look in a database that is largely built from overseas. Many places called "inquiry" "enquiry" so in this set of lessons across the curriculum, I have to search using the term "enquiry" to turn up what have been tagged as "inquiry based" lesson plans. There are many nuances like that as you start looking at best practices across the world to remember. Eventually, hopefully, language searches will translate between common languages (like English) to help us bridge best practices. If you're looking into inquiry-based learning (or equiry-based depending upon where you're from) - this is a database of lesson plans from Kindergarten up in different categories.

Earnie Easter's students from Maine helped digitize the artifacts in "new Sweden." The Maine Memory Museum has used their students to help digitize and share the information. This is such an amazing project.

Students in Earnie Easter's classroom helped digitize the artifacts in New Sweden in the Maine Memory Museum. Wow!

TeachersFirst is a rich collection of lessons, units, and web resources designed to save teachers time by delivering just what they need in a practical, user-friendly, and ad-free format. We offer our own professional and classroom-ready content along with thousands of reviewed web resources, including practical ideas for classroom use and safe classroom use of Web 2.0. Busy teachers, parents, and students can find resources using our subject/grade level search, keyword search, or extensive menus.

If you want to see some sample Socrative quizzes and lessons, teachers are starting to upload their Socrative resources to the TES website that I frequent so often. Here are some nice quizzes and lessons, particularly on science: space, electrolysis, animal and plant cells.

If you want to teach about the Olympics, the TES forum out of the UK is where the great content is being uploaded daily. There are two activities of note, one is Olympic Games: Now and then and another is about Greek Ideas and what has been passed down. Many interesting lessons by grade level.

SEveral hundred lessons and information on the European union that you can download and use in your classroom. This is very topical with the current crisis in Greece that is worth a discussion in the globally literate classroom.

Over 150 lessons about the Olympics. This is a great way to welcome the school year in the northern hemisphere as so many will be engrossed in the Olympics. Peruse these lesson plans from venn diagrams comparing the modern olympics to the ancient olympics to conversation questions or history lessons.

On January 24, 1965, the world lost a great leader, Winston Churchill. Here are some excellent resources that you can use to teach your class about Winston Churchill by grade level.