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Sweet Search and finding Dulinea!

An absolutely wonder search engine alternative. A perfect way to consciously direct student searches for information of all kinds! Great find Jan!

Finding Dulcinea and Sweet Search are my two favorite Web 2.0 finds this week.  There is also a great Guide to Web Searches!  I think all educators will find these tools quite useful.  Check them out!

Platform for combining writing and stories from social media into a unique mashup. Once signed in, create a story by searching various social media platforms for content. For example, you can search Twitter for a certain keyword or hashtag. Then, drag selected content into the story pane. Content from multiple searches can be included in one story. The key feature is the ability to add text throughout the story. For example, you could ask students to take a stance on the budget battles in the U.S. Content from social media and the web can be pulled into the story. Then, students create their own content, justifying or disagreeing with the stories incorporated into the story. Completed stories are published and then shared. Give Storify a try for current events projects as well as teaching media literacy.

"...you can now sort your search results by readability. The readability index is a bit coarse, but it is helpful none-the-less. The index use a simple ranking of "basic," "intermediate," and "advanced."

Students can't utilize web 2.0 if they can't search for tools that are at their reading level.

From the Free Technology for Teachers blog, I found an entry about web search lesson plans created by Google. From our previous readings, I've come to understand research strategies as a major component of media literacy. In the blog, there are links to the Google created lessons. The plans are developed according to skill level. I find this an interesting and helpful teacher resource; however, there are some search categories, which are quite elementary, if not useless. Student's research habits are often deplorable, so these tutorials point them in generally useful directions. It is necessary for our students to develop strategies for differentiating between poor resources and rich, academic sources. Is Google created strategies the best option?

It appears this link may be dead

Hi Kevin, I am sorry about the dead end link. If you are still interested try here: http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2012/05/web-search-lesson-plans-from-google.html

This article provides (as it says) over 100 different tips on how to use Google as a search engine in a way that can get you around blocked websites, or to glean search results that are refined to what you are specifically looking for. I included this article as it seems useful when building a blog, to structure search links and topic links in a way that will result in the consumer of the blog obtaining the content they are looking for. As the article begins, time is precious. As an educator, I need my time in class (and outside if class) to be structured in a way where I can access information easily and quickly and teach students to do so as well. These 102 tips for how to use Google are the tools in the toolbag I believe are necessary to bring this need to fruition. As stated above, the relevance to Blogs is providing useful tips on the Blog for users to utilize to refine searches and yield more meaningful results. These "tricks" would also serve well for a Blog on how to search the Internet!

A teaching guide as well as lessons to go from "search to research"

If you haven't had a chance to use Qwiki yet for checking out an interactive way to search the internet then read the following blog and give it a try yourself. It won't take long before you are hooked. Great tool for an educator.

you are presented with a very simple text editor perfect for student journals. Each note can include images, links and attachments as well as tags to help with searching. For example, journal entries for a history unit might be tagged, "WWII". In addition, multiple notebooks can be created with one account. NotePub, like many online writing tools, works great for role playing assignments. Have your students assume the role of a person they are studying or character from literature. Then, your students write a daily journal entry. Completed entries can be shared in several ways including email.

Eleventh-grade English teacher, Lee Ann Spillane, describes how she uses Wordle to explore and analyze text patterns used by F. Scott Fitzgerald. How frequently does a word appear in the text? Students sit in table groups, with one computer per table. Using Google Books, students do a simple word search, creating a digital concordance.

Excellent podcast about astronomy - easy-to-understand explanations of everything from nebulae to searching for aliens to the planets in our solar system from a physicist and publisher. Go to their archive to find all the podcasts (over 100). Astronomy Cast takes a fact based journey through the cosmos as it offers listeners weekly discussions on astronomical topics ranging from planets to cosmology. Hosted by Fraser Cain (Universe Today) and Dr. Pamela L. Gay (SIUE), this show brings the questions of an avid astronomy lover direct to an astronomer. Together Fraser and Pamela explore what is known and being discovered about the universe around us.

This article discusses research that has been done regarding the needs of people to obtain media and information literacy skills in order to better many of their experiences in 21st century society. The article states that "knowing how to search for, analyze, and interpret information is a skill that will be used for more than just writing a good research paper: People use media literacy skills for applying for jobs online, getting relevant health information, and sifting through online educational opportunities, for example." Ten recommendations for developing stronger media and information literacy skills are given in the article. Legislative efforts from the federal government to provide funding in support of programs that help to develop these 21st century skills are also discussed.

Research topics at different reading levels.

Interesting commentary

EJ690980 - Preparing Teachers for the "Schools that Technology Built": Evaluation of a Program to Train Teachers for Virtual Schooling.

This is such a great little video that hits on so many possibilities of Pinterest. It may seem a little tempting to merely think of this tool as a bit lightweight compared to other collaboration tools, but I think this informercial may change some minds. Pinterest - to my mind hits on so many of the buzzwords beginning with "c". It is creative, communicative, collaborative, colorful, curative (is there such a word?!) and it is definitely cool!

Introducing Guided Search: Find what you're looking for and make a few discoveries along the way.