9. Google’s Mission
Online content
Billions of web pages
Offline content
Billions of items becoming
indexed
To organize the world’s information
and make it universally accessible
and useful.
10. A New Digital Divide
• Those who know how to “think” about search
vs. those don’t.
• Those who know how to validate soft
information vs. those don’t.
• Those who know where to find information in
new “hot” channels vs. those don’t.
• Those who understand the current culture of
informal languages vs. those don’t
11. A New Digital Divide
• Those who know how to get information to
travel to them vs. those who still chase it.
• Those who have the knowledge and skills to
create and re-mix digital media vs. those who
don’t.
• Those that understand that learning is a
continual process vs. those that view learning
as achievement.
-Helen Blowers, Columbus Metropolitan Library
12. Guiding Thoughts
• Search is the essential 21st century skill.
• The responsibility of teaching search to
kids lies within the entire school
community.
• How can educators help students to
organize, access, and leverage their
collection of information in useful ways?
32. Organizing a Search
What is it I’m looking for?
(think about common keywords)
How would someone else talk about it?
(what words would they use? how would THEY describe it?)
Which of those terms would be most common?
Which of those terms would be very specialized to this topic?
What kind of thing would make me happy?
(do I want a single web page, a definition, a collection, an image.... or … ?)
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33. Keyword Choice
Think about what you are trying to find
Choose words that you think will appear on the page
Put yourself in the mindset of the author of those words
Use synonyms
Start broad and use just a few words, then go deep
Use contextual terms
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34. Other Search Tips
Use specifiers
Example: [Illinois population wikipedia]
Try an image search when normal means fail, you might find
something that will be useful or spark your interest in a different way.
Word order matters—when it’s not working one way, try another.
When searching for common phrases, don’t leave out the “stop
words.”
Use double quotes to find a particular sequence of words
Example: “Daniel M Russell” , “L Frank Baum”, “Chicago Bulls”
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35. Activity 1: Explore Lessons
Split into small groups.
Take 1 set of lessons and explore together.
How do you current teach or model search in your classroom?
How would you adapt this lesson for your classroom?
Did you find any new information in these lessons?
Come back and discuss as a large group.
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37. Keep in Mind
Everything is searchable.
Control + F is incredibly useful.
Nothing stays constant on the web.
Advanced Search and Preferences are available with each product.
RSS feeds are usually also available.
Just about every product has a team blog.
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39. Activity 2: Try Search Features
education resources k12
science fair volcanoes
Garageband tutorials
weather Northbrook IL
Chicago Cubs
DIS, KO or PEP
earthquake
sunrise Chicago IL
Studs Terkel was born in *
2000 dollars in pesos
Chicago IL
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71. Activity 3: Try Google News
Go to http://news.google.com
Type in a search term.
Click on Advanced Search.
Restrict your search to a particular news source.
Set up a Google News alert for your school. Do a search for your
school’s name and look for the Google Alert link at the bottom of the
page. (http://www.google.com/alerts)
Set up a Google News alert for a professional topic.
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88. Activity 4: Try Google Scholar
Go to http://scholar.google.com
Enter a search term such as John Dewey, Brown vs. Board of
Education, or NASA and see what you can find.
Customize your results. For instance, see if you can select Illinois courts
and search for using a term of your choice.
Do another search using the keyword mobile.
Click on Advanced Scholar Search.
Narrow your results by entering “Learning and Leading with Technology”
in the publication field.
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101. Activity 5: Try Google Book Search
Find your library in Google Books. Go to http://books.google.com
Do a search for the following authors, pick a title, and click on About This Book and explore:
Gwendolyn Brooks
Abraham Lincoln
Ernest Hemingway
Ray Bradbury
Scott Turow
Studs Terkel
Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Make sure you are logged into your Google account and search for your favorite books. Create
shelves and add books to your shelves. You can link to your My Library to share your collections
with others.
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102. Help & Resources
• Google Inside Search
• Google Search Basics
• Google Guide Quick Reference
• Google in Education Diigo Group
103. Conclusion
• Plan on learning new skills.
• Nothing stays constant on the web.
• Remember to check settings and advanced search functions within
Google Products.
• Search engines are continually improving.
• New search tools are always being developed
• Make research to be a part of everything that you do in the classroom.
Teach and model this attitude to your students.
• Help students and colleagues develop a research stance across
content areas using News, Scholar, and Book Search.
• Encourage your school or district to adopt search tools and strategies
globally.
