by Karen Milligan (adapted)
A "Guided Tour" is a type of Internet activity in
which the teacher serves as a guide by providing a set of
Internet sites about a certain topic. The students tour the sites
selected by the teacher and use the information from the tour in
some way. For example, students might answer questions, create a
presentation, or use the information to solve a problem. You will
experience this activity model by participating in a Guided Tour
with your group on the topic of searching and evaluating
information on the World Wide Web. You will demonstrate what you
learn by answering questions. Later you will apply what you learn
in an individual learning activity.
There is no quality control on the World Wide Web. To be
computer literate you need to be able to determine the quality of
information that you find. Several libraries and other
information specialists have provided some excellent resources
that you can use to learn to evaluate a web site. In this part of
the activity you will examine some of those.
Divide your team into pairs. Divide up the following list of
sites between pairs. As you look at the sites, each pair should
choose the site that they think would be the best one for
students to use to evaluate a web site.
After each pair has finished touring, the team will work
together to choose one site to use as the team evaluation guide.
You will use this form later in your individual learning
activity. You will need to make sure that everyone on the team
has a print or electronic copy. Attach to an email message a
copy of the evaluation guide that your team chose along with a
short paragraph explaining why you choose this guide. Be
sure to include the names of all team members.
There is a common misunderstanding about searching the
Internet that comes from the user friendliness of the
"Search" button on the browser. Imagine that you did
not know what a library was, but loved books. Someone told you
about this wonderful building where you could go and find a book
on just about any subject you wanted. You go to the library to
find a book on Egyptian pharaohs. You walk to the shelves and
start reading the books on the shelves. You might be lucky and
find the book you wanted on the first shelf you examine. However,
you will probably have to spend many hours reading the titles of
all the books on the shelves until you find the book you want.
What you really doing is browsing the library shelves.
Many people do the same thing with the Internet. They click
the "search" button, type in a word, get back 5,000
articles on their topic, and are amazed. It doesn't take too long
to become frustrated at having to read the 5,000 articles to find
the information you need. To find information effectively on the
Internet, you need to learn how to search, just like you need to
learn how to use the library to find a book about Egyptian
pharaohs.
This part of the Guided Tour is to help you learn to find
information on the Internet much more effectively. You will
work in pairs, but each pair MUST visit each Tour Stop.
At these sites you will look for a definition of what search
tools are and how they work. (Search tools are called search
engines.)
At this site look for information that will help you be able
to describe the two primary methods of searching. You will be
asked to use both of these methods later on, so make sure that
you understand the difference between the two. If you want to
take notes or multitask to copy and paste information from this
page for your own personal use when doing the individual
activity, you may. These notes do not need to be turned in.
At this site you will learn about some special words that are
used in searching. Find out what logical operators and Boolean
Algebra are.
At this site find out what a meta-search engine is.
Now it is time for you to take a look at details about
specific search tools. The first thing you need to know is how to
get to the search tools. One way is to click on the
"search" button on the web browser. BUT WAIT,
this is not the best way. Clicking on this button only allows you
to do a basic search from several different search tools. Each of
the major search tools has a separate site that will let you do
more advanced searches. It is better to go directly to each
individual search tool site. I have included a list of links to
search tools under Links on the
Education 201 page. There are also several sites that
compare and rank search tools. The sites listed below have
descriptions and evaluations of different search tools. Each team
will read about a different search tool at each site. Make sure
that each pair is reading about different search tools. So when
finished with this tour stop each team should have read about 4
different search tools. As you read about the search tool be
ready to describe its main features, including the types of
searching you can do, with your team.
After each pair has completed their examination of two
search tools, then share with the other pair in your team.
Search tools are constantly being created and refined. There
is one really interesting new search tool that combines both of
the primary kinds of search methods. Read about this search tool
and see if you understand why I say it combines both searching
methods.
Now that you have learned some things about search engines, click
here to test your knowledge.
Last Updated Spring Semester, 2000
Ed 352 | Ed 353/4 | Ed201 | Ed355 | Ed 475
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