WWW+Searching

=WWW Search Activities-Learning=

1. We do a unit in Second Grade on Butterflies. I investigated the search engines using "Butterflies" for my search. I tried out the major search engines Yahoo and Google first. These yeilded the results I expected. Then I tried out [|www.alltheweb.com]. This search engine is not cluttered with advertisements. It gives clear results that can take you other places if you click on the "more hits from" part of the listings. It also gives News and Picture tabs for the subject(s) that you search. I also searched using [|www.hotbot.com] which allows you to search Yahoo, lyGO, and MSN. Searching with lyGO was different because each search brings up thumbnail size webpages for you to see before you go to the sight. The thumbnails help me remember which sight I've already been to. I really like the site "Search Engine Guide" because it has a tab called "Intenet Search Engines" which puts different type search engines into categories. The MetaSearch engine [|www.surfwax.com] also gives snapshots of the sites you might want to visit.

2. When I searched using the term "Presidents' Day" without the quotation marks I got hits about Presidents from all over the world. When I searched using the quotation marks I got only pages that referenced the holiday, activities, and lesson plans for Presidents' Day.

3. I found the Boolean Terms made searching much easier.Using the AND, OR, and NOT really helps narrow the topic. I searched for "Bears" and got the football team as well as animals. When I limited my search with "Not" and added the term AND "North America" I got Bears that live in North America.

4. I looked up several websites on www.easywhois.com while I was at school, but I kept getting an error message or a message about signing up to find out about websites. Now that I have internet at home again, I tried it out and was able to verify the sites for my Pathfinder. It is an excellent site for validating good sites!

5. The domains indicate the type of website. .aero=aviation; .asia=Asia domains; .biz=businesses; .com=commercial; .coop=co-ops and co-op organizations; .edu.gov=department of education; .info=information sites; .job=job recruiters; .k-12=school sites; .mil=military; .mobi=mobile application for website; .museum=museum and museum support organizations; .name=domain registry; .name=names; .net=framework for ISP; .org=nonprofit organizations; .pro=professional sites; .sch=schools; .tel=phone information; .travel=travel companies

6. I typed "australia.gov.au" in the AltaVista Search box and got government websites in Australia. I didn't have much luck with other subjects. Searching AltaVista using the given search term yeilded 1,360,000. I narrowed the search by adding "higher education" yeilding 171,000 sites. I narrowed it further and got it down to 148 sites. 7. I created a search on Bears by typing host:gov bears. It yeilded 6,240,000. When I progressively narrowed it down by putting in "host:gov bears grizzly yellowstone park wyoming hibernation population tracking investigating"I eventually got the number down to 148 sites.

8.I tried out Movies, Weather, Earthquake, the Stock Quote, and Book Search. I found the listings for the local movie theater; the weather report for Fort Worth, Tx.; the Stock quote for Hershey Company (HSY 35.45 +45); and a Gone With the Wind trivia search.

9 & 10. I share what I have learned with my two colleagues, Amy Armstrong and Janice Hodges. We recently used the MetaSearch engines to find good sites for our Animals In Winter unit. Bonus: I set up "Hornet Search" as a resource for teachers Woodrow Wilson Elementary.