Using Search Engines

Searching for informatin on the web completely overwhelms me. There is SO much out there, and I never feel like I have the time I need to do a really good, thorough search. I'm almost as bad as my kids in terms of my search habits. I usually just go to Google and click through the first couple sites that I see. I am better than them at checking the reliability and validity of the sites; usually I scroll through the page, looking at the information, checking for credentials, etc. Even when I use Wikipedia, I scroll down to the bottom of the page first to check the sources the article cites.

I now have a Google Reader, but that's almost more stressful to me than Google searching. I log in to my reader and there's an obnoxious amount of content to look through. I probably just need to be pickier about who or what I'm subscribing to. That's a good lesson for students, too; be picky and focused when you add content to your reader. I didn't really have a specific purpose other than just trying it out when I started my reader, which is why it's all over the place now. Overwhelming as it is, I can definitely see how using a blog to gather info on a topic could be extremely useful. Actually, next semester my students will be doing persuasive speeches and debates. I'm thinking that they could create RSS feeds around their topics to help them with their research. Creating an RSS feed around a topic will help them avoid the craziness I experienced. We would also need to start with a lesson or two on evaluating sites for validity and credibility before they started searching for sites on their own. I'm thinking I could do some basic front-loading in class, perhaps an in-class model, and then I could create a Webquest about validity and credibility to illustrate how students can check for those things.

In terms of annotating and storing that information, I did already demo Diigo for my kids this fall. While it is a great tool, it would have to be installed on all the school computers, and I don't know that our tech people will do that. Most of the kids used Google Docs on our last big research project to share notes, but that was a little tricky as well. The formatting kept getting all out of whack. I think what I need to learn more about and use is Microsoft OneNote. We have that on our computers at school, and I know it has a collaboration function. I think I might investigate that option since it is something we have available at school.

Alright, some good ideas are brewing... :) I'll report back!