The
power
and the problem of the Internet is that no one is charge. When I'm done
with this article, I will post it to my website without informing
anyone. This gives me tremendous freedom and flexibility, but since
there is no centralized directory, it may be difficult for potential
readers to find my page.
The
result
has been a development of a number of search engines-- websites, mostly
free, that specialize in listing web pages, and letting users search
for
them, either by keywords, by asking questions, or by moving through a
content outline. Because of the dynamic nature of the Web, no search
engine has all the Web catalogued. As well, different sites work in
different ways.
Tip:
You aren't necessarily better off with a search engine that has more
sites catalogued. You generally don't need more'hits'
when you
search; instead, you need a few hits that are just what you are looking
for.
Tip:
Depending what you (or your students) are looking for, you may be
better
off not using a search engine at all. If you want straight facts,
perhaps a encyclopedia might be a better bet-- either in print, on
CD-ROM, or on the Internet. (Note that when
searching for a
person in an encyclopedia, type in Lastname, Firstname,
while
when searching for the same person using a Web search engine, you might
type "Firstname Lastname").
There
are
about a dozen popular general purpose search engines, and there are
lots
more specialized engines. Get comfortable using one or two. Probably
the most popular at the moment, is
It
features a clean interface and seems almost psychic in its ability to
show
what you are looking for amongst its first few 'hits'.
.It
ranks
hits by how many other websites refer to them. There's an I'm
Feeling Lucky button which takes you directly to
the top of its
responses, and works surprisingly well. I've started using Google
almost
all the time, because of both its simplicity, clean design, and general
good results. Think about making it the homepage on your browser at
home and at school. In some circles, the use of Google has become so
all-prevasive that the name has been turned into a verb-- to
Google
means to get the answer on the Net using this search engine.
Clicking on the Preferences
link is worthwhile; you can use it to limit your searches to hits in
one
or more languages, to use heavy-duty filtering of sexually-oriented
text
and/or images (good for schools and libraries to turn on), and to
display 10, 20, 30, 50, or 100 hits on a page-- which can be a real
time-saver. Note that the preferences are stored for a given user-- if
your computers are set to support multiple users, each would
have
to set their Google preferences individually. As well, if more than one
browser is installed, Google preferences would need to be set
using each browser-- none of this is Google's fault; it's
rather
the way that Cookies (which are used to save these preferences) are
stored.
Google's Advanced
Search
link provides added power (though it's not generally needed)...
you can enter search terms into fields requiring your choice
of all
the words, the exact phrase, any
of the words, or without
the words. (This last one could be handy if you want
information
about (for example) Mustangs without cars -- to
find out about
wild horses).
You can limit the results to particular
file
formats, or to dates within the past year, or where your search terms
occur only in the title.
At
the
time of this writing (September 2002), there's a beta-version of a news
search, limited to stories of the past week. (Google has also added a
link for the day's news on its main page). Computer users may find the
options to search for hits relating to the Mac, Linux, or Microsoft
useful. Tips on using Google's Advanced Search are available online.
The Groups
link allows users to read and post to the wide range of Usenet
discussion groups; Google now stores the Usenet archives. The Directory
link lets users look for information by drilling down through an
organized directory. This can be handy if you're not quite sure what
you're looking for.
While
Google is arguably the best general-purpose search engine, it's not
always the best choice for elementary-level students or teachers. Worth
looking at:
Yahooligans
 |
Yahooligans:http://www.yahooligans.com
is a part of the well-known Yahoo(http://www.yahoo.com) search
site. Like its parent, it can be used for standard keyword searches,
and
as a directory, browsing a content outline.
Yahooligans
aims
at
content that is usable by kids in (more or less) grades 4-9. If
you are working with students in that age range, it is a good place for
them to start, and for you to start if you are searching for Internet
resources.
|
When
you use
Yahooligans, you know that the results of your search have been checked
by real humans-- sites returned by a search will be (more or less)
readable by students. As well, you won't get porn sites in a legitimate
search. Searching for the planet Venus, for example, won't return a
link
to the porn site Venus.com.
As
a
result, however, you will get fewer hits-- for some searches, none at
all, or none that are useful. In that case, you or your students should
move on to an 'adult-oriented' search engine. Many pages listed on
Yahooligans have been posted by students or classes; you may wonder how
credible they are.
If
you are
typing a phrase into the Yahooligans search field, be aware of some
rules that also apply to most other search engines:
- If
you
type two or more words (for example Prime Minister of Canada)
the search engine will show you results that include the exact phrase,
or all of the words occuring on the same page.
- If
you
search for Prime Minister of Canada, some search
engines will
also show you pages with any of the words-- prime
numbers,
church ministers, Canada geese, etc. Yahooligans doesn't seem to do
this.
- If
you
type the phrase in quotation marks ("Prime Minister of Canada")
the search engine will only report results of pages that include that
exact phrase.
 |
Below the search entry
field,
Yahooligans (like its parent Yahoo) has a potentially useful content
directory outline. Clicking on an item gets you a list of categories,
which can be used to narrow down your search. For example, you could
go: Space-
Astronomy- Solar System -Mars |
Yes,
if
you knew Mars was your topic, you could simply search for it. But if
your students are asked to do a research project on an astronomy topic,
this can help them select a topic. Nice feature-- the topics list how
many links are within them, so you or your students will know what
topics potentially have a lot of information, and which have hardly any
information.
If
you
can't find what you want on Yahooligans, you may need to move on to a
more general purpose, adult-oriented search engine. Note that if you or
your students do so, you are leaving behind the protection of
Yahooligans. Even with filtering software in place, students may find
themselves accessing sexually-oriented or other questionable Web
sites--
sometimes even as a result of academic searches.
HotBot-
another good, general-purpose choice
 |
Hotbot.com(http:www.hotbot.com
or
http://hotbot.lycos.com) is another very good
general purpose
search engines. While it doesn't catalogue as many Web pages as, say,
Google or Altavista, it can be quickly set up to provide more accurate,
focussed searches without having to remember special rules.
The
key do doing that are using the options in the green area on the left
of
the screen.
|
 |
These
options
use
drop down arrows, allowing you to pick one of several
choices. You can choose to:
- Look
for:
- all
the
words
- any
of
the
words
- exact
phrase
- the
page
title (this can really clean up your search
results)
- Date:
- anytime
- within
the
last
week
- month
- year
- Language
- Pages
must
include:
- (these
options
are
less useful than one might hope, unless you specifically
need a video or music file)
- Return
Results:
- If
you
have
a lot of pages to scan, getting 10 results to a page can beveryfrustrating.
This
option
lets you choose to see 10, 25, 50, or 100 to a page. I like
to pick 50.
|
An
especially
nice feature is to Personalize These Settings. This
lets you set
the defaults that Hotbot will use whenever you log on (from the same
computer). I tend to set mine to search for All the words,
English,
50 at a time.
By
using
these options, you can use Hotbot to quickly find the information
you're
looking for, most of the time. Try, for example, searching for lesson
plans in your subject area-- type in the words 'lesson plan
math
grade 9', for example... (Note: why did I use 'lesson
plan' rather
than 'lesson plans' ?
Because the later would
rule out pages that said something like "Here's a grade 9 Math lesson
plan", while the former would get both pages with the phrase "lesson
plan"and "lesson plans".
When
Hotbot reports your hits, there's another nice feature:
You
can
click the [ ] Search within these resultsoption
to narrow
your search down. For instance, we could add the word geometryto
our
search
criteria.
On
some,
but not all searches, you'll see:
Note
the
option to view the Top 10 sites for your search. As
far as I can
tell, these are based on popularity-- what people who did this search
in
the past were most likely to actually select. When this option is
present, it can be a real time-saver, letting other people weed through
the longer list for you.
Canadian
Content
Several
search sites specialize in Canadian content. Typically, on those sites,
you can choose between searching the entire web, and searching Canadian
sites only. Note that this isn't entirely accurate-- many Canadian
sites
may, in fact, be hosted on non-Canadian servers, and may not appear.
Some
Canadian-options include:
In
all of
these (and most other search engines), you can use the following
options
to help when searching for more than one word:
- Place
exact phrases in quotation marks: "Sir John A. MacDonald"
- Use
plus signs to make sure that multiple words must be present on a page:+Canucks
+Hockey
- Use
minus signs to exclude words: +Jaguar +animal -car -automobile
- Try
combining these tips in a single search: +"John A. MacDonald"
+"Pacific Scandal"
Other
standard search engines
People
have
other favorites. AltaVista (http://www.altavista.com)
is very powerful, particularly if you make use of the hints listed
above
to refine your search. It also has a potentially useful translation
option, which translates between a number of (Western alphabet)
languages. You can type or paste in text to translate, or you can point
it to a web page, and have it translate the entire page.
MegaSearch
sites
