Chapter 5: Researching and Evaluation Internet Information
Focus Question: What are search engines and how do they
work?
Students today, definitely in middle high school and
college, have to have access to computers and the internet in order to succeed.
Most research now is done online and without access to technology students have
a higher chance of failing. But when students need to write a paper or start a
project, how do they know where to search and what to search for?
What most students and teachers do when they need to research
something or look something up on the internet, they immediately go to a search
engine. A search engine is a software program that combines many different
networks to retrieve information that is being researched from different
databases (Maloy,p.119). The tricky and convenient thing about a lot of
everyday search engines, is that they are very fast, but bring up hundreds and
thousands of results which can be very accurate and scholarly or can be written
by someone next door with no expertise on the topic. This makes search engines convenient
but problematic.
Search engines do bring up many links on a specific topic
but again, you have to be aware to what to look for in order for the website to
be a scholarly or appropriate. It is important to be able to analyze and
retrieve the scholarly websites for the search. (Maloy, p.199) Teachers also
have access to many specialized websites.
Tech Tool: 5.2 Customizing Your Web Browser with iGoolgle
The tech tool is one of the coolest so far, I think. iGoogle
is a completely customizable to the user, based on interest or what they want
readily accessible every time they come to page. They can add features such as
the weather, news, and links to favorite web pages and other fun features! This can be very useful for teachers in order
for them to keep their favorite and important websites along with news and
other things and not have to waste time pulling up the websites, it’s all there
on their customizable page. Below is an
example of a customized iGoogle page.
Summary and Connection:
I found this chapter to be
very helpful and insightful. I now realize how important it is to understand
search engines and how they work. Also how to interpret scholarly websites in
order to write a scholarly paper. Search engines have become second nature,
brought on by the internet, therefore it is important for us to know how to use
them appropriately!
Resources:
Maloy, R. W., Verock-O, R. E., Edwards, S. A., & Woolf,
B. P. (2010).Transforming learning with new technologies. Allyn & Bacon.
iGoogle is a neat home-page aggregator, but unfortunately, it is on the 'chopping block' and is scheduled to be phased out. If you want something similar, you might want to try Netvibes.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget to submit this in Canvas to get points for your grade.