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First things first, be sure to bookmark this page so that you can easily return to it in the future!
Here's a Yahoo search on the same term...civil war
Here's an Excite search on the term civil war
Here's a MetaCrawler search on the term civil war
And finally, here's a MetaCrawler search on the terms civil war curriculum, making sure that all three terms are on the found pages. Notice the difference?
Each of these seach methods produce different results, and a different number of results, as they are unique ways of searching and indexing information on the WWW. Which method you choose to use depends on what you want to find and your comfort with the different methods. Let's take a look at some different categories of "search engines."
Conventional Search Engines
You probably already know the basic ins and outs of using a conventional search engine such as Excite or Lycos. Frankly, you would be better served by accessing one of the meta-search engines (below) as they will allow you to access a number of these conventional engines simultaneously. Nevertheless, sometimes you only want to look one place. If so, these engines are good places to start. Which one is better? That's for you to determine through experience. If you want some help in evaluating search engines, then check out this site for a list of articles on choosing the right engine for you.
Metasearch Engines
Metasearch engines are tools which allow you to access a number (usually a half-dozen or more) search engines at the same time. By using these tools, you can avoid having to enter the same search term into different engines manually. Also, some of these engines allow you to enter your search term in the form of a "real language" question.
Search Engines for Children
Sometimes you may want to know that the search engine will only come back with sites which are "child safe." The engines listed below will all filter out sites with adult content or sites that contain information irrelevant to children.
Subject Guides
Subject guides are not technically search engines. Rather, they are collections of links to websites. These links are organized around categories and subjects defined by the author of the subject guide. Subject guides are naturally more focused than standard search engines or metasearch engines since the authors have already done some filtering for you. On the other hand, if you want to "search everywhere" for a particular topic...or on a topic not included in a subject guide...then you should use some type of search engine or metasearch engine.
- Yahoo (lots of categories for all sorts of subjects)
- Kathy Schrock's Guide to the Internet (a great source of K-12 related links)
- Blue Webbin' (links to Internet-based curriculum projects)
Finally, it's not actually a subject guide, but Freshpond Education has created a whole set of Internet resources for Lexington teachers. Check out their section on K-12 Internet Links for a good discussion of the variety of ways that educators can use WWW information.
Let's try some different searches for similar terms. We'll use the Excite engine and will search on different variations of the term Sun Associates.
"Sun Associates" AND NOT technology
The words OR and AND are known as boolean operators. Used in searches, these operators create search strings are in effect "true" or "false" logical statements submitted to the search engine database. Those database entries which provide a "true" response are reported as results to your query. Those that result in "false" responses are not reported. In some way, virtually all search engines use boolean operators to create queries and produce results. When you know the operators, you can create your own query statements and often fine tune the results you get from a search engine.
Also notice the use of quotation marks " ". These are used to indicate a phrase or set of words which must appear exactly as typed (although some engines still ignore the capitalization) in order to produce a true query. For another example...
Notice the difference? Which would you rather use in your Earth Science handout?
Digital Resources available for downloading
Downloading and saving images from the WWW
Here's an image you can practice with:
To download an image from the WWW using yourweb browser you need to do the following:
In Netscape....
- Place your cursor over the image you wish to copy.
- Click and hold until a contextual menu appears near your cursor. On a PC, you can click the right mouse button.
- Choose "Save this Image as..." from the contextual menu.
- Save the image file to your desktop (or another place that you can find again!) using the name provided.
In Internet Explorer...
- Place your cursor over the image you wish to copy.
- Click and hold (or use the right mouse button on a PC) until a contextual menu appears near your cursor.
- Choose"Save Picture As" from the contextual menu.
- Save the image file to your desktop (or another place that you can find again!) using the name provided.
Finally, please remember that images on the WWW are generally copyrighted. The sites listed above have allowed you to download images for educational purposes if you credit their source. But, unless you know for sure that a site is free of copyright, you must assume that the images are copyrighted. You will need to check with the the website's authors before downloading/copying images. It is always a good idea to credit sources. Here are some sites which provide information about how to credit resources found on the Internet.
Info on APA and MLA rules for electronic citations
A bibliography on evaluating Internet resources.
When you have a number of websites you wish students to access, you can provide this list of addresses or URLs within a ClarisWorks document. When students access this ClarisWorks document on their Internet-connected computers, the list of addresses can be live links. This means that they can click on the links in the ClarisWorks document, automatically launch their web browser, and go to the websites you designate. Here's how it works...
Note -- the same type of thing can be done in Microsoft Word and most modern, full-featured, word processors!
1. Launch ClarisWorks and start a new (or previously saved) word processing document. 2. Highlight text you want to make the link to a web page on the Internet. 3. Choose the Show Links Palette from the Window menu. 4. At pop-up menu, click on triangle and slide to URL Links. 5. Choose New URL Link from the Links menu above the pop-up menu. 6. Name your link. 7. Key the URL into the dialog box. 8.The link will be color-coded and underlined. Click on the link and it will lead you to the web page you selected. 9. Use the application menu (top right corner) to get back to your ClarisWorks document. Thanks to Shelley Chamberlain -- Lexington Public Schools -- for these step-by-step instructions!
This technique can be used to create student handouts for WebQuests, without your having to create your own web page.
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Information on this site that has been produced by Sun Associates is Copyright 1997 - 2006 Sun Associates and is available for individual, one-time, use by educators. Duplication is prohibited without permission. All other material is the property of its authors and Sun Associates makes no warranty for its use or accuracy.
Last updated,March 30, 2000
