Preparing To Search The Internet Helping Students Search

Preparing To Search The Internet Helping Students Search Effectively Mrs. Holewinski Technology Coordinator Buckeye Valley Local Schools

Surfing is not searching.

An hour on the Web may not answer a question that you could find within two minutes of picking up a reference book.

Parts of a URL http: //www. starwars. com/movies. html • http: //--hypertext transfer protocol: • the language computers use to “talk” to one another • www—world wide web: • the body of information connected by the cables and computers of the Internet • . starwars—domain name: • the structured, alphabetic-based, unique name for a computer on a network • . com—top level domain: • gives an idea of where the document is stored • /movies—file • a folder within a website • . html—hypertext • the computer language used to format documents name: markup language:

Top Level Domains • • . edu—higher education. k-12—elementary and secondary schools. com—commercial. gov—government agency. mil—military. org—general noncommercial organization. net—computer network

Who Pays For The Internet? • • Advertisers pay for Internet websites. Popups and banners are trying to influence your spending habits. The information on commercial sites--. com—may be presented in such a way as to encourage you to buy a particular product. Be wary of URL’s with a ~ in the address—this indicates a personal homepage and does not guarnantee accuracy.

Before you search, you need to: • Prepare • Organize • Combine

Prepare • What do you need to know about your topic? • Make a list of all the terms connected with your topic. • Include names, organizations, and phrases.

Organize • • • Make a list of the words that are critical to your search. Note terms that you don’t want to see appear. Discard the rest.

Combine Use these quick tips called Boolean operators to combine your most important terms. • • • Use Use Use AND to connect the terms you want to see. NOT to exclude terms you don’t want. OR to include similar terms. quotation marks around names or phrases lower case for all proper nouns, except for acronyms

For example… Michael Jackson and music and biography not lyrics

What Do You Use To Search? • Search engines

Search Engines • Are like your school Librarian or an index in the back of a book • Help you search for specific words and topics

Examples: • • Google. com Yahoo. com Bing Ask. Kids. com

Evaluating Websites “Let the buyer beware” üBook publishers weed out inaccurate information. üNo one checks the Internet for accuracy.

Before you start using the information-- EVALUATE!

Who? • Wrote the pages and are they an expert? • Is a biography of the author included? • How can you find out more about the author?

What? • Does the author say is the purpose of the site? • What else might the author have in mind for the site? • What makes the site easy to use?

When? • Was the site created? • Was the site last updated?

Where? • Does the information come from? • Can I look to find out more about the sponsor of the site?

Why? • Is this information useful for my purpose? • Is this page better than another? • Should I use this information?

Citing a website • Last name, first name of author. • If there is no author listed, begin with the title. • “Title of article within the website. ” • Put quote marks around the title • Name of website. • Underline the name • Date article was written. • Put the date first, then abbreviate the month. • Date you accessed the article. • URL. • If the URL won’t fit on one line, break it at a slash. Include the entire URL, not just the one for the home page.

Citing a website Online • Easy Bib – www. easybib. com/ • Son of Citation Machine – http: //citationmachine. net/

Example: Adams, Joyce. “How the Internet changed students at Buckeye Valley. ” School News Service. 2 Sept. 2008. 13 Nov. 2008 <http: //www. buckeyevalley. k 12. net/>.

For example… If you are looking for information about life on the planet Mars, you don’t want sites popping up about the Roman god of war. Put that in your list of words you don’t want to see. What other words might be connected with your topic that will send you to useless sites?