There’s no longer any excuse! The secret is out! We teachers must embrace ‘search’ for what it is – an effective and critical skill in finding and utilising sources available on the internet.
I’m a bit tired of teachers not knowing very much about search. Mind you, no-one needs to be an expert – but everyone needs to know where to go to get the latest information about ‘search’ and where to access a good tutorial to induct new staff into a quality search mentality.
I’m always keen to recommend the various resources available at Pandia Search Central.
You’ll find a host of resources there including Pandia Kids and Teens which provides search engines and search tools for kids and teens.
However for your staff, why not insist that they explore The Pandia Goalgetter – the short and easy internet search tutorial.
Pandia Powersearch is also a great page! Here is a monster all-in-one list of search engines and directories. Search the Web using the search form , or select one of the categories to find the best Internet search tools.
I also recommend subscribing to one or both of the Pandia free newsletters – Pandia Search World and Pandia Post – for some good updates and information about development in the search world.
For those keen to get the latest information about search developments, be sure to subscribe to Research Buzz. This is for the search geeks amongst you 🙂
Oh and there is Alt Search Engines – Alternative Search Engines covers the cutting-edge of alternative and niche search engines. Subscribing to their RSS just may give you more than you want to know about the industry of search! as well as some pretty good ‘breaking’ information.
I also included a recommendation in this post for primary schools – GoGoogligans.com as an alternative to Google. This is powered by Google.com SafeSearch & Google COOP.
Includes links on:
judyoconnell.com 
The first thing a student sees is advertising? Not likely that teachers will take this search engine as a preferred option..or any option at all. I know it is hard for people developing products, funding, and gaining market penetration. But advertising at the top of a search screen is not good. Thanks for pointing the tool out to us nevertheless.
We need your feedback about our kids search engine: http://www.kigose.com
Thank you
Hi Ed!
I have tested again your Gogooligans.com. It works much better than OneKey. Trust me! I like your language feature also where we can select our language. I think I will review your search engine on my article again.
Cheers!
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In response to Nix’s comments, after running a search for cat at both GoGooligans.com and Onekey.com they both return the same ads. Try the following searches at Gogooligans.com and then any of the other kid search engines (especially onekey.com) and see the difference. GoGooligans has by far the best filtering system.
orgasm, naked, how to grow weed, how to build a bomb, sex video games, join a gang
Don’t only judge a safe search engine by what it blocks/filters, but does it give good useful results, because if it doesn’t, it won’t take long for a teacher to find one that will.
nice post Judy hope you keep this nice work/writing in the future
thank you
Thanks Jim. Very succinct. Along the same lines, but more complex is Google Search Tips (Utimate Google Guide) http://www.mapelli.info/tips/ultimate-google-search-tips-guide
Judy I have found this to be a useful list of tips when taking teachers through some better ways of searching for information online.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2004/jan/08/onlinesupplement
Its from the Guardian. Its a little old but still contains good advice on using Google more effectively.
Jim
I’m not certain that GoGooligans is a good search engine for kids. When you submit a search you are taken to a results page with a collection of Google advertisements. One search query for cat gave me a link to a dating site.
A kidsafe search engine that does use Google Safe Search is OneKey – http://onekey.com – it’s been around a few years now and I’ve never seen any problems.
Hi Judy,
Thanks so much for this posting. On Friday afternoon I added an item to my incredibly long to-do list: Find good tutorial on internet searching for students and staff. I can cross that one off after reading your post. You’re a champion! 🙂 Thanks heaps.
Cheers,
Cheryl.