2009Ron HoutmanEducation Technology ConsultantKent ISD

Just Search ItDeveloping a Search Mindset

39

Online contentBillions of web pages

Offline contentBillions of items becoming

indexed

To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

Google’s mission

3

The State of SearchA New Digital Divide?

A New Digital Divide?

• Those who know how to “think” about searchvs. those don’t.

• Those who know how to validate soft informationvs. those don’t.

• Those who know where to find information in new “hot” channelsvs. those don’t.

• Those who understand the current culture of informallanguagesvs. those don’t

A New Digital Divide?

• Those who know how to get information to travel to themvs. those who still chase it.

• Those who have the knowledge and skills to create andre-mix digital mediavs. those who don’t.

• Those that understand that learning is a continual processvs. those that view learning as achievement.

-Helen Blowers, Columbus Metropolitan Library

Our Goal

To help students and teachers develop a research stance.

• Make research to be a part of everything that you do in the classroom.

• Teach this attitude to your students.

• Plan on learning new skills.o Nothing stays constant on the web.o Search engines are continually improving.o New search tools are always being developed

Search Education Topics

• Search techniques and strategies• Advanced features and tricks of the trade• NEW search curriculum for teachers and students

6

Search BasicsReview for tech-savvy educators

Getting Started

Whenever you see text inside of square brackets, that’s a query:

[ boulder colorado sports ]

To make that query, you’d type those words into the search engine.

(And you would NOT include the brackets themselves!)

Anatomy of a URL

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/

domain, site domain type

(aka, top-level domain name, TLD)

Address bar

Google tool bar

Query box

Search button

Anatomy of a search page

Right side ads

You might also see results from Desktop Search.

Top adsNumber of results

Anatomy of a search engine results page

local results

Oneboxes

Show options

• How can you find something on the page?

• Where does the name “Lewis” appearon this page?)

How do you search a page?

• Do you know how to find something on a web page?• Hint: Use the Find command…

o Edit>Find (or Control-F) o Note that works differently on Firefox vs. Internet Explorero Cmd-F on Macs

Find on a page

• Easy reminder…

• NOTE that when you do the find, the computer will scroll the window to that location.

How to find on a page (IE)

4

Search StrategiesKeywords, Synonyms, Context, Alternative Sources, Specifiers

Google Confidential and Proprietary

What is it I’m looking for? • (think about common keywords)

How would someone else talk about it? • (what words would they use? how would THEY describe it?)

Which of those terms would be most common?

Which of those terms would be very specialized to this topic?What kind of thing would make me happy? • (do I want a single web page, a definition, a collection, an image....

or … ?)

How to organize a search

Guiding questions...

The art of keyword choice

• Think about what you are trying to find• Choose words that you think will appear on the page• Put yourself in the mindset of the author of those words

Google Confidential and Proprietary

Choosing search keywords

Example:

• When you eat pig, the meat is called?• When you eat sheep, the meat is

called?• What you eat deer, the meat is called?

Suppose you visit your cousin in Sydney, Australia and they serve grilled kangaroo. What’s another word for kangaroo meat?

Solution

Search for [kangaroo meat name]

Scan through the results looking for a page with a plausible answer.

There are a number of ways to do this and the variations all will have different amounts of scanning.

Wikipedia has a good entry on this that includes a discussion of the controversy.

Think about synonyms

When an artist is making a sculpture for a client, they often make a small version of the sculpture in wax or clay. This serves as a preliminary sketch, presented to the client for approval.

Question: What is this thing called?

Google Confidential and Proprietary

Answer

The easiest solution I found was [small artist model in wax] and then I read through the snippets to find a definition.

To double check, you can use Google as a dictionary:[define: maquette]

Reading through snippets and double checking are important skills!

Everyone has a little indentation on their upper lip.

Question: What’s that thing called?

Finding the un-namable

Start broad, use a few words!

• Start with the simplest search you can think of: [ upper lip indentation ]

If it’s not right, you can always modify it.

• When I did this, I clicked on the first result, which took me to Yahoo Answers. There’s a nice article there about something called the philtrum.

• Then I double checked on that by doing a [ define:philtrum ]

Note: If you’re using 5 words, you’re probably going aboutthis the wrong way…

• I was walking to work and saw this interesting flower. It was about 3 feet high, and grew along the pathway in Grand Rapids Michigan.

• Question: Here’s the picture… can you tell me what the common and Latin name is of this flower?

Use context terms

Google Confidential and Proprietary

Path: o I started with [ blue wildflowers michigan ], but that

didn’t work.o Added [ blue wildflowers album michigan ] as a

context term… but still too many bad hits. Then shifted to using location name as my context term (and removing all the other words), giving me: [ wildflowers grand rapids ]

o I noticed the exact hit at position #1.

Answer: wildflower image

• Search: web for [ wildflowers album michigan color blue ] o Look for collections of pictures. Look for a matching

or similar picture. o Moral of the story… sometimes you really just have to

search particularly when you don’t know enough to specify all the words down to the final details.

• Answer: Chicory (Cichorium intybus)

Answer: wildflower image

• I kind of like that wildflower! What else can I find out about it?

• Where does it grow near me?

• Does it like to live in the sun or the shade?

Go deeper on a topic; use specific words

• I started with the Latin name because it’s the MOST specific term you can use. So I did a copy & paste from the previous search:

[Cichorium intybus]

and then started looking around.

• When I looked up the Wikipedia entry, I found that it likes shady conditions. I then checked my work by doing a search for

[Cichorium intybus shady ]

Sure enough, other places say the same thing. It checks out!

Answer

Keep looking! Think of synonyms!

Sometimes you need to keep trying, thinking your problem through in different ways. Usually, if you think about how someone else would describe the thing you’re looking for, that will suggest search terms for you.

Question: A friend told me that there is an abandoned city in the waters of San Francisco Bay. Is that true? If it IS true, what was the name of the supposed city?

Answer

Yes, it’s true… there IS an abandoned city near what is now Fremont. It was called Drawbridge.

The trick here is to think about other ways of describing an“abandoned city”— don’t just assume that’s the best way todescribe it. Try this search:

[ ghost town san francisco bay ]

• Google has many different kinds of content: o Newso Imageso Videoo Patentso Mapso etc

• Question: What are all the parts of a bicycle called?

Try different tools & collections

• Do the obvious search:

     [ bicycle parts ]

• … but then click on the IMAGES tab

Answer

Specifiers: Using terms for certain kinds of results

Some search terms suggest results that are of a specific type.

• Wikipedia - will usually bring wikipedia articles to the front• Image• Video – when looking for videos• Review – to find reviews of products, books, movies, etc.• Forum – a forum is an online discussion between people on a given topic• Example: [ Chinese wedding forum ]• Overview – for an on-topic overview• Tutorial – when looking for a tutorial on topic• Workbook• Help• Documentation – to look for documentation on a topic• FAQ – frequently asked questions list (often useful for topic summaries)• DIY – “do it yourself” useful when looking for instructions

Summary: The Art of Keywords

• Choose words that will be on the page(s) you seek.• Start as simply as possible (don’t start with 5 words in

your initial query).• If you know a very specific related term, use it, but make

sure it’s correct!• Learn from what you see on the pages you visit.• Don’t get stuck on a particular term or phrase. If you’re

not making progress, re-think the terms you are using.

• Try an image search when normal means fail, you might find something that will be useful or spark your interest in a different way.

• Word order matters—when it’s not working one way, try another.

• When searching for common phrases, don’t leave out the “stop words.” (e.g., [ Lord of the Rings] )

• Use double quotes properly, and only when you need them (to find a particular sequence of words)

• “Daniel M Pink” or “Grand Rapids Library”

Other general search tips

5

Search Features

Search Features

•Define words•Convert currency•Track flights•Perform calculations•Look up weather forecasts•Locate movie information•Find stock prices•Tell time•Track packages•Find area codes•Look up patent numbers•Find sport scores•Find earthquake data

Define

Find definitions and related phrases.

Earthquake

Access data from the U.S Geological Survey.

Calculator

Solve equations.

Conversion

General pattern: number units1 in units2

Problem

How fast does the world’s fastest man run in miles per hour?

Steps:

1. What’s the current world record?2. Make the conversions.3. Do the calculations.4. Use web search (news) to find out

world record.5. Note that the record is in meters

(100 meters).6. Convert distance from meters to

miles.7. Convert time from seconds to

hours.

Advanced Search

Advanced search box

Advanced search

Phrase search [ “Denver Broncos” ]Search within a site [ admissions site:colorado.edu ]Term exclusion [ jaguar -cars -football -os ]Term inclusion [ +how buy “cell phone” ]Fill in the blanks [ Tim Allen born * ]Related [related:colorado.edu]Allintitle [allintitle:rocky mountains]

Filetype: find specific kinds of documents

Searchable file types:• Adobe Portable Document Format (pdf)• Adobe PostScript (ps)• Lotus 1-2-3 (wk1, wk2, wk3, wk4, wk5, wki,

wks, wku)• Lotus WordPro (lwp)• MacWrite (mw)• Microsoft Excel (xls)• Microsoft PowerPoint (ppt)• Microsoft Word (doc)• Microsoft Works (wks, wps, wdb)• Microsoft Write (wri)• Rich Text Format (rtf)• Shockwave Flash (swf)• Text (ans, txt)

Resources

Resources

• Google Search Curriculum • google.com/educators>Tools for Your Classroom>Web SearchGoogle

Search - the Essentials http://www.google.com/educators/p_searchbasics.html

• Explore Google Search http://www.google.com/landing/searchtips

• Google Search Helpo Search Features

http://www.google.com/landing/searchtips

• Google Search Webinar - August 12th 5PM PST http://tinyurl.com/googlesearchwebinar

Classroom lessons and resources

1. Choose keywords carefully

• Think of the target you seek / how would it be written there? • Start broad, scan quickly, focus in• Use precise terms when you know them• Use type specifier terms

o e.g., wikipedia, image, video, review, forum, overview, tutorial, help, documentation…

• Consider other content types (images, videos, maps)

• Explore advanced techniques• Minus to remove terms from searches • Check your result by looking for same answer elsewhere • Calculator • Conversions• Site:

Search summary

Remember our goal

To help students and teachers develop a research stance.

• Make research to be a part of everything that you do in the classroom.

• Teach this attitude to your students.

• Plan on learning new skills.o Nothing stays constant on the web.o Search engines are continually improving.o New search tools are always being developed