internetsearching

__Class Activity Part 1__
 * 1) Find a search engine or meta search engine that you've never used before. Make sure you are the only one in class using that search engine.
 * 2) In the search window type two words with a space inbetween but no other punctuation: Theresa Overall
 * 3) //(I know it looks conceited to have you search for my name, but you'll see why I did it in a minute . . . I just happen to have a last name that makes this exercise interesting.)//
 * 4) Report to the class the name of your search engine and how many hits you got.
 * 5) Look through the list. How many of those hits are really about me? How did the other pages make it into your search?
 * 6) Now, in the search window, type the same two words but with quotation marks around them: "Theresa Overall"
 * 7) Report to the class the name of your search engine and how many hits you got this time.
 * 8) Are the results better? worse? more? less? What's different? Why?

__Part 2__
 * 1) Now imagine that you are researching cowboys in the Wild West of America in the late 1800's. Using the same search engine, type this one word with no punctuation: cowboys
 * 2) Report to the class the name of your search engine and how many hits you got.
 * 3) What is the most common "bad hit" that you are getting?
 * 4) Type in your search window the following two words with a minus sign in front of the second word: cowboys -football
 * 5) How many hits did you get? Is it less? Are there fewer bad hits?
 * 6) Now try typing in the search window: cowboys -football -dallas
 * 7) Are the results better? worse? more? less? What's different? Why?

__Part 3__ Go to google.com and click on "advanced search" on the right side of the search window. What are all those features good for and when would you use them?

__Part 4__ Thinking outside the box: KartOO is a metasearch engine with visual display interfaces. When you click on OK, KartOO launches the query to a set of search engines, gathers the results, compiles them and represents them in a series of interactive maps through a proprietary algorithm. Try it:[| http://kartoo.com]

__Part 5__ Search for a page that your students could use to learn information for your unit in Dr. Grace's class. This part of today's class is about criteria for evaluating a website, so it's okay if you use a page that does not have good quality. (It might make the exercise more interesting if you use a bad page.) Here's the document that you will fill out to evaluate your website:

__Additional Resources on the Topic of Finding and Evaluating Internet Sources:__ http://del.icio.us/texastheresa/tech.internet.evaluation