21st Century LearnersLesson 4Grades 3-6Bruce Luck

What You Will Learn About

Search Engines

Boolean method of searching the Internet

Search Engines

What are search engines?A computer program designed to search things on the Internet

Which search engines have you used before?

Which is your favorite?

Any problems with them?

Too Many Sites to Choose From

or Not Enough Info on Some Sites

“Businesses” = 586 million sites“Business” = 3.8 billion

“Big 6 research steps” = 7.8 million

“Lady Gaga” = 319,000,000

“Lady Gaga + Adam Lambert” = 1.6 million

Searching the Internetusing the Boolean Method

Because of too many choices for Internet searches

We need a more efficient way you search the internet - to help narrow your search

The Boolean Method

The Boolean Method

Narrow your search by adding 3 words:andornot

Boolean Operations: and, or, not

ANDAll students with tie shoes stand up

All students with tie shoes AND who are boys stand up

All students with tie shoes AND who are boys stand up AND with a name that starts with S

ORAll students with tie shoes OR Velcro shoes stand up

All students with tie shoes OR Velcro shoes stand up AND blue jeans stand up

NOTAll students wearing blue jeans but NOT tie shoes stand up

All students who are boys and NOT wearing blue jeans stand up

Boolify

Another search engine:http://www.boolify.org/ to show Boolean operations

Boolify

Let’s try: cycle

Drag green “word” puzzle piece into center of screen & type in “cycles” (6.7 million)

Drag blue “and” puzzle piece & type water (3.8 million)

Modify search by dragging “and,” “or,” “not” pieces

cycles AND water NOT climate

cycles AND water OR rainfall

“water cycle and rainfall” (2,000)

Google-ify

Let’s try: cycle with Googlehttp://www.google.com/

Type “cycles” (62 million)

Type cycles AND water (22 million)

Modify search by dragging “and,” “or,” “not” piecescycles AND water NOT climate (7 million)

cycles AND water OR rainfall (1.5 million)

“water cycle and rainfall” (11 million)

“water cycle” (11 million)

Student Choice:

Need an acceptable keyword to try

Then narrow the search with “and,” “or,” or “not”

Database Search Strategy Plannerhttp://web.archive.org/web/20031205092931/http://reinert.creighton.edu/101/srchplan.htm

Boolean machine interactive:http://kathyschrock.net/rbs3k/boolean/

More on Boolean

http://www.eduplace.com/kids/usingweb/index.html

http://www.internettutorials.net/boolean.asp

What Did We Learn Today?

Search enginesWhat are some?

Boolean MethodWhat does it do?

How does it do it?

What are the 3 key words?

Teacher Resources

GSD TechSmart lessson planhttp://gsdtechsmart.wikispaces.com/Lesson+1+%283-6%29