Home PublicationsL&LIssuesVolume 27 (1999-2000) March (No. 6)

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Navigating the Internet is easier with the right search engine to speed you toward your online destination

By now you probably know all the reasons why a teacher would want to search the Internet. Lesson plans, project ideas, electronic field trips, text-based resources, pictures, sounds, current events, and experts are all available at the click of a button.

But which button is it? How often have you wanted to find something on the Internet but didn’t know where to begin? Here are some helpful steps to simplify your search process.

Searching for a Search Engine

To search the Internet effectively, you will need to use a search engine. Search engines are designed to seek information for you, and they can be the most useful—or useless—tools on the Internet. When you key in a keyword or phrase, the search engine locates a list of possible Web sites from its database. It can direct you to specific sites, general topics, FAQs (frequently asked questions), current news, company listings, and e-mail addresses.

However, these engines search in many different ways, and if they are not used correctly, searching can be very frustrating and time consuming. The search engine Excite
(www.excite.com), for example, not only finds sites with your keyword but also lots of concepts related to it. HotBot (http://hotbot.lycos.com) finds sites with a particular technology, such as JavaScript or Shockwave. AltaVista (www.altavista.com) indexes each keyword from every Web page in its extensive directory. Infoseek (http://infoseek.go.com) searches the Web and Usenet newsgroups, as well as Web FAQs, e-mail addresses, current news, and company listings.

KYSS—Keep Your Searches Simple

Confused? Then simplify your search process. Instead of navigating through several different engines, try using just one “metasearch” engine, such as MetaCrawler
(www.metacrawler.com) or SavvySearch (www.savvysearch.com). Rather than maintaining their own databases of Web-based sources, MetaCrawler and SavvySearch use the databases of other search engines, including Lycos (www.lycos.com), AltaVista, Excite, GoTo.com (www.goto.com), LookSmart (www.looksmart.com), Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com), Thunderstone (www.thunderstone.com), and Infoseek.

By using a metasearch engine you get the best of all the search engines without the headache of learning how to use them. (The prefix “meta” means more comprehensive.) MetaCrawler and SavvySearch query these search engines, organize the results, rank them, and return them to you as a list of hyperlinks.

SOS—Steps of Searching

To use MetaCrawler or SavvySearch, simply follow these steps:

1. Type the Internet address (URL) for MetaCrawler or SavvySearch in the Location/Address box at the top of the Internet page, and press <Enter>.
2. Once the site is loaded, move the cursor/arrow to the empty text box beside the SEARCH button and type a word or phrase that describes what you are trying to find (e.g., collie, New York).
3. If you typed a single word, simply click the SEARCH button. If you typed a phrase, click in the PHRASE circle; then click SEARCH.

Both MetaCrawler and SavvySearch will return a list of possible sites with a descriptor for each. Read the descriptors and then click the site that appears to meet your needs. Remember, you can always go back to try another site from this list if the first one isn’t exactly what you want. To return to your original list, click the <BACK> button on the left side of the navigation toolbar at the top of your screen or use the “Go” option on the menu bar.

Easy Advanced Searches

For more-advanced searches, use MetaCrawler’s and SavvySearch’s advanced search syntax, which helps refine your search so you can get better results. For instance, to designate groups of words in your search, enclose them in quotation marks (e.g., “George Washington”). You can also specify words or phrases that must appear in documents by prefixing them with a plus sign (e.g., “George Washington” +president), and also specify words or phrases that must not appear by prefixing them with a minus sign (e.g., “George Washington” –Carver).

Some other examples include:

• “lesson plans” +geography +America. This search might yield lesson plans on the geography of North, South, and Central America.
• “American history” 1492. This search might yield more years than just 1492, such as “Introduction to American History, 1492–1877,” a course syllabus from Georgetown College.
• Trudeau –Pierre. This search would yield information about any Trudeaus except Pierre, such as Garry Trudeau, the Trudeau Institute, or Tom Trudeau Construction.

Metasearch engines warn that not all search engines queried support these advanced features, which may affect some of the results, but generally the list of found sites is very useful. (Be aware that if you plan to share these metasearch techniques with your students, their activity should be monitored. For instance, a link on the MetaCrawler home page to MetaSpy is just another click away from MetaSpy Exposed, which leads directly to a variety of adult Web sites.)

Customize Your Savvy Search

SavvySearch offers one extra feature that allows users to harness the search power of up to 100 engines. With the SavvySearch Customization Center, users can create a personal metasearch with a single query. Users who are interested in customizing their search engine can click the <Customize> link on the left side of the SavvySearch screen, then click the <Select Engines> link on the top of the next screen. To include specific search engines for a customized metasearch, simply locate them on the matrix, choose a ranking for results from those search engines, and click the <Customize> button at the bottom of the screen.

Searching with Students

Students, too, need to learn search strategies and to be given the opportunity to take control of their own learning. By teaching students how to search efficiently with a metasearch engine, the teacher becomes a guide and facilitator, rather than the source of all information, and students assume responsibility for their own growth. When students are not ready to search on their own, teachers can simply bookmark the list of sites after a metasearch or add it to the Favorites file, ready for student use.

Each search engine has its own unique benefits, but together they make http://www.metacrawler.com and http://www.search.com/ two of the most powerful search tools on the Internet—making your research fast and easy.

Copyright © 2000, ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education). All rights reserved.