STOP SPINNING IN CIRCLES…BETTER SEARCHING FOR RESOURCES

Heather Miller

Bruce Herbert

Do you ever feel like this when looking for resources for your classroom inquiry?

BETTER SEARCHING ON GOOGLE

Every word matters Generally all the words you put in the query will

be used Search IS case sensitive Punctuation is ignored

Can’t search for special characters Exceptions C++, $, underscore

Keep it simple

Use words most likely to appear in what you are searching for

Use as few terms as possible

Choose descriptive words

EFFECTIVE SEARCH TIPS WITH GOOGLE

Web search:Think keywords that are most likely to

appear on the web page

Type several words what you need to get relevant results

SEARCH FOR…

What happens when you search for Inquiry

Science inquiry

Biology inquiry

ADVANCED SEARCH FEATURES Phrase search (“ “)

search exact order "scientific inquiry"

Search within a specific website (site:)you can specify that your search results  

inquiry site:tamu.edu

Terms you want to exclude (-)You can indicate that you do not want pages

that contain this word to appear inquiry -biology -journal    

ADVANCED SEARCH FEATURES

The OR operator   inquiry OR questioning

For particular file types You can restrict your results to particular

file types  inquiry filetype:pdf 

ADVANCED SEARCH FEATURES

Fill in the blanks (*)Wildcard

Search exactly as is (+)Texas, +science

Find synonyms (~)Looks for that words synonyms

~run (will search run, running, marathon ,runner’s)

Range (..)Searching a range of numbers

Earthquakes, California, 1900..2000

You can also search by Bookscomputer codenews archivesall things mac, unix, lunix, MicrosoftUS Governmentuniversities

USE YOUR RESOURCES

PLC-METS wiki DLESE NDL Teacher’s Domain iTunesU Teacher Tube

DIGITAL LIBRARY FOR EARTH SYSTEM EDUCATION (DLESE)

http://www.dlese.org • collection of resources, activities, & data • searchable by grade level, resource type, collection & standards

• virtual field trips

NATIONAL SCIENCE DIGITAL LIBRARY

http://nsdl.org Library of education &

research Science Technology Engineering Mathematics Resources, tools, &

lessons

TEACHER’S DOMAIN

http://www.teachersdomain.org

free media resources from Public Broadcasting NOVA, Frontline…

Correlate with state & national education standards Must sign up - FREE

ITUNESU

http://education.apple.com/itunesu • collection of FREE content instructional videos/podcasts

TEACHER TUBEhttp://www.teachertube.com• online community for sharing instructional videos• FREE, sign up to download/upload• safe venue for teachers/schools

HANDS-ON

Learners use real-world materials to conduct investigations they help plan

Search the sites that already have lessons on them Modify or use as is DLESE NSDL PLC-METS wiki

SIMULATION

Allow learners to “gather” data & examine the relationship between variable

Learners can manipulate variables

Simulation +physics +roller coaster http://www.myphysicslab.com/

RollerSimple.html

DATA SET

Access to data sets previously collected

Data set +fish –journal http://www.streamnet.org/

Data set +earthquakes +Texas http://www.ig.utexas.edu/research/projects/

eq/compendium/earthquakes_contents.htm

EVIDENCE EVALUATION

Learners are presented with data, but not an explanation, they then determine whether evidence supports the explanation given

VERBAL DESIGN

Teachers poses a question, learners design a study to answer the question