🚀 go-pugleaf

At 03:42 PM 4/22/99 -0400, you wrote:
>how do you teach "search engines"?  Do you
>1.  describe search engines, then pick a few that you like,
demonstrating  each and detailing quirks of each
>or
>2.  describe search techniques (such as boolean searching or
+/- syntax) and then say something like you can use technique
"A" with search engine 1, 2, 3, and technique "B" with engines C,
D, & E?

In 2-3 hours of teaching search engines, I take students to five
different search engines. In each case, I give them a search for
us to do together, then give them time on their own to try their
own search. Usually, I start with Infoseek's Advanced form, which
is great and doesn't require remembering rules, then go to
Infoseek regular and Northern Light (teaching +, -, ""), then go
to AltaVista advanced (teaching boolean, which they never
get right away), then end with Metacrawler or Savvy Search
depending upon which one is most accessible at a busy time
of day.............

In the process I point out some of the differences between
these search engines and also have students brainstorm together
the search words they would use for the group "search" project
with each search engine. When the group does a search together,
I usually encourage different students to try different combinations
of words with the same search engines, then we compare
the results and talk about why some were more successful
than others.

What amazes me is that students still often expect the
search engine to answer their question. They put in a few
keywords and expect a few sentences or paragraphs to
appear before their eyes which tells them specifically
and succinctly what they want to know. I actually had a
a student say last week, "What's the point of doing a search
if you don't immediately get the answer to your question?
Why can't it just tell me what I'm looking for?"

I have to keep telling students that we're not yet in the days
of Star Trek when we can say aloud, "Computer, tell me
this" and the computer immediately applies. But
so many students seem to expect such a response.
And maybe in a few years, they'll get it too.......and
research skills as a result will deteriorate even further.

(Also, I find it important to explain why the search results
that don't look relevant may be relevant - which does
also involve explaining briefly how search engines work.
One teaching example:  Search for the name of the
movie in which Mary Tyler Moore was a nun and Elvis
Presley fell in love with her.......Usually one of the top
results is a site about autism. Why? Because there's
an autistic boy in that movie, and a paragraph on the
first page of the site refers to the movie......I also take
time to show students how to use EDIT, FIND in their
browser so they can locate the keywords they were
searching for as soon as they arrive on a page).

In general, we spend about 25 minutes per search engine.
If I had less time, I might focus on two search engines
instead of five, and just talk about or quickly demonstrate
the other three.........

Tracy Marks
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