C2.4 Search

DIGITAL LITERACY – 

5. Using Search Engines
What is a search engine?
Search engines are special websites that make it easy for you to find a website or page in an instant. Popular search engines include Google, Yahoo! and Bing.
Each search engine works in a similar way. If you go to a search engine’s homepage, you’ll find a single box. You simply type whatever you want to search for into that box.​​​​​​​
Search engines are a great way to find things on the web. If you search carefully you can find reliable and trustworthy information.

Keywords in your search criteria

You need to think carefully about the keywords you enter in your search. They need to be relevant. For example, to find out how hot it is on the planet Mars, you might search for the words ‘Mars’, ‘surface’ and ‘temperature’.You also need to think about the number of keywords that you use, too. If you use too few keywords you could get too many results and they won’t all be relevant. However, if you use too many keywords, you might get no results at all.Filtering resultsTo help make your search more specific, you can use “quotation marks” around a set of words to find an exact phrase.

If you add a minus symbol (-) before a word it will exclude pages that contain that word. For example, ‘Roman emperors -Caesar’ will look for pages with ‘Roman’ and ‘emperors’ in it, but not ‘Caesar’.

What is an URL?

Every website has its own online address, called a URL.

​​​​​​​URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator. When you are viewing a page on the World Wide Web, it is the long address that appears in the address bar at the top of your browser.

What is a domain name?

The domain name is the part of the address that identifies an organisation, for example, in the address above it is Google. For the website address ‘www.bbc.co.uk’, the domain name is BBC.

How do search engines work?

To find what you’re after, a search engine will scan its index of webpages for content related to your search.

A search engine makes this index using a program called a ‘web crawler’ or ‘web spiders’. This automatically browses the web and stores information about the pages it visits. Watch the video above to find out more.

How do search engines display your search results?

Search engines sort results to show you the ones they think are the most useful.

Search engines also pay attention to lots of other ‘signals’ when working out the order to show you results. For example how often the page is updated and if it is from a trustworthy domain.

Different search engines use different algorithms. This means that some sites will give their results in a different order, or they may even show completely different results altogether.

Usually the top links are the most relevant to your search. However it is often worth scrolling down the page because you might find something better further down. Sometimes the top links are adverts for companies who have paid to be listed at the top.

How do we know how reliable a website is?

To check the reliability of a website, you could look at the domain name. Do you recognise the address as one that you can trust?

Addresses which end with .sch.uk, .ac.uk or .gov.uk are educational or government websites so are usually reliable.

Addresses which end with a .co.uk, .com or .org can be bought and used by anyone but this doesn’t mean they are unreliable.

Unlike most non-fiction books that you get from a library, many sites are not checked for accuracy.

If you have doubts about how reliable a piece of content is you can check it by looking at other sites. If they all say the same thing it is probably accurate.

Bias

It is also important to think about who has published a website. Why has it been written and published?

Some websites might be biased or could give only one side of an argument. These sites might present their opinion as fact.

Follow this hyperlink to learn more:-

1. BBC Bitesize

Computing Home Page

How search engines work - Google

We have learned to rely very heavily on finding information on the internet. Your students will enjoy learning effective ways to search the internet as they read a lesson and practice searches.

Learning Objectives

At the completion of this lesson, students will be able to:

• define 'search engine'
• identify methods used to search on the internet
• demonstrate how to search information on the internet

 Useful Website

https://code.org/curriculum/course3/18/Teacher

https://mediasmarts.ca/sites/mediasmarts/files/lesson-plans/lesson_understanding_internet_lesson2_pathways_addresses.pdf

http://www.teach-nology.com/teachers/lesson_plans/computing/internet/

https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/how-the-internet-works-6432256

1. Ask Good Questions & Use Key Words
How can you make sure that your search results are useful? Can you make small changes to improve your search results? Compare the results you get when you change your key words. 

2. Be careful: is the information balanced?
Is your website correct, truthful and suitable? How can you tell if you are making a good choice about a website? Is the information up-to-date? Is the website secure? Does it show virus warnings? Is the information in depth? Does the information come from an expert?

 3. Check your research

How can you check your research? Can you look at more than one trusted website? Try to compare how information is presented on different websites.

4. Don't give up!
Sometimes the information you are looking for can be hard to find.
Keep going..... 

5. Explain the ideas in your own words
Read the information carefully (sometimes you will need to do this a few times). Think about the information you have read in your mind. Now try and write the ideas in your own words.

6. Formally thank
How can you respect other people's property? Writing? Pictures? Videos? Music? How would you feel if someone used a photograph of you as an advertisement? How would you feel if someone used your work without asking you?