Surf’s up

1. Surf’s up Riding the Internet Critically Kathy Martz 2009

2. This presentation will teach you about • How to Search on the Internet • . Different Types of Search Engines

3. How are the Internet and written text books the same? • Anyone can publish a Web page • No one checks to see if the information is true or false • There are millions of places to look for information • Using the Internet is much quicker • The Internet uses search engines Internet Books A book has to be published by a publishing company Editors check and verify the information A book can be more time consuming Looking for You have to visit a library The library uses the Dewey Decimal System

4. How is the Internet similar to books? • Both provide sources • of information • Both are viewed by • millions of people daily across the world.

5. When is using the Internet better than using printed material? When researching current topics. When researching topics with controversial opinions. The Internet can provide the information quickly.

6. Why can a book be better than the Internet? • Resources such as Encyclopedias are written by professionals and checked before publishing. • Information is easily accessible alphabetically. • You are not offered thousands of choices. • A book is easy to take along and you don’t need hook-ups!

7. Search Engines • A search engine is a program that searches through the Internet for you. • Popular search engines are Google, Yahoo, and ask.com. • There are also other search engines that are good but not quite as popular.

8. Regular Search Engine or Meta? • On regular search engines like Google and Yahoo, you put in a word or phrase and the search engine searches for it for you. • If you type Thomas Alva Edison on to Yahoo, you would receive 250,000 results. On Google you would receive 717,000. • Your turn. Go to google.com and type in Thomas Alva Edison. Look at the first 3 sites. Do they look good? Do the same on Yahoo.com. Are the results the same?

9. Why do you get different results on Yahoo! and Google? • Search engines use different methods. Many of the results will be the same, but they are in a different order. • A Metasearch uses more than one search engine.

10. Surf time! • We are now going to do a search on Thomas Alva Edison using a metasearch engine . • www.cactisearch.com is a megasearch engine that will do searches on Google, Yahoo!, MSN and Ask all at the same time. • Go to the cactisearch website and type in Thomas Alva Edison. • You can see all results, or you can see results by the individual search engines. • How might a metasearch engine be more useful than an individual one?

11. Different Types of Search Engines • Clusty.com groups search results by category. • Go to http://clusty.com and type in Thomas Alva Edison. • Notice on the left the list of categories you can use to narrow down your search. • List the categories you could use to write a report on the life of Thomas Alva Edison

12. Go to answers.com • Type in: When was Thomas Alva Edison born? • How is the information presented differently than on the other search engines you have used? • Notice the information on the right side of the page. How could this be helpful in your research?

13. Go to http://www.kartoo.com/ • Type in Thomas Alva Edison. • Notice the information is given to you in map format. • This helps you to navigate several sites related to the same topic. • If you run your cursor over the icons, you will get an abbreviated account of what information is on the site. • What makes this site unique?

14. Other Helpful Sources • Online encyclopedias are also excellent sources of information. • Encarta- http://encarta.msn.com • Britannica - http://britannica.com • Wikipedia - http://www.wikipedia.org

15. Surf’s Up!!!! How to do Internet Searches

16. Now that you have seen different types of search engines, you need to learn how to make the most of your searches. • Many search engines have advanced search options. These allow you to be more specific about your search. • Go to google.com and click on advanced search to the right of the search box. • Type in Thomas Alva Edison in the area that says “all of these words” and type in childhood where it says “None of these words.” • Click on the language arrow and select English. • Click on Advanced Search. • This will filter out the things you don’t want.

17. Critically Surfing the Web • Many search engines allow you to use sets of words or symbols to narrow your search. • AND – use this word when you want to find two words together. For example Thomas Edison and Inventions. • OR – use this when you can accept a couple of words such as Thomas Edison or invention of the light bulb.

18. Question… • How would using and in a search be different from using or?

19. More Search Tips • - (minus sign) – use this symbol when you want to exclude a word. For example, Thomas Edison – childhood. • “quotations” – use quotation marks when you are searching for an exact phrase. For example, you could type in “Inventions of Thomas Alva Edison,” and the search engine would look for that exact phrase.

20. “Critical” Searching on the Internet • Your turn! • Go to www.cactisearch.org • What would you type in to find out about Thomas Alva Edison’s inventions? • What would you type in if you wanted to know more about his life? • What would you type in if you wanted to know about his wealth?

21. Website Credibility • What makes a website reliable? • Remember! Anyone can post information on the Internet. • Make sure your research comes from a known source. • Look at who runs the site. If it’s a museum, national organization, or some other place that can be trusted, chances are the site is valid. • When was this site published or updated?

22. Activity • Go to www.google.com/ • tisp/install.html

23. Discussion Questions • Who runs this site? • If it’s a museum, national organization, or some other place that can be trusted? • Are there photographs on the page? • Is there any suspicious information? • When was this site published or updated?

24. Credibility Checklist • Do you recognize the large companies who advertise on the site? • Are typing errors minimal? Is grammar proper? • Are there links or references to other sites that support the information? • Do images match the information provided? • Are the authors experts in their field? • Do other credible sources agree with this sites facts?

25. Let’s Take This a Step Further…. • View the YouTube, “Evaluating Websites Tutorial.” • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_qR5lpnXBE • Some Of what you see will be a review, but there is some more information on how to spot a credible source.

26. Citing Internet Sources • When writing a research paper, you must always include the resources you used at the end of your work so people know where you got your information from. • While collecting information, you should keep a record of what books and Internet sites you have used in your research. As you have seen in our searches, you will come across many sites. Going back and retrieving that information after you have finished your paper is difficult and almost impossible.

27. What You Need to Include • Collect this information for each website: • authors name • title of page • the company or organization that published the page • the Web address (URL) for that page • the last date that you looked at the page

28. Bibliography Guidelines Authors Name: Last, First Middle Date Published Publication/Website Title Title of Article Place Published (books only) Publisher (books only) Editor (if there is one) Edition , Volume Number (encyclopedia or periodicals), page numbers URL (website) Last Date Accessed (Website)

29. Critical Thinking and Website Credibility Assignment • For the last several lessons, you have learned that information posted on the Web is not always relevant or true. You have learned to think about the information being presented, evaluated websites for accuracy and credibility, and assessed whether certain websites were credible. As a culminating project, you will be required to work with another student to explore two websites on the internet. One should be a reliable website (feel free to use the criteria we taught you, or to come up with your own criteria), and one website that is unreliable. Again, you should decide what criteria to determine the credibility of your chosen websites.

30. Assignment • To help you visualize this assignment, go back to www.google.com/tisp/install.html website and recall why we determined this unreliable. Then………. • Get together with your partner and decide on a topic.

31. Make a list of ideas of what makes a website credible. • a. • b. • c. • d.

32. Research a variety of websites, and choose one that is credible, and one that is NOT credible. • Explain why you determined that the first website was credible. • Explain why you determined that the second website was not credible. •  * Extra credit/challenge: What would make your non-credible website credible? “re-design” this website so it is credible.

33. Additional Activity This Activity Can be used as independent practice

34. Choose two of the following Websites • http://www.deadlysins.com/guineaworm/index.htm • http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/ • http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Odd_animals • http://www.thedogisland.com/index.html • http://pamperedpuppy.com/features/200210_lamaison.php

35. Do Large companies you know advertise on this site? Are there any ‘dead links’, or links to ‘moved pages’? Do the pictures support the stated facts? Is the site supported by a credible company ?

36. Are the sites’ authors experts on the subject? Is contact information provided and does the place/email exist and work? Does the site present highly biased visuals (e.g. racist statements, derogatory remarks, and emotional language)? Is the site professional (grammar and typing errors are not present or very minimal)?

37. Questions for Discussion Should be used throughout the lessons.

38. Summarize what you consider to be the three most important points of this Power Point presentation. • Make a Venn diagram comparing and contrasting Internet research with book research. • When might using books be better than using the Internet? • When might using the Internet be better than using traditional books? • Compare REGULAR search engines with METASEARCH engines.

39. Describe “Advanced Search”.   • How can you search “smarter” on the internet?  • How can you tell if a webpage is reliable? • What information do you need to cite an Internet source?