Teaching Internet Research Skills
a seminar presented by Genie Tyburski

COURSE SECTIONS

Introduction

Myths & Misconceptions

Research Starting Points

Evaluative Skills

Hypothetical Research Exercises

Fact-Finding Exercises

NAVIGATION

Home

Search This Web

Site Map

SPONSORS

The Virtual Chase

Drexel University,
College of Information Science & Technology

Google Power

Instruction style: Hands-on in class or remote participation; also suitable for visual presentation before large audiences.

Description: To illustrate the usefulness of relevancy engines like Google for finding facts or known items.

Class participation: Create a fact-finding exercise, or one that directs students to locate a known item. Assign a different engine to each student or to small groups of students. Instruct the students to record their queries, to indicate whether or not their searches located the information, and to note the ranked position of the hit that leads to the information. Then discuss and compare these results.

Presentation: Demonstrate Google's strength by conducting one or two live queries for finding a specific fact or known item. Then perform the same searches using another popular engine. While this is particularly effective live, you can also capture the results for offline demonstration.

Noteworthy Engines:

• Google

• Yahoo Search

• Teoma

• Gigablast