Find Web Resources: Search Engines & Search Strategies

Let's try some different seaches and search engines and see what happens:

• Go to Google, and try using "search engine math":

Keyword search + math	Results - how many "hits"?
Clinton
+Clinton  +"foreign policy"
+Clinton  +"foreign policy"  +Argentina
+Clinton  +"foreign policy" +Argentina  -Lewinsky
change the words "foreign policy" to your target language equivalent

• Try that last search you did in a meta-search engine.
  Pick one from this list of top Metacrawlers.
  (If you don't know what a meta-search engine is, go back to the first reading for this module.)
  
  
• Are the results the same?   Did you get some/any of the same top pages as in the Google search results?

Target language searching:

• What happens to the results when you put one or more of the search keywords into the target language? 
  Does it make any difference if you use accented or other "special" FL characters or just use the English letter?
  
  
• On the Google homepage, click "Language Tools" on the right.  
  Try specifying your search by country or language. 
  What difference does that make?
  
  
• Try out the translation feature further down on the "Language Tools" page.
  Is it as good - or bad - as what your students can write?
  It might be a good activity idea to have your students try this and then show them the mistakes it makes.
  

• Go towards the bottom of the "Language Tools" page and pick your language.
  Would it be a good idea to have your students use Google to see the actual search page in the target language?
  Why or why not?

Searching for Multimedia:

• Look above the input box on the Google homepage and click on "Images". 
  Search for an author or musician from your target culture, for example. 
  
  
• Go to the A9.com search engine and search for the author or musician again. How are the results different?
  A9 also has a search for movies. Can you find a video clip of your author or musician?
  

Search Strategies

• You might also try this - NoodleQuest will ask you some questions about your search and point you in the right direction.  See if it comes up with useful suggestions on where to search.    http://www.noodletools.com/noodlequest/