Finding the right pieces for your Info Puzzle A Guide to Internet Searching Learning Resources Council, May 1, 1999 Updated, May 6th, 1999 Subject Guides give you the 'edge pieces' and fill in blocks of colour - use them to find information on general topics, like native studies, or math games. Search Engines fill in the tiny details - use them to find something very specific, like habitat destruction and songbirds or Alberta pioneers Subject Guides 3 Super "Department Store" Yahoo - http://www.yahoo.com Yahooligans - http://www.yahooligans.com Miningco - http://www.miningco.com 2 Fabulous lists of "Boutiques" Argus Clearinghouse - http://www.clearinghouse.net/ WWW Virtual Library - http://vlib.stanford.edu/Overview.html • A perfect example of a boutique subject guide is David Brown's Children's Literature Web Guide at http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/ 3 Terrific local resources Calgary Public Library - http://public-library.calgary.ab.ca/link/hompg1.htm MRU Library Subject Webliographies - http://www.mtroyal.ab.ca/library/Subguide/index.htm TELUS Learning Connection - http://www.2learn.ca Search Engines 3 L's of effective searching Language - Use specific terms, appropriate terminology for best results. Searching by phrases can be useful, as can paying attention to Capital Letters. Limiting - Limit Searching to the title field or by using Alta Vista Canada (www.altavistacanada.com) to limit to Canadian resources Logic - Read the help files to determine how to translate Search logic into the particular dialect of the tool you're using - e.g. Boolean, +'s and -'s, "all/any of these terms", etc 1 Great Canadian Search Engine Alta Vista Canada - http://www.altavista.ca • For both Alta Vistas, the following rules apply: o " " go around phrases or names, o * means I don't care how this word ends o + goes before terms that must be present o - goes before things that must not be present o limit by type of site by using +domain:edu or +domain:org o reduce results by searching only in title - e.g. title:"Tyrannosaurus rex"  e.g. +"Machu Pichu" +archeol* -aliens +domain:edu 3 More Wonderful Search Engines Alta Vista - http://www.altavista.com Hotbot - http://www.hotbot.com Northern Light - http://www.northernlight.com/ Teaching Searching Please send in ideas to add to the list! Teach students - teach teachers - teach parents!!! - teach anyone who'll come - it's a great marketing tool! 3 Key Points Teach searching as a means, not an end • If searching is only a part of the process it is easier to teach other things like evaluation Teach evaluation as part of the process: search then Research • Ask students to determine if the sites they're finding tell them what they need to know and what they still need to find - in searching, as in life, refinement is everything! Map searching to a familiar activity - shopping, fishing, selecting a chocolate, etc • Set up boolean groups based on clothing - jeans and white shirts or pink shoes Use the Internet where it makes most sense: • • • Current events International perspectives Communication Ideas for effective teaching: (we'll work on this together!) Web reports and webliographies Transfer the book report to a new medium. Students can get used to looking for useful elements,(author, date, url) and to evaluating sites. Web reports can grow into a class webliography on a given subject (either after searching or by using 'safe'starting points like the Yahooligans list on Dinosaurs). Students could also build a webliography on not-so-academic subjects - comics, bikes, cars, whatever to be used by their fellow students. Think about publishing the webliographies - on the web, on posters, a binder beside the Internet station or best of all in the newsletter. (Does your school newsletter go to trustees and local politicians?) Use the news! Use a source that lists newspapers by country, like The Ultimate Collection of Newslinks (http://pppp.net/links/news/), to encourage your students to access daily news from a country they're studying. Go global! Use sources from the news list or other resources for foreign language and viewpoints; There's a great page called Intercultural E-Mail Classroom Connections at http://www.iecc.org/. Find experts! There are a number of sites on the web where students can find people to email - whether about a health issue or through pages like Great Canadian Scientists' Ask a Scientist Page (http://fas.sfu.ca/css/gcs/ask/). These folks are supported by the Royal Society of Canada and Canada's Schoolnet (http://www.schoolnet.ca/ Assignments I've used: • • • • Information on the Economics 3303 Assignment where students wrote web reviews ECON 2203 - a web analysis project on the federal budget http://www.mtroyal.ab.ca/programs/academserv/lib/Help/Helpdocs/ECON2203.ht m ECON 3303 - annotated webliography project http://www.mtroyal.ab.ca/programs/academserv/lib/Help/Helpdocs/econ3303.htm Evaluation Pie charts - I have used this with a number of classes. I talk about sites being there for information, persuasion or advertising, or a combination of all three. Students search, and for a site they've found draw a pie chart of the site. Students are asked to • come up and draw the chart on the board. I'm hoping to try this with pre-chosen sites perhaps 5 for a class of 25, so that students could debate differing interpretations of a site. The 'secret information' assignment on website evaluation http://www.mtroyal.ab.ca/programs/academserv/lib/Help/Helpdocs/admn1150 a.htm - described in the article I wrote for Teacher Librarian Today - Evaluating Internet Information. Internet Evaluation 3 most important Questions Who is responsible? An organization, an individual? Are there credentials listed? When was the site posted or last updated? Why is the site there - to inform? persuade? advertise? Other clues What does the address tell you - edu, gov, org vs net or com. BUT… How did you find it - linked from a good page? • Hint: in Alta Vista search link:http://address to find out who links to a page More on Searching • • • • • Search Engine Watch o http://www.searchenginewatch.com/ Internet Trend Watch for Libraries o http://www.itwfl.com/ Scout Report o http://wwwscout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/report/index.html Internet Resources Newsletter o http://www.hw.ac.uk/libWWW/irn/irn.html Evaluating Web Resources o http://www.science.widener.edu/~withers/webeval.htm Margy MacMillan mmacmillan@mtroyal.ab.ca Mount Royal University - http://www2.mtroyal.ab.ca/~mmacmillan Library Internet Coordinator 240-6135 04/26/99 Mount Royal University - Library - MRU Library Information Library Team - Margy's Home Page - Conferences & Workshops Finding the right pieces for your Info Puzzle Page Address: http://www2.mtroyal.ab.ca/~mmacmillan/conf/lrc99.htm Page maintained by Margy MacMillan - mmacmillan@mtroyal.ab.ca - Last Updated 1999/05/06