KTHS Tech How To's - 11/1

Helping students do better searches

•The problem•A strategy•Some tools to support the strategy

1. Word prediction to help students spell search terms quickly and correctly

2. Google's "wonderwheel" to help students find groups of related pages within their topic

3. “Print to Kurzweil” to give students a Kurzweil version of the Web pages to read and analyze

Helping students do better searches

The search problem

Students have difficulty with just about every step of the search process, from asking a reasonable question to using the information from Google or other search to answer questions.

Helping students do better searches

A possible strategy

Teach students how to ...•identify what they need to find out•identify the corresponding keywords•find synonyms for the keywords•choose an appropriate search tool•write the search query•run the search•skim & choose pages to read•read....interpret...extract information to help them find out what they need to know

A few software tools can make it easier to teach and apply the strategy. These tools help the students carry out the task more quickly and probably with less frustration.

Helping students do better searches

Some tools to support the strategy: Word prediction

To help students write effective queries, the queries (search terms) need at least to be correctly spelled. By starting at google.com /instant, students can use word prediction to get more accurate results in less time.

Helping students do better searches

Some tools to support the strategy: Wonderwheel

To help students make sense of the results, the Google Wonder wheel can display the structure of topics and subtopics. This helps students drill down from general to more specific content.

The Wonder wheel is available in the search panel on the left of every results page, under All Results.

Helping students do better searches

Helping students do better searches

Helping students do better searches

Some tools to support the strategy: Print to Kurzweil

To help students carefully read a page they've retrieved, they can "print it to Kurzweil." This is an option from the browser's Print menu. In Firefox or Explorer, go to the Print menu, select Print..., and click Kurzweil Virtual Printer - KESI.

Doing so creates a Kurzweil file that can be read aloud in Kurzweil, providing all of Kurzweil's note-taking, highlighting, vocabulary, and dictionary look-up tools.

Helping students do better searches

In the browser (Explorer, Firefox…), click File – Print.., and select KESI Virtual Printer.