Lesson+2

﻿ ﻿ Sorting out Search Engines﻿   Grade Level: 9-12 Based on "**Empowering Students with Technology**", by Alan November //E-Venture: Comparing for Understanding-page 27-28.// Duration: One 25 minute session Description: This activity is designed to help students who are using search engines to identify the most efficient search engine. Goals: To increase student knowledge of Search Engines To aid the student in identifying advertising sites To build critical-thinking and decision-making skills relating to computer usage

Activity: Brainstorm with students on what search engines they use and why. Make a list of all of their search engines. Include all of the search engines listed below as well any that the students mention that are not on the list. Make sure to randomly assign the search engines, trying not to give students their "favorite" search engine.

Student Worksheet

Today you are going to look at several search engines and determine their validity.

Search Engine

1. Choose one of the following search engines, make sure they are all covered (ie not everyone can use Google!) each search engine should have at least 2 people assigned Ask.com Answers.com AltaVista.com Bing.com Dogpile.com Google.com Webcrawler.com Yahoo.com


 * 1) Type in Human effects on the environment

a. b. c. d. e.
 * 1) Write down the top 5 web sites that come up


 * 1) Visit these 5 top links (each student can take 2 or 1)
 * 2) Rank them on the following:
 * 3) Did they give you the information you wanted? yes 1 pt
 * 4) Was the information less than 3 clicks away? yes 1 pt
 * 5) Was it a commercial site (were they selling anything) no 1 pt
 * 6) Were they linked to sites that also contained information on Aquatic Biomes yes 1 pt
 * 7) Could you easily find the name of the host site (home page) yes 1 pt

Compile your data with your partner and rank the search engine

Web site 5= 10 pts 4= 8 pts 3= 6 pts 2 = 4 pts 1= 2 pts

The best ranking would be a 50 for search engine

Search Engine_ Points___

Assessment: Completed Worksheet and positive classroom involvement