SEARCH  ENGINES

Are you ready for the Information Highway?

Search Engines allow you to to look for information by entering a topic or key word(s), and then search a list of related sites.  Many search engines provide several options to narrow the search.  There are a number of different search engines available such as:

Yahoo  http://www.yahoo.com
Yahoo is one of the most well known search services on the Web.  It was founded in 1994 by two Ph.D. students at Stanford University who wanted to create a catalog of Web pages for the Stanford community news.

Alta Vista http://www.altavista.com
Alta Vista indexes more pages than any other service, and  it lets you search in flexible ways.

Excite  http://www.excite.com
Excite includes both a directory of reviewed sites and a search engine.  One of Excite's distinctive features is that by default, it searches by concept instead  of by the exact key words you type.

Infoseek http://www.infoseek.com
Infoseek is primarily a search engine, but it is also includes a directory of Infoseek Select sites, which the people at Infoseek have personally reviewed

Lycos  http://www.lycos.com
Lycos like Excite and Infoseek, Lycos is a search engine with a directory, organized by subject.

The major search engines let you select whether to search for the exact phrase you typed, all the words in the phrase but not necessarily together, any of the words in a phrase, and so on.  A few search engines do not give you such options.  In this case, you can define the search yourself by adding one or more words or symbols to your search topic.
 

Using words next to each other When searching for a phrase such as the Chicago Fire or the Water Tower, where you want the words in that order, just enclose the phrase in quotes.  A search on the Chicago Fire returns with any or all of those words, in any order somewhere on the page, but a search on the "Water Tower" just finds pages within that exact phrase on the page.

Using plus and minus signs These signs tell our search which terms must (+) and must not (-)be present in the returned documents.  When using these methods, do not leave any space between the sign and the word.
(+) if you put a plus sign directly in front of a word, all the documents retrieved will contain that word.  You must mark those words properly to have the tools work.

(-)If you put a minus sign directly in front of a word, all the documents will not be retrieved containing the word.

AND  Documents found must contain all words joined by the AND operator.  For example to find documents that contain the words "bonds," "savings" and  "Stocks"
Will result in bonds AND Savings AND Stocks.

OR Documents found must contain at least one of the words joined by OR.  For example, to find documents that contain the word "elephant" or the word "tiger"
Will result in elephant OR tiger.

AND NOT  Documents found cannot contain the word that follow the term "AND NOT".  For example, to find documents that contain the word "buildings" but not the  word "skyscrapers"
Will result in buildings AND NOT skyscrapers.

( )  Parentheses are used to group portions of Boolean queries together for more complicated queries.  For example, to find documents that contain the word "sport" or the word "basketball" or the word "baseball"
Will result in sport And (basketball OR baseball)
 
 

Click here to review BOOLEAN OPERATORS

http://www.pleasantvalley.net/tips/searchmath.htm

Dr. Craig Cunningham's Curriculum On Search Engines

http://cuip.uchicago.edu/wit/99/curriculum/homeroom/hr13.htm

 

Online Search Engine Tutorials

Review   of Search Engines Bush Library, Hamline University	You will enjoy this Site.  It contains a comprehensive list of Internet Search Tutorials, and Lesson Plans	http://web.hamline.edu/Administration/Libraries/Search/comparisons.html
Search Engines World Wide	This is one of the largest Search Links on the Internet.  You may want to use this site to find out information around the world!	http://www.twics.com/~takakuwa/search/search.html
A great Web site for K-12 Teachers	Contains a vast amount of Lesson Plans and Instructional Materials prepared by Okahoma/Cleveland Counties Telecommunications & Distance learning technology	http://oktechmasters.org/amyr/OKTechMasters%20.htm#SearchEngines.html
AskJeevess for Kids	Great search engines lessons for K-12 teachers	http://ajkids.com
Web Sites and Resources for Teachers	Contains teacher created Internet Plans	http://www.csun.edu/~vceed009
Library of Teacher Lesson Plans	Contains Teacher Lesson Plans   K-12	http://pointnet.scoca-k12.org/teachlessonplans.htm
		For More Educational Resources click here
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