Ask Jeeves was an old favourite of mine. I used to recommend it to the kids in primary school because it coped with them typing  in a whole question. It picks out the keywords and searches for them. But it used to be pretty limited in its relevant results and very American-oriented so we dropped off using it.

It’s now called Ask Kids and has ‘grown up’ some since I used it last.

The home page is really kid friendly and clean (no advertising at all). Once in a search there are sponsored websites but no advertising. I tested both natural language (What endangered animals are there in Australia?) and keyword (volcano causes) searches.

Once you’ve hit the search button, the next screen offers you some broader and narrower search term options in a side bar(the Australian animals search options were not Australian however) and then the search results in the main body of the page.  There was much more success with the volcano search than the Australian animal question – it still appears to be heavily slanted to American audiences. The first 5 hits I did get for Australian endangered species were:

• kidcyber.com.au
• Kids’ Planet – to be searched by continent – ‘grey wolves’ were incorrectly listed under the Australian continent! and the fact sheets for most of the animals were general not Australian specific. (Info quality – poor).
• a dead link to a public library homework page
• Perth Zoo with some species listed in their conservation program

So overall a disappointing result. But Boolean searching using keywords ‘endangered animals OR species’  brought up different and better results.

I had much better luck with volcanoes. First 5 hits included:

• learner.org
• ThinkQuest
• Cascades Volcano Observatory
• Volcano Live (website of John Search scientist and volcano adventurer)
• Staffordshire Learning Net Web Enquiry (webquest)

Ask Kids also offers options to search ‘images’ and ‘video’. Again the first question had poor results, the volcano search results were much better.

One feature I really missed on this site was knowing the total number of hits for a search. It always helps me to gauge if the student is searching too broadly or narrowly.

Ask Kids has other areas including one called ‘The Schoolhouse” which features databases by subject area. I searched here too and found useful information for both topics.

Overall, this search engine performs best  if keyword searching and Boolean search strategies are used. It seems to be well pitched for middle primary to lower secondary or for ESL students. Subjects still need to be fairly general in order to get decent search results.

Continuing with my exploration of and education in search engines.

Bing is Microsoft’s replacement for LiveSearch. It was launched in June 2009 and is still in Beta (which means they’ve released it to the public but are still testing it).

The homepage is nice and clean (no advertising or boxes full of sponsored links). There is a background feature photo (today of rice fields in Bali) containing relevant hot links to video and promotional information. (You can see in the photo above a box that appeared when I scrolled over one of the links).

As I started a  search with my keywords (global warming) their ’search suggestions’ feature fired up and offered me:

• global warming
• global dimming
• globalization
• global tv

and many more. This feature can be turned off by clicking a link at the bottom of the box. I find this feature very useful for students who are not good at spelling. They can concentrate on the search and not be embarrassed or sidetracked.

Once I hit enter,  the search offered me 13,900,000 results with sponsored sites (clearly marked) at the top. I know more hits is not better so I was more interested to see that the most relevant sites pulled up did not differ at all from the ones pulled up by Yahoo!7 except in order (but not by much).

One of its best features you won’t see until you scroll you mouse over the text for a result. It’s then that a little orange dot appears on the right-hand side, scroll your mouse to it and a preview of the page pops up. You’ll get the first few sentences on the web page and perhaps some details of what else is on the opening page (if there are portals or links) — you can see the little box below on the right.

Related search terms are listed in the left sidebar and are helpful for students not quite sure of the best search terms.  Like Google, if you click on the little hyperlink “cached page” the page will come up with your search keywords color-coded and highlighted throughout the text – useful for very long documents.

One feature on this search engine that could turn out to be a real time-waster for students is a search option called “xRank” trademarked by Bing.  Here’s Bing’s blurb on what it is:

xRank keeps track of notable people and puts them in order for you. We count Bing web searches for movie stars, musicians, and other famous people. Then, we compile our findings into an insightful ranking formula that tells you who the world is searching for most. The result is a cultural snapshot of who’s hot and who’s not!

This search option will also allow you to create graphs that compare the popularity of two celebrities over the last six months. Hmm, useful? I guess if you were involved in the paparazzi this could help.

Our ETL501 subject guide suggests:

As the school’s information professional, the TL is often seen as the school’s ‘Internet expert’. (Herring, 2008, p. 14)

and asks us to increase our knowledge of search engines so I thought I’d blog my way through some of them to get to know them better. I am probably as guilty as the next person of being highly dependent on Google to conduct searches because it is familiar and ‘comfortable’.

Our course wants us to evaluate the effectiveness of the search engines and recommends:

An effective search strategy is one that is based on the purpose and the need of the searcher. (Herring, 2004, p.31) (italics are mine)

but I’ll get to serious evaluation later. First I think I need to get to know the features of each search engine and the ‘feel’ of them before I can make judgements.

I’m starting with the single search engines then I’ll move to the meta search engines. First off the mark is Yahoo!7 – the Australian version of Yahoo!

When I first opened it, I felt like I was looking at a cross between a shopping centre and a celeb gossip magazine. That’s why I’d always avoided it in the past and never recommended it to students. But I entered my trial keywords (global warming) and hit enter.

At the top of the results page I’m offered the option of searching: 1/ the Web; 2/Australia; 3/ New Zealand so that’s a plus – students can narrow down the results to obtain relevant information for our area. The result page also offered lots of search suggestions under:

Also try:

• global warming australia
• causes of global warming
• effects of global warming
• global warming articles
• al gore global warming

When I hit ‘more’ it also offered concept categories to explore, all relevant to global warming. Eg.

• Climate Change
• greenhouse gases
• the greenhouse effect
• carbon dioxide

• fossil fuels
• emissions
• atmosphere
• Methane

Very handy for students as well.

The original search brought up 229,000,000 hits and after this figure at the top of the page I noticed their ‘about this page’ hyperlink so I clicked it. More useful info!

On the ‘About” page I found out there is an ad-free, dedicated Yahoo! search start page. Nothing on it but the search box and logo. I also learned that Yahoo! has lots more web search options than I’d realised (click on “More>>” just above the search box). Many are the same as Google (news, images, maps), others of interest were:

• directory – which is a subject-based and human-edited website guide (Google also has this feature, you just never hear of it). Using this feature and my keywords, my search resulted in 2,178 sites, all of much higher quality (authority-wise). The results also indicate categories (eg. Category: Global Warming > Opposing Views, Category: Columns and Columnists)
• local – a guide to local businesses (didn’t bring up any results for ‘global warming’ but could be of use for other searches)
• Answers – where you can ask real people, real questions (who these people are who answer, of course, is an issue but they may offer new directions for a student). Answers submitted can be rated according to usefulness by users.

Lastly, I discovered Yahoo! has a service they call ShortCuts (both Service Shortcuts and Open Shortcuts). If there is a relevant Service shortcut to your search, a small note will appear up at the top of your results page (eg. calculator, time zone, weather, etc). Open shortcuts will search favourite sites or start an Internet application. There are already many default shortcuts (eg. !movies, !mysp = myspace.com, !wiki = wikipedia) or you can create and set your own by following the instructions at the hyperlink involved.

I’m really glad I took the time to explore this search engine. I’m now going to include the Yahoo! directory search into my repertoire of assistance and onto the school’s Project Hotspots page.

Multiliteracies means being cognitively and socially literate with paper, live and electronic texts. It also means being strategic, that is, being able to recognise what is required in a given context, examine what is already known, and then, if necessary, modify that knowledge to develop a strategy that suits the context and situation. (Anstey and Bull, 2006, p.23)

So we need to understand/be understood:

• when writing/reading;
• in speeches, interviews or performances
• using computer/phone.

We need to understand/project the right level of formality/respect for a given situation

• when writing/reading;
• in speeches, interviews or performances
• using computer/phone

This is terribly important in today’s world where you are dealing with such a diverse population. Heck, even excluding diversity, things can go terribly wrong – think how the crew at Chaser’s War on Everything got it so wrong with their skit on terminally-ill children. Somehow the people doing the strategic thinking did not accurately predict the level of disapproval that would be provoked.

Anstey and Bull (p.23) point out that every form of text is created with a purpose (no text is neutral). In order to be fully literate we need to be aware of that fact and to understand how text is constructed to influence.

So what are the implications for teaching our students? Well first they need to understand about text, all kinds of them. Astley and Bull have compiled common understandings about text from the body of literature about multiliteracies. They are:

• text may be paper, live or electronic
• may be made up of one or more than one sets of signs and symbols (eg. words + emoticons)
• are consciously constructed
• are actively constructed
• may have several possible meanings
• may be built from other texts (or refer to them to have meaning)
• may be multimodal, interactive, linear or non-linear

The authors recommend that any mulitliteracy programs planned need to use these understandings as outcomes for student understanding (Anstey and Bull, 2006, p. 24-25).

This got me thinking about how I was taught to ‘read’ various forms of text in my daily life. I wasn’t taught any multiliteracies in school. I had no education in this … or had I?

As children we were read to … a lot and we had wonderful records of stories told by masters like Danny Kaye. Stories told well involved ‘voices’ -tones of voice, colour within those voices to denote children or evil villains or wise old folk. There were levels of sound and patterns of speech repeated in many of the stories. And we heard the stories over and over until we’d learned them off by heart.

We learned to understand/read the language of music when we listened to wonderful recordings like Peter and the Wolf, the Nutcracker Suite and The Carnival of the Animals. Each instrument had a unique voice, each piece told a story.

We watched puppet shows and saw mime artists on TV like the wonderful Marcel Marceau who spoke to us through gesture. The stories were simple, the language was crystal clear.

We were taken to art galleries and our parents talked about the paintings. We watched cartoons like Bugs Bunny with dialogue that held several possible meanings (and British adult comedy full double entendre if we weren’t caught!).

We played with code rings and rebus messages, we learned about using tracking symbols in Scouts/Guides in case we got lost when hiking.

Perhaps like any things multiliteracies were around in our day, we just didn’t have the name for it.

____________

Photo from flickr by phoenixdiaz through the cc licence

This animated video was created by Pete Foley, with sound and music by Chris Perren. The project was co-ordinated by Elliott Bledsoe, from Creative Commons Australia at QUT.

TLs all over the world are most generous. One of the other Teacher Librarians on the OZTL_forum just recently posted a link to this video that explains in a most entertaining way all about Creative Commons and lists some excellent resources that are available through them.

Best of all Creative Commons have a search engine I’d not heard of until I watched this. What a valuable resource for students wishing to create new and exciting works or to enhance projects they’re working on. Be sure to watch the demo video on how this search engine works. And have fun!

I’m reassured by the preface of the book that it’s going to first introduce me to the language of the new literacies so I can hang terms on concepts. I’m glad because ‘jargon’ or professional language is not one of my strengths. I may have a very good handle on something but often can’t remember the term for it. Second, I like that it has reflective exercises.  I can write my reflections here for re-reading. Third there are practical examples so you can take theory to practice. And that’s the whole point isn’t it?

Chapter One offers a little history; how literacy in post-war schooling was basically about print — reading, and writing.  Anstey and Bull (2006, p.2) point out that pictures then were mostly decorative. This was certainly the system I was educated in. I don’t remember many illustrations having labelled parts, cross-sections or adding to the context in any real sense. And examining older texts (still weeding these out of the collection) I can imagine as a child being overwhelmed by the dense columns of words, getting to what you hope is an oasis only to find that the illustration has nothing to offer you beyond colour and a break in the page. It certainly seems designed to separate the men from the boys. Either you can read and succeed or you can’t read and you’re a failure. It’s a message, I certainly don’t want to send to my students with their varying levels of ability.  The urgency to weed these old books out has just increased.

——

Anstey, M., & Bull, G. (2006). Teaching and learning multiliteracies: Changing times, changing 
     literacies. Kensington Gardens, S.A.: International Reading Association and The Australian
     Literacy Educators' Association.
Photo: Too much text by seventhsamurai on flickr

Our small library has only two computers, one of those is used for circulation and is the main catalogue search computer. When I did my original SWOT analysis at the beginning of the year I listed this as one of the library’s weaknesses. I wanted to teach cybersafety to all the grades in first term.  If I wanted better computer odds than 10:1, I needed to move Library sessions out of  the library and into the classroom. And why not? It lowered the ratio to 4:1 and had the added bonus of the teacher often coming in at the end of the session and seeing what was happening, sometimes even being a bit involved. It also set the stage I think for the system to begin thinking more flexibly about the LRCs best resource, the TL. Why shouldn’t we be as ‘borrowable’ as the books? I’d like to bring the administrative thinking around to me being reserved/booked for work in the class with the teachers during project times to support both teacher and students in their information searches and ICT use.

A 4:1 ratio of kids to computers may still not sound ideal, but after watching Sugata Mitra’s video on Ted’s Talks called “How Kids Teach Themselves” you may change your mind about breaking up that little clump of kids that hang around behind someone on a computer. There is a lot more going on than I first assumed. Mitra’s project proves that children are natural collaborators and are another great resource that we often overlook.

I’m very lucky to be part of OZTL_NET an online forum for Teacher Librarians and other information specialists. They are the most generous group I’ve ever met, there is nothing they don’t know or can’t immediately assist each other to find/access. Recently a member brought to our attention the work of Andrew Churches in NZ. He has been working with Bloom’s Taxonomy to create Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy. Here’s a brief quote from the synopsis of his paper:

The Original taxonomy and the revised taxonomy by Anderson and Krathwohl [2] are both focused within the cognitive domain. As a classroom practitioner, these are useful but do not address the activities undertaken in the classroom. This Digital Taxonomy is not restricted to the cognitive domain rather it contains cognitive elements as well as methods and tooling. These are the elements that as a practitioner I would use in my classroom practice. Like the previous taxonomies, it is the quality of the action or process that defines the cognitive level, rather than the action or process alone. (Churches, 2008, p.2)

Churches’ take on Bloom’s Taxonomy is an invaluable resource for people like me trying to decide how to assist primary students to use ICT at levels appropriate to their development. There is a lot of information out there for students in highschool. Those students are ready for the challenges of higher order thinking skills. But for children in primary/elementary, developmentally just on the start of their thinking journey, there are far fewer resources available to guide us. As Kuhlthau (1995, p. 8 ) points out, the age of a child will make a difference in the way they are able to deal with information. Before the age of 11 or 12 children are still not able to deal with abstract notions and will need to concentrate their research efforts on concrete topics and problems. This means they are still operating mainly in the lower areas of Blooms Taxonomy and this will affect how ICT  will be planned and carried out .

Churches’ new Blooms Taxonomy is well worth a look for teachers and TLs/LMSs wanting to get the right tools to the right kids at the right times. After looking at Andrew Churches paper, you may also wish to access more of his resources through his wiki ” Edorigami“.

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Kids Hand on a Computer: http://www.flickr.com/photos/16873103@N05/1819182353/

Churches, A. (2008). Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/file/view/bloom%27s+Digital+taxonomy+v2.12.pdf

Kuhlthau, C. (1995). The process of learning from information [Electronic version]. School Libraries Worldwide, 1(1), 1-12.