I'm happy to report that I had a successful presentation of "Internet searching skills" with my civil engineering classes this year. What I found most amazing is that this one a presentation of information that my students say has NOT been presented in any of their classes to date.
Day 1: In 47+ minutes I was able to: Show 2 Common Craft (Lee Lefever) video shorts; one on Internet searching and the other on google docs; Next I walked them through basic and advanced search strategies on Google while they took notes on a worksheet; I also shared what some google docs looked like that I have so they could see how similar the features are to Microsoft products.
Day 2: Tied in Internet searching to a civil engineering assignment that will culminate in a portfolio-based project that lasts 'til the end of the year. I began this day with review of the search expressions that would be useful and then we broke into groups, chose topics, created lists of appropriate search terms, and started our research.
Day 3: Will be more research time
Day 4: Share your search results with the class via group presentations.
On a personal note, I can't get used to the fact that Google search doesn't require me to use the "+" symbol when creating my initial string of search terms....the good news is that it also doesn't penalize me for using it. I have yet to try using the synonym search feature using a tilde.
Sample search string that was helpful for my students: "city of minneapolis" + property + info
1 comment:
This sounds like a really great introduction to an interesting project. It sounds like everything is integrated, and I think that is so important. I just did a similiar Google lesson with media students, but without CONTEXT, so much is lost, I think. Keep us posted on your project -- way to go!
Post a Comment