Learning in the Lou

Search Technology Redux - by brewbooks Problem You want your students to look up information or do a little research on their own. You turn them loose and they do exactly what we do. They just Google and click on the first link they see. Sometimes they end up clicking on the ad which might lead them in a wrong direction. Does this sound like something you have experienced? Solution Custom Search Engine - it is exactly like searching Google except you can limit what it searches. Searching butterflies on Google gives you millions of pages to look at. A custom search limits the results to a few websites you pick from. Creating this is pretty simple. Custom Search Engine Creation Start - cse.google.com Click New search engine . Add sites. These are the only sites your students will be able to search. Click Create . Click Public URL .  Some will email this to their students while others may paste it to a Google doc to share it that way. Either way yo...

Custom Search Engine This amazing tool allows you to prioritize or restrict what sources your students use to search. It is like you limit Google to only search the sites you have preselected. Setting this up is as easy as 1,2,3. What does it really mean? Your students are researching about the butterflies or the Civil War but just Googling these topics return a few hundred results which is a tad overwhelming. Creating a CSE allows you to preselect the best resources and enable the power of Google to scour these sites to give relevant results quickly. 1. Start at google.com/cse 2. Click New search engine . 1. Start by adding a website you want your students to search. 1. Continue adding sites. 2. Name your search engine. It is recommended to name it after that project or unit the students are researching. 3. Click Create . 1. Get the Public URL and share it with the students.