Search Engine Assignment

Geri Keane

February 10, 2002

 

          I choose to do my search engine assignment in the area of assistive technology in special education.  Even before the brain storming session with the class, I began my search.

          My first searches were on Google and AskJeeves.  I used the key words “assistive technology” and “computers”.  I received many hits in this area.  Some of the sites I was familiar with.  I began to bookmark these sites on front page.  After brain storming with the class, I now had different categories to break down my research in.  I took the information that I already acquired from my first searches on Google and AskJeeves and plugged them into the different categories. 

          My next research required me to look at areas that I was lacking resources in.  I went to Altavista and used the key words “special education” and “organizations”. The site responded with 150,310 hits. I was able to find 2-3 really good sites on the first page that will lead me to other resources.

          To find references for my lesson plan section, I went to ERIC lesson plan search.  At first I used the key words “special education computers”.  The results consisted of 1189 lessons.  When I switched to search field from “should contain” to “must contain” my results were narrowed down to 16.  These lessons also did not pertain to my area.  I then went back and put “special education” in quotes.  I then received no hits. 

          Next, I searched for lesson plans at Yahoo.  With the key words “lesson plan” entered, I received 1,390,000 hits.  I tried to narrow the search by changing the entry to “lesson plans” “special education” “technology”.  The field was reduced to 37,350 sites.

          I went to search in the GSU on-line library.  The site now requires you to have a library reference number.  I applied for the number.  It requires up to 24 hours to get a number.

        When I researched conferences, by using the key words “conferences’ and “technology” and “special education” and “Illinois” I was able to get a narrow list of relevant hits. Also by doing this search in Metacrawler, I avoided going to different search engines that would probably have given me the same information.