Introduction
This lesson was
developed in
the course Teaching
with WebQuests , a course offered by the Teacher Education Institute.
The purpose of this lesson is to have students analyze the
different search engines currently popular on the WWW to determine the
strengths and weaknesses of each. I determined a need for this
information literacy lesson when I noted that most of my students
over-relied on Google and were unable to even name five other search
engines. Students should realize that no single search engine is the
best search engine for all types of searches. Ultimately students
should realize that they need to ask , "What is the best tool for the
research I need to do today?"
While this lesson can be be itself, information literacy skills are
best taught in conjunction with an actual assignment from a content
area. The lesson presented here (selecting the right search
engine for the assignment) could be used prior to a research assignment
in almost any content area. To complete this activity, students
will have to make their own comparisons using the engines as well as
rely on the opinions of experts.
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