Way back in October, I wrote a blog entry called Web Searching 101, outlining some basic web searching tricks using Google, but mentioned that some techniques work better with other search engines, for example AltaVista, and I promised to write a follow-up, Web Searching 201. Better late than never, so here goes…
A simple Google search may appear to give you the most relevant hits first, but that is not necessarily the case. A number of techniques can be used to (artificially) improve a site’s page rank, i.e. how high on the list of hits it appears. For companies with an online presence, getting a high page rank has enormous potential to increase traffic to their site and thus (hopefully) boost their business. Not surprisingly, SEOs (Search Engine Optimizers) are in high demand these days.
Most often, when Internet users do a web search, they just choose one of the first few links that appear and don’t even bother going to the second page of hits. In some cases that’s fine, but they should be aware that a carefully crafted search algorithm has determined the order of the results you get, thus the results necessarily contain a certain bias.
All Internet users will benefit from learning how to formulate search criteria to target their search more carefully, and this is something we all ought teach our students specifically before sending them to the lab to do research.
Here are some powerful ways to get a lot more out of your web search engine. (Note: all these examples are for using the search engine http://www.altavista.com.)
Read the rest of this entry »
Here’s a quick update on some planned upgrades for this year and next here at ISM.
If you’re wondering what to expect with regards to hardware setup, improvements, changes or other planned IT initiatives, read on and you will hopefully find answers to some of your questions.
One obvious recent priority has been to find someone to replace Dimax, who left us in February for new (and greener?) pastures. This will hopefully be resolved shortly. In the meantime, please bear with us as we try to fill his shoes.
Read the rest of this entry »
Here is some information about burning CDs and DVDs that was put together by Philip in the AV Office in response to an email query, but I figured it might be useful for others as well. Thanks Philip!
Read the rest of this entry »
I was chatting with a student in Grade 6 today about a movie he made. After 10001 photos, he and his brother produced a high quality entertaining stop-motion movie simply by using Movie Maker. When asked what he had done with it, he said “YouTube.”
It made me wonder how many other students are producing great stuff that we are not even aware of.
Any ideas for organizing students’ multimedia work somehow? Many students from IB down to Grade 6 have produced great work. Many have posted randomly to YouTube. There is great digital art, models, diagrams, etc. They are crying for an audience. Not sure what is the best solution. Should the school host the products? Should there be an independent site with grade or subject categories? Should we simply gather links to outsourced hosts?
In a previous post, Fred posted some shownotes from his recent Wednesday morning in-service on web skills. I’d just like to expand on this a bit. If you’re an MS or HS teacher and plan for your students to do research on a topic, you can share the below hints with your students before they start. Effective web searching involves a whole set of skills that need reinforcing over time.
Read the rest of this entry »
image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wastrel/184559565/
|
Wednesday’s presentation to HS Faculty, reported yesterday on this blog, seems to have led to a few questions (offline, not in blog comments). The topic - “Efficient use of computer labs” - came about as a result of many teachers reporting difficulties getting into labs in some areas of the school. While the original intent was to seek improvements to the booking system for computer labs (other than the MC labs, where the system is working fine), a potential additional benefit discussed was ways to also improve the quality of lab usage. I raised the issue with some hesitation, as I know well that many of our teachers put great care (and skill) into designing their units and lessons. However, I hoped my intent would be clear: initiating changes to the booking system to improve access to resources for all, and offering support to those who feel unsure how best to maximize the learning impact of lab time.
One subsequent query in particular interested (and surprised) me:
Read the rest of this entry »
image:
http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/ |
Lately, free slots in the computer lab booking calendars have become almost as rare as sightings of Pacific Northwest Tree Octopi… (and just in case you’re wondering what kind of mushrooms I’ve been eating, check out Fred’s post). While it’s great that costly resources are being put to good use, it’s probably best if we also use these resources well. Currently, I’m not sure that’s what’s happening all the time.
There seems to be a bit of a “tragedy of the commons” going on - people are generally aware that labs are a scarce resource, so some are engaging in pre-emptive bookings out of fear that others will get there before them and block book in a major way. As a consequence, students are sometimes brought to labs for lessons that have not been thoroughly thought out in advance, possibly before they are actually ready to use the computers for whatever project they’re working on. We probably need to address this culture of block booking “just-in-case”…
Read the rest of this entry »
