Power Searching with Google – The End

Class 6 – Putting It All Together

I often feel that I struggle with how to wind up a unit in the lab so I was curious as to how this course would be concluded. The lessons today reviewed some of the search features that had been explored and provided some additional resources for refining search skills. It was a wrap up in 3 short videos and 3 activities that practiced combining operators and using Google tools not normally used in research such as Google Maps. I like that the final activity was to subscribe to an additional search resource to continue to learn about search.

Post-class Assessment

I felt that the post-class assessment was definitely more challenging than the mid-class assessment. I found my self questioning some of the questions. For example:

I didn’t think that any of the answers were truly correct since the snippet is a portion of the text on the page and it includes the search terms not just text before and after the search terms.

Once again I don’t feel that the correct answer is included in the choices since most of the choices do not have any keyword to do with volunteering.

No, I’m not going to tell you my answer choices in case you are still completing the course. I did end up with 100% on the assessment so I didn’t over-think anything too much. I’m excited to get my certificate for completing the course and plan to add it to this post once I get it.

Final Hangout

It was interesting to watch the Final Hangout for the class and discover what were the most popular questions asked since I hadn’t had time to look at what had been asked prior to the hangout.

  • I found the drop off of relevance answer interesting because from what I understand Google tends to rate more recently updated pages higher than pages that haven’t been updated in awhile. This can mean that some research topics might have the best information on higher pages.
  • I loved the tip about nesting quotes to avoid the use on synonyms. I didn’t know this one!
  • My favorite part of this hangout was the demo of the Nexus 7; even though I just got an iPad, I really want to get my hands on the Nexus 7.

If you missed this, you can watch it online:

I also happened to catch Google Educast #56 and Tasha Berson-Michelson was the special guest talking about the course. If you’re interested in what Tasha found the most interesting about the course, check out the Google Educast!

Not the End – A New Beginning

It may be the end of the class but for me it’s a beginning – a beginning of trying to put together some search ideas for my classes for the upcoming school year. For my 7th & 8th graders, I’d like to take an approach really similar to this course to review search and to find out what might be missing in their search knowledge. Here’s my plan:

  • Use appropriate videos from the course and make some of my own to use different searches in some cases to make things relevant for my students.
  • Create my own activities that will be applicable to searches my students need to complete. How I am going to do this is very much up in the air. I would love to have access to the platform that was used for this course to create my own course but I’m guessing that’s not going to happen so I’m going to explore a few options:
    • I could use the Computer Lab Wiki to house the course and use Google Forms and Flubaroo for the activities. My students could also use the discussions available on the wiki to help one another, ask questions, etc. but it’s not a threaded discussion which can make it difficult to follow.
    • I could also Edmodo for this since my students are familiar with that platform and it can handle assignments, discussions and quizzes but once again the discussions aren’t threaded and since everything would be on the wall of the group it could be tough to follow.
    • Another possibility would be to set up a Google Site with the videos and links to the Google Forms for the activities. I could then use a Google Group for discussions though I would need to make sure that I have groups set up to allow this on the school domain. Once again the discussions aren’t threaded. Are threaded discussions really needed? Maybe they’re not though I think they can be really helpful when trying to follow a discussion.
    • Another option might be Collaborize Classroom. I think this platform would make for very rich discussions but would be lacking in the ability to do the activities though I could still use Google Forms and Flubaroo for this.
    • I am also thinking about trying out Schoology since this platform seems to have the ability to set up lessons which can include embedded media as well as allowing discussions and having a quiz feature that could be used for the activities.
  • Once the review piece is completed then rather than having a final assessment, I think it would be fun to see what belt the students could earn as a Google Search Ninja.

For my younger students who haven’t had as many previous lessons on search, I plan to use the appropriate level of lesson plans from Google Search Education. I am also tossing around ideas of how I can use Google A Day challenges to hone searching skills all year long.

How are you going to help your students improve their searching skills? If you, like me, are going to be heavily inspired by the format of the Power Searching with Google course, what tools and websites do you plan to use?