Personalize+Search+Engines


 * These are [|Rollyo.com] based Searchrolls**

The topic I chose for my Searchroll is the American Civil War. Several years ago I developed a web quest for the Civil War and used it in our history classes. Since then some of the links have gone dead and better sites have emerged. I thought this would be the perfect time to develop a newer, more updated version.
 * Don's Civil War Search**

Finding key words is sometimes difficult until I see the students actually doing the search. Many times they help me establish key words after they begin their work. For now I used Civil War, American Civil War, North and South, Civil War in the United States, Civil War Photos, Civil War Timeline, Civil War Resources, and Civil War Biographies. I refined my queries during this process by sometimes working forward from a main page and sometimes going deep into a site and working backwards until I found a suitable place to start a search for students. I always tried to give them a starting page that would show them the content and flavor of the entire web site. I used mainly Google, Yahoo, and Dogpile as my search engines.

My working criteria for this Searchroll are twofold. First, I wanted to find the best web sites for junior high students, and secondly, I wanted to find sites that would hold their attention. The sites needed to have a great index so they can find the material easily, needed to have time lines, biographies, pictures, music, letters from the time period, etc. These are all things that will interest a junior high student and give them ideas and information. I also tried to use sites that were government or education based. These are the ones that usually remain in place and pass the test of authority and relevance. I believe the final 5 websites meet these criteria better than other ones

The [|URL] for my Searchroll is http://rollyo.com/search.html?q=civil+war&sid=165658&x=31&y=12


 * Youth Gang Search**

Don inspired me to use the Rollyo's capabilites as a tool to update my Youth Gang WebQuest by creating a Searchroll on update resources. Rollyo offers an opportunity to for students to access the specific information they need in a selection of very large sites. They don't have to wade through irrelevant pages or master the organization (or lack thereof) of those sites. I am thinking of using Rollyo as an efficient way to post the resources for each student role in the WebQuest. Each role can be given specific keywords to input into the same Searchroll. I have a question about the keywords. Rollyo's indicates that there are no limits to the number of keywords or search tags you can use. I typed 15 multiple word tags and several of them were cut off in the poster version. Also they were rearranged in a random order that is confusing. Is there any way to control the tags? (This was my second attempt at a Searchroll. My first was on video games and learning [|theories] they incorporate, and it did not work at all. I located eight specific webpages and pdfs that featured scholarly articles and located inside university websites. I tried to use those lengthy, format-inclusive URLs. They were too specific for Rollyo's capabilities. Most of the URLs were unreadable and my keywords were useless. If anyone is interested, I can post the articles I located.) I used the search statement, "youth gangs" "united states" +profiles +prevention +school 2005..2006. It was an inefficient search statement that brought me many hits in Google: 462. However, I was searching for the large government and agency sites that have pages and pages of information. They were several of them listed on the first two pages of search results, so I did not have to extend my search. (I conducted my first search in Google with the statement: "video game" AND "educational theory" AND ((high OR secondary) AND school) site:.edu, which resulted in 91 hits. I refined the search in Google Scholar to: "game-based learning" AND pedagogy years 2005  2006 and found 37 hits.) I was most successful in Google. I found what I needed and determined that I need not extend the search. I was looking for large sites maintained by the government and other legal or law enforcement agencies. As a secondary level, I was looking for scholars who maintain lists of gang-related resources on their university websites. I was familiar with most of the results of the search. I chose the ones I thought to be authoritative, inclusive, and recently updated. http://rollyo.com/janice_cooper/youth_gangs/
 * Why you chose your Searchroll topic
 * The keywords and queries you used to find resources.
 * Mention which search engines you used.
 * Finally describe your working criteria for evaluation.
 * Be sure to include the [|URL] for your Searchroll in your reflection.

I chose this topic because as a Kindergarten teacher I am always looking for activities and information to help develop literacy in young children. My purpose was to find websites that contained activities that were simple enough for 5 and 6 year old children to use without an adult having to sit and read the pages to them in order to complete the activity. In addition I also included sites that contained information for teachers and parents on ideas they could use to help create a literacy rich environment. Research is showing that children with literacy rich foundations become more successful readers. I was forturnate in my choice of keywords. I started with "early literacy" and found several good sites that I had not used before. I then refined the search to "early literacy activities" and that gave me different sites to choose from as well. I used MSN and Google for my search engines. I would like to experiment with additional search engines to see if I get still other sites. In choosing the sites with activities for children, they had to be simple enough for a child to use independently. I show the children the website and how to move through the program/activity and then monitor their work in the [|computer] lab. If there are too many steps/levels to go through it is not a very friendly site for 5 year olds. In choosing sites with information for parents and teachers, I chose sites that had easy, practical ideas that could be implemented without alot of expense. I did not keep my list to 5 - it may be 7 or 8. Is 5 to 7 sites a good rule of thumb or was that just for our pupose of this course? [|__http://rollyo.com/kaycola/early_literacy/__] This was an interesting activity and something I may be able to use to share with parents who are looking for ideas/ways to help their children at home but aren't sure where to start looking. Kayleen@Germany
 * Search topic: Early Literacy**
 * Keywords**
 * Search Engines**
 * Criteria**
 * [|URL]**


 * Digital Photography**

Two sections of 20 students meet for two days during the 6-day cycle for digital photo club. There are only 8 cameras available and they don't like to sit for 'instruction' when they could be out and about taking pictures. There is a lot for them to learn about the workings of digital cameras, editing pictures, pixels, compostion, using Photoshop Elements, downloading, and general camera use. I have several 'worksheets' with activities on for them to find answers or figure out how things work. I used Google to find sites on digital photography instruction, Sony, Kodak, Adobe and digital cameras. I looked at different sites that would be good for the students to use to find the information they need for the course work. Some of the sites I found are good for me to use as an instrutor preparing activities, so I bookmarked those for myself. My Rollyo site for digital photography is http://rollyo.com/mj_reinert/digital_photography/ Mary Jane you mentioned you only have 8 cameras for the 20 students. Do you have some of the students practice techniques in Photoshop using existing photo files (some files with examples of things not to do), while other students are out taking pictures? Kayleen@Germany


 * Searchroll Reflection**

I choose this topic because I am a certified ServSafe® instructor. The Searchroll will serve as a resource to find key information on a topic that relates to a particular chapter in the ServSafe Coursebook. It is also an opportunity to create awareness of certain websites for restaurant managers that they could use as a future resource. Some key words I used were: restaurant.fda.gov, restaurants.org, restaurant.org inspection.gov, cdc.org, safe food handler and NRA.org. I browsed the sites using the words restaurant.fda.gov and many of the sites had links that referred to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), for example the Morbidity and Mortality site is from the CDC site, so that was selected as a site. The inspection.gov key words located the Food Safety and Inspection site. It was interesting that using the key words restaurants.org provided a locator to a list of restaurants. The words restaurant.org was the web site for the National Restaurant Association (NRA). I tried the key words NRA.org and got the National Rifle Association. That may deal with food, but restaurants prefer the processed type. Having a few broad sites is helpful to lookup information on certain topics. I placed some sites on my blog to use as a reference as well. The topic I choose is very broad so I divided into two Searchrolls. The task was still difficult because there is so much information so I picked a few main sites to use a resource for information. The sites I included were: [|www.cdc.gov] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) [|www.vmcfsan.fda.gov] US Food and Drug Administration [|www.safefoodhandler.com] Safe Food Handler. Com [|www.foodhandler.com] FoodHandler Inc [|www.fsis.usda.gov] US Dept of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service [|www.restaurant.org] National Restaurant Association [|www.ific.org] International Food Information Council Foundation (IFIC) My Searchrolls were: Foodborne Illness Information http://rollyo.com/rzimboo/foodborne_illness_info Food Safety Information http://rollyo.com/rzimboo/foodsafety_information/ There are several things to consider when writing a query. Are the most important words placed first? Do the words have multiple meanings? Where the stop words avoided? What about hyponyms? Were three concepts used? If these are followed our research attempts will provide more effecient results. Have any of you tried any of the the nine steps to creating a query? How effective was your search? Renee @ Baraboo
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 * Careers for Kids**

My Rollyo is located at: http://rollyo.com/huffcuttm/careers_for_kids/

The four sites I chose are: 1. Career Ship which is a career exploratory site for students

2. Career games This site offers some games students can play to find out more about careers

3. Career Development and Guidance This site has a huge list of other resources for teachers, parents, and students. Though a few of the sites are down, still a great resource.

4. Education World: Career Tests More resources.

These are sites for exploring. With students, I can have them research careers before I send them off on job shadowing or have them do assessments for their portfolios. It is also a tool for our other offices to use the tools provided.

Mary in Chippewa Falls


 * Journalism Searchroll**

My searchroll is located at: http://rollyo.com/dkirchberg/journalism_resources/

The searchroll includes some of what I consider to be the best journalism-based web sites available. I have included the web site for the Poynter Institute, the Student Press Law Center, the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the Associated Press Managing Editors, the National Newspaper Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, and the Journal of Mass Media Ethics.

My hope is that students on the newspaper staff here at Madison Area Technical College will be able use this searchroll to help answer both legal and ethical questions. I've been very pleased with the results of the few tests that I've done so far. For instance, a search for the words "anonymous sources" yielded 2,900 results. The first item in the list was a Poynter Institute directory of web pages addressing the sticky issue of whether or not to use anonymous sources.

Although I'm not in the classroom, I could see instructors in our news reporting and intro to mass media courses using this searchroll. For example, they could ask students to use the searchroll to build arguments for and against using anonymous sources. This would help them see how many factors must be taken into account with such ethical dilemmas.

There are two things I like about the searchroll. First, it restricts the search to sites I trust to provide valid content. Secondly, it seems to probe these specific sites much more deeply than a Google or Yahoo search.

Here's the link to my searchroll: http://rollyo.com/eonsrud/francophone_food/

The searchroll I created focuses on Francophone food. Each year I teach a unit on food with my French 3 students. I have them choose a region of France or any other French speaking country in the world. As part of the assignment, they need to do a country report with the basic information on population, weather, culture, etc. The students also research the food for the country or area they have chosen and any traditions the country has surrounding food. Finally, they choose a recipe to make like and bring the recipe to share with the class. The making of the recipe is presented as a cooking show either in class or on video using the cooking vocabulary of the unit. I love doing this unit because students are exposed to foods from around the world and the students love it because its fun and they can eat.

I looked for sites that had quality cultural information on the country or region, as well as authentic recipes.

Ellen/Madison

Here's the link to my Searchroll --

http://rollyo.com/mrpayne/online_plagiarism_06/

I am looking forward to other class members posting their links so I can see what they managed to put together.

I found the process a little quirky. I had no problem putting together the Searchroll, but the editing process was a bit messy. For me, once I chose the name and tried to go back in to edit, it wouldn't let me save over the original but forced me to rename the searchroll.

Anybody else have a similar experience or find a way to get around that besides deleting the original searchroll?

Also I was interested if you are able to remove the other "dashboard" selections including the link to the whole web. Let me know if you had better luck at that than I did -- I got most of the extra links off except for Travel & Home Repair.

When I have tried to keep students focused on "trusted sites," I have used Snaggit software product to capture what I want/need and edit links, etc. Most times I want students to be able to search the web pretty freely, but Snaggit works well when we have to be very focused on a single aspect that I want them to grasp.

Dave/Appleton