The safest place for kids to begin is with search engines for kids: Yahooligans, AJ for Kids, Kids Click, etc. There’s a list of kid-friendly search engines and directories at Websites for References & Research. Feel free to add this site to your Favorites on your classroom computer for future use!
There are things kids can do to make their searches more specific. As they’re planning their search have them think carefully about keywords and search terms that are tied to the information they need. Enclose phrases in quotes (e.g.“American Crocodile”). And be sure they’ve spelled correctly – not all search engines will allow for errors.
Then there are times when kid-friendly search engines just won’t produce the information kids need. In that case, you have two courses of action:
• You can do the searching for your kids beforehand– find the websites appropriate for them to use and add those to favorites or drag the URLs to the student desktop. If you have many URLs and would like me to make you a webpage, email me and we can make those arrangements.
• Use an “adult” search engine – like Google, Alta Vista, Yahoo, etc. Most of these sites have “Safe Search” options, usually found under Advanced Search right on the search engine’s opening page. Please be sure that this option is checked to help filter out adult content or links.
For your own information, here's the Basics of Search page from the Google website. Also, here are a few more links that deal with searching:
• How to Search the Internet – a tutorial page with links to help you with search techniques.
• And from Mrs. Plankey, Choose the Best Search for Your Information Need, a great site that helps adults to decide what sort of an online reference they need to use to obtain specific information.
Finally, please know that I am available to help you and your students with online research. Just email me.
