Lesson: Choosing a Search Site (grades 4-5)
This is a lesson that helps students identify good search engines to use based on specific features of the search engines.
The students work in pairs or groups to explore search sites designed for children. They are supplied with handouts that provide them with checklists, search engines to explore, and questions that are to be answered individually, but also to be discussed with the group members/partner. After exploring and listing the features of the search engines students determine the features that make up a good search site.
The students use the search engines and assess/analyze them through a series of guided questions on the handouts
While the students work in pairs or groups, the class does take time to come together for discussions on what they are observing and finding with the search engine activity.
The lesson is concluded with a series of questions to be posed to the students by the teacher. There are also homework/extension activities that ask the students to search for topics or answers to questions using search engines (a web address to a site with a list of approved search engines is provided).
I like this lesson a lot. I did a lesson with 6th graders on how to search for topics on the internet, but I did not do one on search engines they could use (I had provided the search engine they would all use for this particular project).
I think that including a lesson like this in my unit would have helped them with their research searches a great deal. This is definitely something I would incorporate into a future unit. This is a lesson that gives the students tools to use in their learning beyond the immediate project/task they are working on!
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