Assignment 1: Web Searching

Part 1

1. Telecommunications in Education

http://www.nyise.org

This site is a great resource for teachers. It contains an array of information related to the many uses of technology in education. The goal of this site is to help teachers grow with technology. A variety of effective techniques are presented on this site with links to example projects. These projects will give teachers ideas of how to effectively integrate technology into their lesson plans.

2. Uses of Telecommunication in Education

http://www.ed.final.gov

This site provides a starting point for research or planning educational telecommunication projects. It contains links to a variety of resources and examples. Though many of these links are out dated and no longer work there are still a few that work and contain valuable information.

3. The Journal: Transforming Education Through Technology

http://www.thejournal.com

This site contains a variety of resources that are of value to educators. It allows you to browse by topic and has many others features such as a newsletters. The site also provides a listing of its upcoming webinars and webcasts. I really enjoyed browsing through this site and plan to use it in the near future.

4. Ihets: Technology: Education: Collaboration: Impact

http://www.ihets.org

IHETS provides public and private higher education institutions, state government agencies, public libraries, public broadcast stations, and K-12 schools with reliable, cost-effective shared technology and eLearning services. This site has a newsletter and provides information regarding it services.

5. International Telecommunications and Education Research Association

http://www.itera.org

The basis of this website is the advancement of telecommunications. It focuses on telecommunications of all kinds. This site provides a forum for telecommunication and networking professional, educators and researchers.

Part 2

1. Google
I love love everything about Google. There are so many different tasks that can be accomplished using the various aspects of Google. The search results are always complete and relevant. The everything tab on the left of the screen has a variety of options that make searching for particular images, etc. very simple.

2. Yahoo
The best feature of yahoo would have to be the search pad. I like the way it will save and organize the sites you find. The search scan is also very helpful. It provides an alert for potential harmful sites. The advanced search feature is also very helpful, especially since the original searches are usually very weak.

3. Bing
I haven’t really had a chance to use the search engine as much as the others. From the little experience that I do have I would have to say it needs a little work. I do like the related searches and search history pane. This aspect is very helpful and easily accessible

4.Cuil
Before taking this class I had never heard of cuil. At first glance I just don’t like its look. I guess I just have to work with it more. But the search results were fairly relevant. I feel that it should incorporate more features to narrow searches.

5.WebCrawler
Before taking this class I had never heard of WebCrawler either. But I love the idea of the world’s top search engines being accessible from one page, it is brilliant!!! This way I don’t have to go from search engine to search engine many times pulling up some of the same information. Though it doesn’t contain all the features that Google has I think I would use it when completing a search that requires a large amount of information, etc.