Scholar, Books, Datasets, and More – Google Search Tools Students Overlook
In last week’s episode of Two EdTech Guys Take Questions Rushton and I answered a question about alternatives to using Google search. What we failed to emphasize is that Google offers a lot of search tools that students often overlook or don’t even know about. Some of my favorites of those are highlighted and demonstrated […]
How to Search Within Desktop and Mobile Pages
How to search within documents, web pages, and spreadsheets is one of the first things that I teach to students at the start of a new semester or new school year (for year-long courses). It’s a simple thing that can lead to more efficient use of time spent on research. Over the weekend a reader […]
A Classic Search Lesson from My Archives
The “memories” feature is just about the only thing I like about Facebook these days. This morning Facebook reminded me of a memory from my first time attending the BETT Show in London back in 2014. That memory included a first-hand reminder of why you should consider other words and phrases when conducting research. Here’s […]
A Short Overview of the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine – And How I Use It
The Internet Archive can be a great place to find all kinds of old videos, audio recordings (there’s a huge collection of Grateful Dead show recordings), pictures, and books. The Internet Archive also offers a tool called the Wayback Machine that you can use to see what a website looked like on a previous date. […]
A Simple Tool for Finding Related Search Keywords
Brainstorming lists of alternative words and phrases is one of the strategies that I have students use when conducting online research. Doing this before they start a search and or whenever they feel stuck can help them generate new search result pages that doesn’t duplicate the results of their previous queries. But sometimes our brainstorming […]
How to Find Image Metadata
Behind every digital image that you capture there is a bunch of information that isn’t visible to the naked eye. That information is called metadata and it includes information like when and where the image was taken, what kind of camera was used, and the original size and color scheme of the image. Much of […]
Patent Search and Five Other Google Scholar Features Students Should Know How to Use
Unlike search results on Google.com, Google Scholar search results isn’t a ranking of websites. Instead, Google Scholar search results are lists of scholarly articles related to your query. Google Scholar can also be used to locate United States patent filings as well as state and federal court cases. When looking at Google Scholar search results […]
Ten Search Strategies Students Need to Know
Last week I hosted a Practical Ed Tech webinar titled Ten Search Strategies Students Need to Know. Afterwards I had many requests for accessing the recording of the webinar. The webinar is now available on demand. If you missed it, the webinar is available as an on-demand webinar right here on Practical Ed Tech. What’s […]
Google Arts & Culture Presents “From a Picture to 1000 Stories”
Google Books turned 15 this week. To mark the occasion Google released an interactive book titled From a Picture to 1000 Stories. The interactive book is a part of the Google Arts & Culture Institute. In From a Picture to 1000 Stories readers learn some fun facts about famous authors and their works. On the […]
How to Use WorldCat to Locate Books in Libraries Near You
Over the last couple of days I’ve seen a lot of summer reading lists floating around on Twitter. If you’re starting to acquire your summer reading books, before you hit “buy now” on Amazon, search on WorldCat to see if a library in your area has a copy of the book that you want to […]
Longer and Better Searches – Strategies Students Need to Know
Too often our students don’t get beyond the first few pages of search results before declaring, “Google has nothing about this!” Why? Because the average time spent on a search is just 1 minute! And the average search term only has three words!* Next week I am hosting a Practical Ed Tech webinar that will […]
How to Compare Information on Wolfram Alpha
As I mentioned in a blog post published over the weekend, Wolfram Alpha is useful for more than just solving math and science problems. In fact, it can be a great resource for students who need to quickly find and compare background information on two or more people, places, or things. In the following video […]
Quickly Compare Two or More Items in Wolfram Alpha
Wolfram Alpha has a comparison function that makes it easy to quickly compare basic information about two or more things. To compare biographical information about two or more people, just type their names into the Wolfram Alpha search field (use commas between names). To compare other things just type them into the search field (again, use […]
Reminder – Searching is a Thinking Skill
Have you ever had a conversation with a student that went like this? Student: “Mr. Byrne, Google has nothing on my topic.” Mr. Byrne: “What is your topic?” Student: “The Civil War.” Mr. Byrne: “Are you sure that Google has nothing about the Civil War?” Student: “Well I looked at a bunch of links, but […]
The Wayback Machine – Take a Look at the Evolution of the Web
The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine is one of the resources that I have included in my presentation about search strategies and fake news. I include it because it is a tool that can be used to see how a website or a specific webpage has changed over time. As is demonstrated in my video embedded […]
Trace the Evolution of Phones – A Search Challenge for Students
A couple of days ago Alexander Graham Bell’s drawing for his telephone patents was the featured document in the Today’s Document feed from the National Archives. Take a look at that drawing and you might start wondering, like I did, about how many changes and improvements to that design have been made since 1876. The […]
Search Strategies Students Need to Know – Last Call
Today 4pm Eastern Time I’m hosting a webinar called Search Strategies Students Need to Know. In Search Strategies Students Need to Know you will learn why informational searches are the hardest types of Internet searches for students to conduct. You will learn how to help students break-down complex search topics into manageable pieces then put the whole picture […]
Five Strategies to Help Students Conduct Better Informational Searches
Google is great for navigational and transactional searches. If you need to find your way to the movie theater or find the best price for a vacuum cleaner, Google handles those requests quite well. Searches for more meaningful information aren’t always handled well by Google. For example, see the some of the nonsense “suggested” search […]
Trace Product Developments Through Google Scholar Patent Search
Last week I was on Facebook chatting with an old friend about an older friend of ours who passed away almost a decade ago now. His name was Steve Gibbs and he owned a successful business that manufactured archery products. Steve’s company sponsored me when I was attempting to make the 2000 U.S. Olympic Archery […]