Assignment #1: Web Searching

Part 1: Use the search engines to find 5 sources related to telecommunications in education. Then, browse through these 5 Web sites and write a review including the title, URL, and brief description of each site.

Part 2: Select 5 different search tools found in the Readings and Resources provided in the Search Tools unit. Then examine and compare these search tools. Write a brief report about these 5 search tools you selected in terms of their features, strengths, weakness, usefulness, and etc.

Reflection:
This particular assignment didn’t excite me when I first read the requirements, because I did not realize the importance of it. However, when I began my search for Part 1, and started to understand more about telecommunications in education, I began to see the necessity of knowing how to do an educational search, using a variety of search engines. It wasn’t a difficult assignment, but it was one that took time and attention. Not only did I happen upon useful sites, but I also gained experience in critically reviewing those sites for future use. I now have a short list of useful and educational Websites that I can visit when doing future research for projects, portfolios, research papers, and other. One thing that I learned that was most beneficial is to not only use the search engine to find websites, but also to use webpage links. Many organizations post “helpful links” or “related links” pages that broaden your search. Since this assignment, I have learned to follow the trail of helpful links in order to find just what I am looking for.

Part two of the assignment was intended to give us experience using different search engines. Before this assignment, I never knew that so many search tools existed, and for so many purposes. I was astonished at how each search engine brought up a completely different result list, even when using the same keyword search, such as “telecommunications in education.” For four of the search engines, I used traditional search tools, such as Google and Bing. But, for the fifth, I chose to use Mobile Visual Search because it was so intriguing! Mobile Visual Search is an engine for your mobile phone that claims it has the skill to recognize an image from your camera phone and retrieve important product information about that image.

This assignment was useful for my future goals in instructional technology. When faced with a research assignment in the future, I now know to use a variety of search engines in order to retrieve more information. I will use also use this information when searching for technology lesson plan ideas for my third grade classroom. By the end of this assignment, I was very aware of its implications and thankful for the experience.

The following is a link to my Google doc of Assignment #1: Assignment #1—Web searching.