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Search Engines: A Foreign Object to Teachers

Effective Search Engines For Teachers

Seven (7) qualities have been identified that characterize effective search engines:

1. More sites mean more variety. This is true of most search engines that have a history.

2. A good search engine lets you filter any content that may be offensive and inappropriate. This is a new feature that seems to be catching on and is proving to be effective.

3. A search engine should return only web sites that are relevant to what you are searching for.

4. A good search engine finds high quality sites. Although it is an overwhelming task to evaluate each individual site, certain search engines evaluate sites by popularity. "Direct Hit" (directhit.com) is the leader in this area.

5. Good search engines let you narrow your searches. For example, if you type in "teaching," you can get over 50,000 sites to choose from.

6. Good search engines save time and energy.

7. Good search engines allow searching for specific media, i.e., sounds, pictures, or movies. The leaders in this category are "Lycos" (lycos.com), "Hot Bot" (hotbot.com), and "Alta Vista" (av.com).

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