Be Discerning!
Do you believe everything that anyone tells you? Well, you shouldn't. Likewise, just because it's on the Internet doesn't mean it's true. Use your head and check your facts. For instance, a site like Wikipedia, like all Wikis, is created by the users. What this means is that people like you and I write and post the information. Their information can be just as right or wrong as yours or mine. Additionally, there are people out there who give out misinformation on purpose.
Story: A teacher librarian once told me that a student in her class was giving a presentation on the country he had researched, which happened to be England. One of the things the teacher had asked for was the state religion. The student stood in front of the class and recited that the religion with the most followers was the Jedi. When pressed, the student cited Wikipedia as their source of information. How embarrassing! Don't be that student.
Any site can have misinformation on it, even news sources like CNN. Be very careful when citing information.
Searching Sites
A great way to search is to use the Boolean Search method. There are three basic Boolean Search Operators: and, but, and not. They will make your searches a lot clearer to the engine you are working with.
The first operator, and, narrows a search by combining terms; it will retrieve documents that use both the search terms you specify, as in this example:
Disneyland and California
The second operator, or, broadens a search to include results that contain either of the words you type in. Or is a good tool to use when there are several common spellings or synonyms of a word, as in this example:
liberal or democrat
Finally, the third operator, not, will narrow a search by excluding certain search terms. Not retrieves documents that contain one, but not the other,of the search terms you enter, as in this example:
Oz not Australia
Web Searching Sites
There are many search sites that are useful for students, like Google, GoodSearch, and Kids Click. GoodSearch is particularly cool because if you type in Daniel Webster Middle School (Los Angeles) in the charity section, you get to donate to us every time you click. Kids Click is neat because all the categories are organized in Dewey Decimal System (DDS) order. And Google is currently the most popular web search site on the net.
A metasearch engine is a search engine that searches other search engines. Examples of these are Mama and Dogpile.
Do: Using the Boolean Search method,
Saving Your Sites
You can always bookmark a website on your personal computer. But what happens if you want that site and you're elsewhere? Or you want to share it with others? Social bookmarking sites like Diigo and Delicious are very useful for this.
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://groups.diigo.com/widget_mana/group_widget?group_name=dwmslmc" ></script><noscript><a href="http://groups.diigo.com/group/dwmslmc" >Diigo Groups</a></noscript>
Do: Create an account at Diigo and link to dwmslmc--you should have already received an invitation. Add your favorite link of the day and explain why it's your favorite.
What is the Internet? Watch this video on the machine, and what it truly is.
Works Cited
http://dictionary.reference.com/http://websearch.about.com/od/internetresearch/a/boolean.htm
