Tip of the Week – Google search features

Google makes its living by helping us find stuff. And with both new and old features built into Google Search, it’s doing a better job of that than ever before. I’m always learning new ways to search but continue to use old favorites that are still very effective in helping me find what I need.

Some strategies that I use everyday include:

Searching by Phrase

If you’re looking for something like the Battle of Gettysburg, you should use Phrase Search. Phrase Search tells Google to look for your phrase, exactly as you type it. If you type the words – battle of gettysburg – into the search box at Google.com, the first thing Google does is to ignore the word “of”. It then looks for any site that contains the words “battle” and / or “gettysburg” in any combination resulting in literally millions of hits.

Putting your phrase in quotation marks tells Google to look for the exact phrase “battle of Gettysburg” giving you much more exact results.

Searching within a specific site or class of sites

Some sites are so large and complex that it may be difficult finding exactly what you need even if you’re actually on  that specific site. For example, the Library of Congress has a huge site. To speed things up, do a Google search for just the LOC. If you’re looking for Battle of Gettysburg lesson plans at loc.gov, use the site search function by typing:

gettysburg “lesson plans” site:loc.gov

You can also do a generic site search by just doing search for certain URL extensions such as .org, .gov or .edu. Typing:

gettysburg “lesson plans” site:edu

will give results for Gettysburg lesson plans found at sites maintained by colleges and universities.

Excluding terms

Many times, I’ll get results that I would not have predicted that include terms that I don’t want. I simply search again but put a minus sign directly in front of those terms that I don’t want Google to search for. For example, a search with the terms battle and Gettysburg might return hits that include references to Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. I don’t need that information so I can refine my search by typing:

“battle of Gettysburg” –address –lincoln

New strategies

Google is always adding handy, little search functions and it’s sometimes hard to keep up with all of them. I’ve gotten into the habit of visiting the Google Search Features page to find new tools.

Among other things, Google can give immediate weather reports, airline flight information, do math, display sports scores, find local restaurants, give current movie times, perform currency and other conversions and track packages. There are numerous cheat sheets around. One of the best can be found at GoogleGuide.

Together, these old and new tools can help you find whatever you need.

Have fun!

Teaching history and best practices

Teaching has always seemed to be an individual activity, forcing teachers to figure things out on their own. Using trial and error isn’t necessarily a bad thing when conducting a science experiment but probably not something that works that well when trying to corral 30 8th graders.

And in the pre-internet days, it was difficult for teachers looking for help with instructional practice, resources and strategies to find it.

But with the web, PLNs and digital content, teachers don’t have to sink or swim on their own anymore. There are tons of great lesson plans and ideas out there, conversations that we can have and sites we need to use.

The problem?

Time to find them.

And . . . while I can put links and sites and handy gadgets here at History Tech, it doesn’t really feel like the most suitable place to share in-depth lessons and strategies. So I have created a specific page over at Social Studies Central to share useful things I run across.

The Best Practices page highlights a variety of detailed professional development resources goodies from such sites as the National History Education Clearing House, Edutopia and History Matters. Every few weeks, I grab a few more.

So . . . take off that life preserver, head on over to Best Practices and discover what others have to offer!

Remodeled Social Studies Central

I started the first Social Studies Central web site about eight years ago with a few crude pages created with Microsoft FrontPage. It was basically a couple of links to some of my favorite history web sites.

It has changed a bit over time but it’s still basically an attempt to help Social Studies teachers do their jobs better. Information about learning opportunities, teaching materials, links to resources, ideas about best practices – the kind of stuff that I hope is useful for classroom teachers.

But the site has also become a bit dated over time. So . . . it’s got a new look and few new features.

The goal is to make Social Studies Central a bit easier to use and easier to look at. And over the next few weeks, I plan to add more photos, insert some video examples of classroom best practices and generally create a more interactive feel. Part of the plan is to also connect the two sites – Social Studies Central and History Tech – a bit closer together. So you’ll see similar banners and more links between the two.

I hope you like it. Head on over and let me know what you think!