Part of the requirements of this eportfolio was to become familiar with the different types of search engines. Up to this time I had on occasion used Google or Ask Jeeves what I found follows. This process helped me become aware of many different places to visit.

General Search Engine

 I have learned to “Goggle” things over the past few years if I want to find an answer to questions. I have even Asked Jeeves on occasion. I now know that these are only two out of many “general search engine”. Such search engines create and search their own data bases. The searches are very broad and elementary students would have a hard time what would be a good article to open. They can be a good place to start. While I traveled through AltaVista, Yahoo, All the Web, Google, Wise Nut, Excite and Locos I use the phrase “Virginia during reconstruction” Each site led me to the same articles and information, so locating the phrase was not a problem. As a teacher of 4^th grade I found the sites of AltaVista, Google, and AllTheWeb to be the ones from the list I would use in a classroom because they were less distracting. All three of these search engines have tabs to choose for locating web, images, videos and news and have other settings that expand into categories. They have an advanced search at a click. They also have the ability to filter material so it is child appropriate.  The ads displayed on the sites of Yahoo, Excite and Locos I felt would lead many of my students astray. In my classroom I often use more appropriate search engines for children such as Ask Jeeves For Kids.

Multi-Threaded Search Engine

 Multi-Threaded search engines were new to me they combine many search engines and save you time in looking while giving you the best information. I looked at Dogpile because I liked the name and it was very user friendly. It is set up much like Google with the category tabs and an advanced search. Using the same phrase “Virginia during reconstruction” in the general search I found the same web sites as the general search engines did. There were still a long list of sites but they were more on topic. I also found games, posters, books videos and more which I thought may be helpful for a teacher or parent. 

Categorical Search Sites

The site I chose to look at was www.search.com I found out that it is a meta search engine. When used it searches many other search engines at one time. You will get all the top Web results from one search. It is set up as the other search engines were with tabs and an advanced search area, I found it easy to use.

My Search

To help become familiar with what is offered on the web I used the following phrase. Virginia during Reconstruction elementary. Click on the hyperlink to see the results of my searches.

There are many forms available to help you rate the web site your are using. I have included the site evaluation tool I used to rate the site www.va400.org/teach/lessons.php