Keyword Searching

What's a keyword?

It's the fancy phrase for the words you type into a box to search for information.  The default search for almost any database or search engine is a keyword search.  This means the computer searches every bit of data in the entire database file for any references to your search term.  That's why we saw a book about the wrestler known as "The Rock" in response to our search for books about rocks.

Look at it this way.  When you ask me for a book on cats, don't I ask you a number of questions in response?  
1)  Do you want a story book or an informational book about cats?
2)  Do you want a book about wild cats (tigers, lions) or domestic cats (pet cats)?
3)  Do you want a picture book or a chapter book?

I ask questions so I can narrow down the types of books we need to find for you.  Keyword searching works in the same way.  If you want a book about pit bulls, then type "pit bull dog" instead of "dog". The more precise you can be with your search query, the fewer results you'll have to look through to find exactly what you need.  

The same principle applies to search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo.  That's what we're going to explore in pairs - how adding one or two words can make all of the difference in your search.  Some of you will also be looking at kid-specific search engines versus an all purpose search engine.  We'll be sharing our results at the end as time allows.   

For more information, check out Common Sense Media. A portion of today's lesson materials came from this site.

Here's a link to the information I used on the top 15 search engines.

ISTE standards that guide most of my lesson planning for grades 3-5.  Keyword search falls under #3.