ICT Advice for Lewisham Schools

Advice on Searching the Web

There is a vast amount of material accessible on-line but it takes time to find exactly the resources you need. A good starting point is to browse through 'Ideas for Integrating ICT' (this is the on-line version of Volume 4 in the Lewisham series - see Publications for more information) to get some ideas as to how other teachers have used the Internet for research and how they have integrated bookmarked web sites into their teaching programmes. Other useful sources of information are the Becta primary subject and ICT leaflets which provide snapshots of how primary teachers have used bookmarked web sites in their teaching. You can access these free by e-mailing Becta or download them from the Becta Schools Site. You can find more examples and lesson plans by searching on the Teacher Resource Exchange (TRE) web site.

If you want to search for relevant material and are inexperienced at searching the Internet a good starting point is the BBCi web search facility. It is very easy to use and supports keyword and phrase searching. You can choose to search the BBC site, the entire web or just BBC news reports. It is focused on UK educational material which many teachers will find particularly helpful when looking for material relevant to the National Curriculum or National Strategies such as Literacy and Numeracy. As you would expect from the BBC, it tries very hard to be a 'safe' site, but teachers should always check sites before recommending them to pupils. Follow this link for more information about how the BBCi search engine works. You might also wish to validate the web sites that you find.

Search engines are database sifters which work on the principle of tracing through material on the web using keywords or subject categories that you have entered on screen. Many of these search engines have localised UK versions, and some also cover a range of languages making them ideal tools in Modern Languages lessons. Check also that you can set preferences so that you are less likely to get 'unsuitable' material. Google (www.google.com or www.google.co.uk), for instance, allows extensive filtering, so you can choose the language or languages of the pages returned, as well as selecting moderate of strict levels of filtering for text and images. Google has a very clean and sparse interface which helps pupils to concentrate on the search results. Google occasionally changes the lettering of its header (for instance, on July 4th) which can stimulate an interesting classroom discussion.

Google also provides an excellent search engine for images - this is very useful for finding illustrations for projects. As with all material taken from the web, remember that copyright applies, so do not use text or images without acknowledging, and certainly do not sell any text or images you have found on the web without first checking with the original author.

Web guides combine a search facility with a huge list of Web sites organised by category or location. Try: Yahoo (www.yahoo.com or uk.yahoo.com). Yahoo has a much more distracting interface than Google, so you might need to insist that pupils stick to the task. Yahoo has a similar preference setting arrangement to Google, but it is harder to find. Currently it is towards the bottom of the page, in tiny print.

Some web guides are specifically designed for children. One such site is Yahoo Kids which offers a simplified screen which makes it easy for children to read, no advertising material and filtered sites which are suitable for children: kids.yahoo.com. This is a very attractive site with questions and jokes, so be prepared for the pupils to wander off-task if you let them use it.

It is important to be specific when searching the web. For instance, if you enter a vague reference word such as volcanoes you will get an enormous number of results. However, if you enter volcanoes+Mexico+active you will get much more useful results. Another useful trick is to put inverted commas round the search term. So Joe Bloggs will look for every Joe and every Bloggs on the Internet, while "Joe Bloggs" will look for pages where the two names come together. Google gives you detailed help on how to search its files in the 'Advanced Search' section. Learning how to search is a life skill which everyone should learn, as well as an increasingly vital part of ICT literacy, so you should take every opportunity to increase your pupils' exposure to search engines.

If you don't have much time and want to find educational resources quickly, you might try one of the following sites:

Becta's Content Search. Click on 'Search help' for how to locate quality-assured educational websites suitable for use in the classroom. Another place is Curriculum Online. You can also find a wealth of teacher-created resources at the Teacher Resource Exchange.

Web site evaluations have been written by teachers and include ideas for integrating web sites into learning activities. If you are looking for a web site to aid ICT teaching you will find this BBC web site useful: http://www.bbc.co.uk/webguide (site no longer there: but the BBC Webwise site is always worth a visit!)

Don't forget to read the important information on Evaluating and Validating Web Sites and on Internet Safety.

If you intend to use material from the web, please check the advice in the Web Publishing Guidelines.

Last update: 10th October 2007