Good, Bad Or Just There?

Good, Bad or just there?

Name: ______

Teacher’s Name: ______

Directions: Over the next few weeks you will explore Google and other search engines and decide for yourself if Google is a good or bad search engine and come up with evidence to support your decision. The final project is a persuasive paper written to explain your opinion. This paper will include your evidence and explain your opinion.

Define Persuasive:

Define Evidence:

Define a search engine:

Define Google:

What is your first hypothesis? Using your schema about Google and all search engines, what do you think and believe? Do you believe that is

Good Bad Not Sure

Why? ______

______

The Internet is a Huge House of Candy

The Internet is a bag of “Every Flavor Beans”

Imagine that the Wooden Rollercoaster drops you off at the amazing "House of Candy!" You land at the front door of this huge structure and see that it stretches thousands of stories high into the sky–so high that you can’t see the top floor!

You walk through the front door and meet the sales clerk, Ms. Cand E. Barz, who explains that every floor contains millions of different kinds of candy. She points to a sign that reads: FREE CANDY - ALL YOU CAN EAT! and explains that the owners add more and more floors to the "House of Candy" every single day, with new and different varieties of candy to taste.

"The building stretches up through the clouds and on to the edge of space!" explains Ms. Barz. "It’s up to you to figure out how to get to the floor that has your favorite candy. Be careful what you taste. Not all of the candy is sweet. Some of it is very sour and some of it is too old to eat. Goodbye and good luck!"

Ms. Barz disappears and leaves you standing there on the ground level, drooling and wondering how to find those nutty crunchy chocolate bars you like so much. You don’t see an elevator or set of stairs anywhere in sight. Yummmm…so much candy and so little time! What’s a kid to do?

The Internet can be compared to the imaginary "House of Candy." Many times, when you connect to the Internet, you need to find the answer to only one question, but you soon discover that the amount of information is so huge that you don’t know where to start or how to find it. Furthermore, you know that information on the Internet continues to grow and change every minute of every day! And as you learned a few weeks ago, you can’t believe everything you see on the Internet. What’s a cool fifth grader like you to do in a situation like this?

How does a search engine help you find the good ‘candy’ or good websites? ______

______

A search engine is just like a sorting machine. It can sort out the good and the bad web pages and leave the bad ones at the bottom, just like a sorting machine would leave the bad candy at the bottom of a bag.

Do all search engines sort websites the same way? Yes No

What influences how they are sorted? ______

______

How can you make the sorting machine or search engine pull up better websites? ______

The First Piece of Evidence

Search Engine Features

How does a SEARCH ENGINE work?

Search engines use a computer program called a spider to roam the World Wide Web exploring Web pages and their links. The spider collects information and then a second computer program indexes all the information. Each search engine’s spider and index organizes Web pages a bit differently.

Search engines also have a third computer program that actually goes into the index to find matches between your keywords and Web pages. The sites with the best matches are displayed first. Each search engine has a different way of identifying the best sites. This is why you are very likely to get different results from different search engines. These three tasks are all done without any human involvement— so a huge number of sites are indexed quickly.

Directions: We will investigate three search engines: Google, Yippy and Bing. With a partner you will be assigned just ONE of these features. You need to start with Google and write a definition explaining WHAT your feature is and what it does. In the notes section below, answer the questions and note what you can show your classmates next week. You should explore this feature on Yippy and Bing as well to see how it works on each site.

Notes:

Assigned Feature: ______

Definition of this feature: ______

______

What is cool about this feature? What can you show your classmates about this feature? ______

______

Is this feature on Google? Yes No

Is this feature on Yippy? Yes No

Is this feature on Bing? Yes No

Do YOU like this feature? J L

Feature Name / What is it? / Like it? / Not like it? / On Google / On Yippy / On Bing
Keyword Searching / J / L / a / a / a
Advanced Search / J / L
Picture Search / J / L
Ask a Question / J / L
Clusters / J / L
Logo and Colors / J / L
Layout / J / L
Email / J / L
Video / J / L
Documents / J / L
Maps / J / L
Shopping / J / L
Blogs / J / L
News / J / L
Local Search / J / L
Student/ Kid Search / J / L

The Bottom Line:

Which of the three is the best search engine? ______

Why?

______

Which search engine has the best features? ______

What are the best features and why?

______

After looking at the different features of several search engines do you believe that is

Good Bad Not Sure

Why? ______

______

The Second Piece of Evidence

Search Engine Results

Read: Just think! Every major search engine has information about millions and millions of World Wide Web sites. At the click of a button, a search engine sorts through what it "knows" and lists the sites it "thinks" you want. In some ways, a search engine is like a well-trained dog. It will fetch what you want, but only if you use the right commands.

More Words Are Better

While single words are better commands for dogs, more words are better for search engines. A search for a single word may “fetch” a million sites. Obviously, it’s tough to check a million sites to find the best one for your needs. Adding more words fetches fewer sites that are closer to what you need.

Let’s say your teacher tells you to find out whether the element mercury is toxic. Start by typing in mercury in Google and hitting the enter key.

How many web pages were retrieved? ______

Look over the description of the first few sites. What are they about?______

------

By now you may realize that the word mercury has more than one meaning. Try adding another word to tell what about mercury really interests you. Type in mercury element. How many Web pages were retrieved? ______

Look over the description of the first few sites. What are they about?______

------

Although these sites might have the answer to your question, they might not. Now try adding a third word. Type in mercury element toxic. How many Web pages were retrieved? ______

Look over the description of the first few sites. What are they about? ______

Looking at the Numbers

Compare the number of web pages retrieved for the three searches. What do they tell you about how the search engine does its work?

______

Looking at other Search Engines

Now let’s try that again at another search engine. Go to www.yippy.com

Try your search for mercury again. How many web pages were retrieved? ______

Look over the description of the first few sites. What are they about? ______

Now try Mercury Element. How many web pages were retrieved?

______

Now type Mercury Element Toxic. How many web pages were retrieved?

______

See the CLUSTERS on the side? How do those help you?

______

Is it good to have these CLUSTERS? Do they help you? Yes No

Does Google have Clusters? Yes No

Can you find the answer

Is Mercury toxic? YES NO

Which search engine did you use to find the answer?

Google Yippy

Why did you choose that search engine? ______

______

The Bottom Line:

Which search engine came up with fewer results? ______

Why is it better to have fewer results?

______

Which search engine made it easier to find your answer? ______

What made it easier?

______

After looking at the number and quality of the results that Google and Yippy retrieve do you believe that is

Good Bad Not Sure

Why? ______

______

Third Piece of Evidence

Motive

Read: Search engines rely on specialized software programs that periodically visit (spider) the Internet, and locate key words on each web site. Those key words are then cross referenced with the web site location. The searcher accesses the search engine results at various locations, types in the key words for their search, and the results are shown from this cross reference.

There are a number of problems with search engines and the results they offer:

· Search engines simply cannot keep up with all the changes that occur and the new web sites that are built every day. Links are often out-dated

· Web site builders may include key words in their site for the benefit of the spider software that have nothing to do with the true content of the web site itself.

· There is a big business selling web site builders methods of tricking the search engines to get their web site higher in the search results. This may mean that the best sites are not always in the top group of those shown.

MOTIVE: ______

______

What should the motive of ALL search engines be? ______

______

Directions: Choose three search engines including Google and Yippy. Use those search engines to answer the questions below and investigate the motive of each search engine.

Start with Google. Search for dogs, Washington (the President) or Georgia (the state).

1. How many results out of the first twenty give you information you could use to write a report? ______

2. How many results out of the first twenty have NOTHING to do with what you searched for? ______

3. How many results out of the first twenty are trying to sell you something? ______

4. Take the numbers for #2 and #3 and add them together. Divide by two. Multiply by ten. This is the percentage of pages that were worthless on Google. Write this number here: ______%

After seeing that ______% of web-pages on Google are worthless, do you think Google has made a good search engine? Yes No

What do you think Google’s MOTIVE is?______

______

Go to Yippy.com Try the same search for dogs, Washington (the President) or Georgia (the state).

5. How many results out of the first twenty give you information you could use to write a report? ______

6. How many results out of the first twenty have NOTHING to do with what you searched for? ______

7. How many results out of the first twenty are trying to sell you something? ______

8. Take the numbers for #2 and #3 and add them together. Divide by two. Multiply by ten. This is the percentage of pages that were worthless on Yippy. Write this number here: ______%

After seeing that ______% of web-pages on Yippy are worthless, do you think Yippy has made a good search engine? Yes No

What do you think Yippy’s MOTIVE is?______

______

Now try a search engine made for kids (see below for Search Engine Choices). Try the same search for dogs, Washington (the President) or Georgia (the state).

Which search engine did you choose? ______

9. How many results out of the first twenty give you information you could use to write a report? ______

10. How many results out of the first twenty have NOTHING to do with what you searched for? ______

11. How many results out of the first twenty are trying to sell you something? ______

12. Take the numbers for #2 and #3 and add them together. Divide by two. Multiply by ten. This is the percentage of pages that were worthless on this search engine. Write this number here: ______%

After seeing that only ______% of web-pages on this site are worthless, do you think this site made a good search engine? Yes No

What do you think this search engine’s MOTIVE is?______

______

Search Engine Choices:

Askkids.com

Kidsclick.org

Yahooligans.com

Factmonster.com

The Bottom Line:

Which search engine came up the best results? ______

Why is it better to have better results?

______

Which search engine would you use to write a report? ______

Why?

______

After looking at the motive of search engineers and the results of their search engine do you believe that is

Good Bad Not Sure

Why? ______

______

Good, Bad or just there?

Final Report

Directions: Look at the answers you wrote for the Bottom Line questions on pages 8, 11 and 15. Then go back and re-read your original hypothesis on page 2.

Do you still believe this? Yes No