Google Custom Search Engine

The current generation of internet-addicted students, accustomed to the instant gratification that it provides, are becoming more adept at navigating the internet that the previous generation. From a young age children are exposed to and trained in the efficient use of the web. The implication of this for teachers is that students are computer-smart. They can find ways around firewalls put in place by the Board of Education that many computer-science teachers would have never even thought of. Why wouldn't they be able to? They have years of experience by the time they are school-aged, many of whom used the computer before they had even begun learning to read. So even with websites being blocked, their will be one child who finds away to get around them, and soon enough, so will the rest of the students.

One way to combat this is to limit their internet searches to a custom search engine, such as the ones that can be created through Google. A teacher can not only prevent students from going to undesirable sites, but they actually can dictate exactly what sites they can access. By creating a custom Google search engine, only the sites a teacher chooses will be displayed in the results. This also benefits the students because they do not have to wade through an exorbitant number of results to find the information you want them to find. Using custom search engines can benefit everyone involved. This is definitely a tool worth incorporating in the classroom.

Cameron's Custom Search Engine for the Revolutionary War: 

http://www.google.com/cse/manage/create/3?cx=012275268733707980470:pha0a1ur37m

Flickr and its Instructional Possibilities

Flickr is a free online community that is based around uploading, organizing, and sharing photos.  However, with additional applications such as e-mail and instant messaging, it represents a smaller-scale online networking site, comparable in some ways to Facebook.  Obviously, Flickr lacks the excess of additional features that Facebook offers its users, but this is precisely why Flickr offers educators the better option for creating an online educational community in the classroom.

By being more simplistic than other social networking sites, as well as being relatively simple to use, teachers could utilize the collaboration features (i.e. instant messaging, e-mail, commenting, etc.) to allow students to post and discuss material relevant to in-class studies.  The real benefit is that anywhere that a student can get internet access, they can review, question, and comment on pictures or ideas posted on a designated class Flickr page. Rather than having to give out an e-mail address to students.  Interaction outside of the classroom setting between teacher and student could happen through Flickr accounts.  Sites like Facebook would be less than ideal in comparison because there is most likely going to be a comment, picture, or something else (inappropriate or not) that teachers would not be particularly eager to share with students.

This obviously would be geared toward middle school classrooms and up, but nowadays even elementary school students are going to be relatively adept at navigating and using social networking sites.  Perhaps something like Flickr could be used for these younger ages for simultaneous technology exploration and the ever-popular 'show-and-tell' purposes.

Reaction to Net Vibes and Del.icio.us

For those who can't always count on having access to the same computer throughout the day, websites such as del.icio.us and Net Vibes allow for access to important sites, no matter what computer they are accessed from.  That doesn't mean that anyone can access a person's information, though. It works the same way as something like an e-mail account:  each user has a personal, password-protected, on-line account.  The del.icio.us website is used for creating an on-line place to store bookmarks so that they can be accessed from any computer.  Net-Vibes is a little more advanced in that it allows for the same accessibility as del.icio.us, but it actually stores 'widgets' from many of your favorite websites.  This is a nice feature because it means that someone can view and use several of their favorite sites on one page.

The functions of both of these sites offer much convenience, but they leave a lot to be desired as newer, better internet programs become available.  Net Vibes achieves its purpose, but it falls far short of other applications on-line such as i-google.  The i-google site is much easier to navigate and widgets are easier to search for and find than on Net-Vibes.  In addition, i-google has a bookmarking application that can be added to your i-google home page, so unless you are obsessed with the perfect organization of your bookmarks, i-google makes del.icio.us virtually obsolete.