Google Search Lessons

For the past several weeks the fifth graders have been learning about how the Google search engine works and ways to make their searches more meaningful.  Students were placed in groups and given two strategies to learn and then present to the rest of their class.  There were twelve strategies in all.  The videos they accessed were from Dan Russell’s MOOC course called Power Searching with Google.  I stumbled across the course a few summers ago and completed the six week course.  In the course, demonstrations on how Google works, why word order matters, searching by image, color, specific file type, using operators like OR and AND, putting information in quotation marks, using Google as a calculator, and Google maps were all included. I knew the information in the course would benefit my intermediate students, so last year students watched the videos uploaded in Edmodo and then answered a question.  This year I decided they needed a more “hands-on” approach.  Students had about three weeks to meet in their groups, study the videos they were assigned, and prepare a way to showcase it to the class.  Last week students gave their presentations.  The rest of the class evaluated the presentations using a Google Form they accessed from Edmodo.  The page they accessed them from looks like this:

Google Search Evaluations

 

and the form looks like this:

GS Evaluation Form

Since I have five different classes that come to the lab, and each class had twelve strategies, I had to create small groups in Edmodo to keep the evaluation forms separated by homeroom.  I was pleasantly surprised how quick and easy it was to create the form, grab the embed code, and post it in Edmodo. Now that presentations are over, students will be able to see how their classmates evaluated their presentation.  From the Google Form response page in my Google Drive, I simply shared the GS documents pertaining to the students in that group with them.  They will log in to their gmail account (GAFE) and be able to see how their classmates rated them.  Students will compose a short post on their blog reflecting on this activity.

 

One thought on “Google Search Lessons

  1. Your lessons are motivating and cultivate independent learners. These students are so lucky to have you to prepare them for online courses, evaluations, and assessments that are inevitable.

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