Information and digital literacy in education via the digital path

Google announced today the gradual release of a new search feature which will help users get more reliable results. Search results in Google will now start showing an icon which when you click on it will display more information about the source site without having to actually visit it. 

Here is a handy visual you can use with your students in class to help them become better Google searchers. We have outlined 8 search tips that students can use to narrow down their search and get accurate results. All of these tips are nested in Google Advanced Search which is accessible from 'settings' in Google search homepage. This visual is also available in PDF format from this page.

For those of us who remember a time before the internet, using Google for research might feel strange -- like being thrust from the cozy confines of a favorite library straight into the Wild West of the web. But in today’s world, it’s impossible to ignore Google Search as a legitimate tool for research.

Google's advanced search tools can help students find useful information that doesn't necessarily appear at the top of search results pages. Unfortunately, students often forget about the advanced search options or don't even know where to find them.

For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, here is a handy visual featuring 8 important Google Drive search tips for teachers. More specifically, you will get to learn how to: search for a document that contains a specific phrase, search for files that contain at least one of the words, find documents that do not contain a particular word, find documents owned or shared by or with a particular person, search your Drive by document type, search for documents edited before or after a specific period of time, find documents by title, and finally find items that can be opened by only certain apps.

A few days ago, we shared with you this handy infographic featuring 12 important tips to help you refine your Google searches and get precise search results. Today, we are introducing you to these equally important resources shared by Google Inside Search. 

Google is definitely one of the major entry ports for searching the net. Knowing how to conduct effective and smart search queries on Google has become an important skill for 21st century students. There is an over-abundance of information online and unfortunately a decent amount of the online knowledge is amateurish, unfiltered and at worse misinforming. This is why Googling the world wide web goes beyond randomly typing a bunch of words and waiting for the ‘feeling lucky’ button to do its work; it’s rather an informed process that takes into consideration a wide range of variables that include the choice of the words we use in our queries, the positioning of these words in a search phrase, the use of operators and symbols and many more.

Teaching students how to conduct smart search queries online is an important part of cultivating a digital citizenship culture within your classroom.  Smart searching goes beyond the simple ability to conduct quick search queries to how to effectively locate information online and assess their authenticity and accuracy. In other  words, smart searching encompasses a complex set of interrelated skills and competencies that together make up the holistic picture of what it is to be a search savvy netizen.

A job hunting friend wanted to Google prospective companies. A normal search returns pages filled with search results. But as you sift through them, one question remains — how do you get the latest up to date information?

There is no question about the quantity of information Google throws back at us. But try out a few searches of your own and you will see that “old” pages still sneak through. The pages may meet the gold standards of Google’s mystic search algorithm but the blast from the past doesn’t help my friend’s cause.

Design is important and we already know that “content is king” when it comes to having a successful Web site, but there’s another factor that can prove hugely important for Web site owners that many people don’t really pay attention to, and that’s search terms. Not keywords, not the words or phrases that you ensure you mention in your articles to make them findable, but the terms that people search for when they find and end up on your site.

In our era of advanced technology and high-speed Internet connections, you can find information on virtually anything. In the space of just a few minutes, we can find recipes for the tastiest pie or learn all about the theory of wave-particle duality.
But more often than not, we have to sift through a vast body of knowledge to get the information we need, and this can take hours rather than minutes. This is why Bright Side has put together a list of the most effective methods for searching Google to help you find the precious material you’re looking for in just a couple of clicks.