Gooru - Free Search Engine for Learning

Gooru is an OER (Open Educational Resource) online beta service that is worth trying out.  As mentioned in the title of this post, Gooru is a search engine.  

What separates this from other search engines, like Google or Bing, is that it sources several resources (websites, slideshows, video, online textbooks, files, etc.) curated by educators and community experts, "guaranteeing you’ll find high-quality materials every time."   Here explains more on how Gooru searches.

Teachers can create their own account, or simply start right in with their easy-to-use menu categorized by content areas - Science, Social Sciences and Math.  Even students can jump right in and start learning.  If an account is made, you will have options for collecting your customized materials and upload your own material and files to be added.

The cool thing about the video options (especially when customizing your own video finds) is that Gooru will allow you to select the specific timeframe within the video for viewers to watch.  This is great when you don't want your audience to have to watch an entire clip in order to get the parts you want them to view.  You could potentially prepare a collection of multimedia in your Gooru account and play segments of an entire video starting and stopping to review other content that you collected in a nice streamlined flow.

Once your multimedia resource collection is ready for viewing and learning, email your students the specific web link given for your collection.

Along with their collections and resources, Gooru offers quizes.

Here is a great little video explaining how Gooru works.

Manage Several Search Engines in Firefox Search

Here's a way to make the most of web searching through your Firefox browser.
 
Your search box at the top of your Firefox browser's navigation bar, offers a few alternative search engines with a click of the drop down menu.  As much as Google does a great job at web search, it is always wise to check other sources; especially since Google uses filter bubbles that cater and personalize your searches, which can be limiting.


Many sites that feature their own search, support this feature.  Anytime you visit a web site that supports this feature, the drop-down arrow in the search bar will be highlighted. Click on the drop down menu and select "Add       (name of search)     ".  Keep in mind, not every site that offers their own search will support this feature in Firefox, but check anyway.  I have about 16 useful search engines in my Firefox search bar.


A couple of sources that do support this is Answers.com, Creative Commons, Wikipedia, Sweetsearch, Wolfram/Alpha (Science/Math), KidRex (Children), Firefox Add-ons; just to name a few.


Practical Application:  Not only will this allow you to get more, varied results in your search, but it is easily accessed right in your browser.  Instead of going to the website, search it in your browser's search bar.

Sweet Search

Sweet Search is a search engine designed with students in mind.  Sweet Search searches and evaluates material suitable for students from a variety of teacher, librarian, and expert approved websites.


Try it yourself.  Search for something:




Here is what sweetsearch.com says about themselves:
It searches only the 35,000 Web sites that our staff of research experts and librarians and teachers have evaluated and approved when creating the content onfindingDulcinea. We constantly evaluate our search results and "fine-tune" them, by increasing the ranking of Web sites from organizations such as the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian, PBS and university Web sites.




SweetSearch helps students find outstanding information, faster. It enables them to determine the most relevant results from a list of credible resources, and makes it much easier for them to find primary sources. We exclude not only the spam sites that many students could spot, but also the marginal sites that read well and authoritatively, but lack academic or journalistic rigor. As importantly, the very best Web sites that appear on the first page of SweetSearch results are often buried on other search engines.


What does Sweet Search offer:
There will be a bit of a learning curve for your students with navigating through Sweet Search's findings that you will want to educate your students before unleashing them into their own research.  When launching a search on a topic Sweet Search highlights all of the words used in your search, making it easier to filter through the articles.  For each site that is found, below it are text snippets from the website that contain the words used in your search.  Click on the body of these snippets and a preview widow will pop up displaying what that snippet looks like in context to the actual site.  Move your cursor down through the snippets and watch the preview widow change as well.


Sweet search also has checkboxes on each site snippet, allowing the searcher select the sections they want to review.  But wait, there's more.  Sweet Search offer a Firefox Add-on.  Simply click on the "Add-on" button at the top.