Search Terms

-panopticon related to the disreputable history

-"cautionary tales" +"children's books list"

-ap we didn't start the fire lesson plan

-what happened pp 80-150 in the giver

These are just some of the search terms people have used to end up at this blog.  Only 1 of them led to  what I would consider an actual match.  Unfortunately for that last search, which I assume came from a student who hadn't done his/her homework, it wasn't the match.

Sometimes you can get lucky with longer search phrases, but most of the time you're not going to find exactly what you're looking for.  Being specific in your search doesn't mean use more words.  Search engines just bring up results that contain those words, usually in order of popularity.  Just because the terms are all present in the site doesn't mean that they're actually related to each other in their presentation. 

Adults have a hard enough time figuring out how to search for information, but children who are just learning how to use search engines are usually worse.  Not only do they never look past the first page of results, but their search terms are atrocious.  According to research, if children don't find what they're looking for, they either change their spelling, rearrange their search terms, or add more words.  Then they repeat the process over and over.  With the rise in technology and in turn, the rise in ridiculously young children using it, children  are developing bad search habits before properly learning how to search for information.  Hence why people (cough, librarians) need to interfere before their bad search habits become too fixed. 

This video, while frightening, is pretty adorable.  Unfortunately, the kid's name is Bridger.  Oh well.