Foundations Newsletter

Searching for information online has become a daily task that nearly nobody can escape. Whether it’s an address, a recipe, a lost synonym, or any puzzling question, Google (or other wannabe/useless search engines) is there for us, any time, any where.

Although we assume that our students know how to search for information, you can be surprised how much our students do not know about basic search skills. One main reason behind this is that there aren’t as many valid/reliable sources of information in Arabic as there are in English. Until recently, forums run by the public (which are mostly anonymous) were the most reliable source of information.

This is why our many of our students come to class with a clear lack of basic search skills. A lot of them are not familiar with using search operators, forming smart keywords, or even identifying the different between a .gov source and a .co.uk source. For a lot of them, it’s all the same, and it doesn’t mean a thing. –for more about basic search skills, please visit: Google Search: 8 Tips to Keep in Mind

This is why it becomes very important to utilize safe search engines in our early English classes. Many of our students do not know how to filter information and how to avoid or even respond to inappropriate search results. You can customize google to only display safe results, but this can be difficult in a classroom full of devices accessible by all students. It could be a lot easier to direct students to a few safe search engines that only display safe results. These are a few:

1. Search Safe for Kids: http://www.safesearchkids.org/

2. KidRex: http://www.kidrex.org/

3. Safe Search http://primaryschoolict.com/

4. GoGooligans http://gogooligans.com/

 
These search engines filter results and only display ones that are suitable for all ages. This means your students won’t have to deal with any unsuitable results when searching for something in class.