WEEK2 : websearching for language learning

     Like many internet users, I have made Google my home page on the different browsers which I currently use. The reason is because Google integrates most of the tools I use today as a teacher. I am so familiar with it that I could barely imagine that there was a life beyond Google. That was before last Monday when Sean, the instructor of this course kicked off the discussion about web searching. I was amazed to discover that Google "...is not the best choice if you are looking for academic resources or other specialized needs". 

     It took me a few days to visit the different alternatives suggested on noodletools.com because I was really spoilt for choice. Eventually, I decided to focus on the section about controversial issues because, right now, I am teaching essay writing in my executive assistant classes. The difficulty with teaching essay writing is to make students understand that they must develop arguments "for" and arguments "against" the same topic. Right now, we are discussing three different topics: globalization, wearing the uniform at school and women going to work. So I decided to search each of the three topics with the different search engines in the controversial issues section. My objective was to find which engine would return the most relevant arguments for and against each topic. Of the three search engines, gleancomparisonsearch.org won my preference for at least four reasons: first, it is the most user friendly search engine I have ever used. It guides the user through the different steps of the search process, which is very important for novice searchers like students. Secondly, it is very flexible as it accepts one word or multi word search queries. But more, the user can even fine tune the results by going beyond the preselected comparison words offered to him. He just need to type his own contrast words in the additional research area. Finally the search results are very clearly presented with pro articles on the left and cons articles on the right. This presentation fully matches the black board presentation adopted by teachers in class. Last but not least, the results are relevant and redirect learners to renowned websites where they can go further with the topic. Here are the reasons why I am going to advise gleancomparisonsearch.org to my students.

     The lesson I draw from this week's discussion is that the essential thing for a teacher is not to know everything but to know where to find what he needs. Therefore the good teacher must have both an overview and a good control of search engines in order to choose the ones which best satisfy his needs. Finally, I would recommend teachthought.com to my fellows. it is not a search engine but a website which abounds with very relevant articles about teaching and technology. The articles are synthesised from search engines and are presented under the form of numbered paragraphs, which makes the reading easy.