Little Bit of History
You know the old joke “I am older than Google”. It’s true I have tried this in class, and it never fails to incite looks of shock and disbelief.
Being in this auspicious company, I also learnt how to code when computers were still using dos Prompts. So, this module about Google and other search engines have me so enthralled as well as nostalgic because that certainly takes me to the time this internet history was being made.
According to this article Google is not perfect. It still has glitches and bugs. It is not always correct and is never implicitly accurate. The short simple answers that return from a query can be collated into a featured snippet. Sometimes their collation can be wrong. Google tracks our search data and uses it for profit. Indexing the whole WWW is not an easy task. Think of all the images and videos out there. It is still growing and adapting.
From the reasoning for the amazing minds of Page and Brin who thought of the concept that resulted in the search engine that we all know and use. Google uses an algorithm that tests the links between each website and ranks them accordingly. For a website to be visible the search engine must be able to download it. It must be indexed in its database. The team that created the algorithm from Google thought of this concept based on how academic citations were ranked according to how many papers they cite and how many still cite them. Of course, this is an oversimplification.
The implications for my practice
Am I using this modern wonder to its full potential? I watched this video and realised that there is so much more to Google. Like the elephant of my blog, depending on the user and search, it can give you different information depending on the way you ask.
When you enter a search term it returns with numerous hits. The tabs above show what is the most numerous types of result such as web, images, videos etc. For example, in a search for videos, you can then filter the results by search tools which can refine the search by duration, time, source, quality etc. From a teaching perspective captioning would be an important feature for selection for inclusivity. The source would be another feature for filtering if we want only authentic resources for teaching. The anytime filter could be used for recent information. The reading level filter on the Web tab provides appropriate reading level for students, making it a great teaching tool for differentiation. Often students stop reading a web resource for research will not get the information they require if they cannot understand the content. The Google.com/advanced search feature has many ways of filtering the information using explicit terms to look for and avoid. From a primary teacher’s perspective, I think the safe search filter is a great discovery. It will filter out inappropriate content when you are displaying search results.
I should not stop here. Now that I know Google and its limitations, I needed to explore the possibility of the same features on other search engines. The search for information should not be through only one source on the internet. Hence, I have compared the following search engines with the features that would be useful for teaching and learning.
| Bing | DuckDuckGo | Kiddle | ||
| Collects personal information | yes | yes | no | Collected information is deleted every 24 hours |
| domain | .com | .com | .com | .co (children only) |
| Safe search filter | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Adjustable reading level | yes | I could not find one | I could not find one | Yes. The hits are categorised according to reading level |
| License and usage rights | Filter available | Filter available | Detailed usage right filters | Most images and information have attribution shared alike license |
| Advertisements | Yes. But not the top hits | yes | yes | yes
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References
Hollingsworth, S. (2020). 8 things that are wrong with Google search today. Search Engine Journal.
Battelle, J. (2005). The birth of Google. wired.
Epperson, D. (2017). Advanced Google search tips in 10 minutes