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A project of the Public Learning Media Laboratory
Website:http://www.boolify.org
Overview
: This lesson will help students explore the impact of different Boolean searches upon search results.
Purpose
: Students often don’t understand that some keywords canmean different things. This activity helps them limit their results to thetopic of their choice.
Objectives
: Students will start by thinking about the different resultsthat a single keyword produces, and then generate their own set of confusing keywords.
Activities
:
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Have students search for “dolphins”. What do the results show?Discuss the difference between the results, and their topics.
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Have the students try different keyword combinations. Whatwould they search for if they wanted to find material related towhat dolphins eat?
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A race: have students work to generate five different keywordsthat need to be limited through Boolean to produce clear, helpfulresults.Examples:
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Dolphins (either the fish, or the team)
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George Washington (either the person, or the Bridge)
Wrapping up:
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Spend several minutes discussing how this work relates to theirresearch class work.
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Have students teach back to others (on a projector, if available)how search results can be clarified through the use of Boolean.
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