Class 13 Notes (notes are in progress and are subject to change)

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Class 13 Outline

• Use popular search engines to find accurate information
• Evaluate and compare differences, similarities and specialties of search engines/directories using Excel
• Google Scholar
• Directories
• Evaluating Web Sites for content, purpose, layout and agenda
• Website Critique - Power Point in 13webeval

NOTE: update personal grade spreadsheets

NOTE: Useful technique to locate a term in a long document - keyboard command, CTRL-F (CMD-F on a Macintosh).

Chris Nolan - Searching the Internet

Searching the Internet using a Search Engine

• Information sought about hurricanes and global warming (how to)
• The use of advanced search in Google
• Use of +, -, and quotes ("   ")
• Google Scholar

Invisible Web

• What does it mean?
• What percentage of information on the Web is in the Invisible Web?

Directories (Subject Lists) for Academic Searches

• Librarians' Index to the Internet
• Infomine
• Trinity Library lists

What the url can tell you:

• Top level domain - .edu, .com, .org, .gov, etc.
• Optional country code at end of url: ..usa (most url's in the U.S. don't use this), .mx (Mexico), .nl (Netherlands), .ca (Canada), etc.
• Truncate

Structure of url:

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/FindInfo.html
 

Practice truncating urls:

• Digital Photography - http://cel.colgate.edu/howto/digital-photo.htm

• Truncate class URL - http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~jbelisle/cs1300/Topics/Syllabus/Syllabus.html

Homework:

Part 1:

Make a blog entry about what you learned from Chris Nolan's presentation - describe something new that you found out about and also something that surprised you. (200-250 good words)

Part 2:

Create a one-slide Power Point presentation evaluating one of the Web Sites listed below. Include a screen shot of the web page (home page or page of your choice within your chosen site)

NEW!! You may also choose to evaluate a page on Trinity University's new web site for this assignment!!

• Museum of Bad Art

•  Delugan_Meissel Architects

•  Jeanna Goodrich (former Trinity student)

• Lemonade

•  International Fainting Goat Association

•  Save the Tree Octopus

• The Essay Shop

• Xanax

• Green Spaces Alliance

• Meditation Vacations

Below the screen shot, include five quick but thoughtful evaluative comments about the site such as:

• Is the purpose of the site clearly defined? Is it a spoof? 
• Is the site intended to inform or teach, to sell you a product, to persuade you to change you views on a topic?
• Can you determine if the site is directed at a particular audience? 
• Did you like the design of the site? Was it easy to navigate?

Include a hyperlink to the site, and be sure that your last comment gives your overall impression of the site you visited.

Save your slide as WebSiteEval(your initials) - for example, mine would be saved as WebSiteEvalLB.pptx

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