Custom Searches for Educational Content on the Internet

I have been experimenting with creating custom search engines (using Google's CSE tool) for educators/parents/students. I've started with 2 for Math content (lesson plans, practice problems etc) - one for K-8 Math resources and one for High School Math. I've put up the links here (on my blog).

I'm aware that teachers have access to several good sites for their subjects, but how do you look for material within a bunch of sites? A tool like this customizes your search, so that you focus on relevant sites when you search (and provides some value-add as well) and you don't have to wade through tons of irrelevant hits that show up in regular google searches.

It would be great if interested teachers in this august forum could give these 2 CSEs for Math a try. Just use them the next time you need to look for some Math stuff. Please do leave me feedback - these are still works-in-progress, so your inputs will be valuable.

Also if anyone here would like to collaborate with me to create CSEs for all subjects (I'm working on other subjects too), do drop me a line!

Thanks!
Shuchi

Tags: content, educational, internet, math, search

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Permalink Reply by Shayne Train on March 13, 2008 at 8:39am

was inspired by your blog and added a custom search for visual art. I don't teach math so it is hard to evaluate your search, however I typed in a few keywords based on my kids' math classes and liked how it worked.

I can see that it would take some thought to narrow down the topic to certain keywords and web-sites. I certainly have some favourite sites that I always search when looking for lesson plans. It is great to be able to search multiple specific sites in one go instead of using site: in Google (searching within one site).

How did you want to post these CSE's for different subjects? I could do Visual Art and computer literacy topics. I'm already collecting resources on Internet Safety on a wiki where my students are collaborating for an Acceptable Use Policy.

Shayne

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Permalink Reply by Shuchi Grover on March 14, 2008 at 9:33pm

Shayne, I'm glad you went and tried one out for yourself ! I'm sure you'll put your visual art one to good use :) You could keep adding to it as you come across more relevant sites.

I was planning to make a list of links to these on my blog (at least initially). I could add the link to your visual art one too. I'm open to other ideas however.

I plan to create some for Science and Social Studies too, shortly. Will share those links as well.

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Permalink Reply by Shuchi Grover on March 14, 2008 at 9:29pm

I knew I should not have removed mathworld.wolfram.com - even though it only gives definitions most of the time (as it does for Lychrel numbers). Could you suggest some good (HS Math level) sites that deal with this topic? Thanks!

Wondering about the significance of the '196' in your username (seeings as 196 is the smallest Lychrel number) :-)