Search+Engines

= = Search Engines Kindergarten- Third Grade



KidRex is a kid-safe search engine powered by Google custom search. KidRex uses a combination of Google's safe search mode and their own database of filtered keywords, phrases, and websites to provide a family friendly search environment. In the event that a questionable website does get past the filters, KidRex has a site removal request form. www.kidrex.org

Quintura for Kids is a visual search engine designed for kids. Quintura uses a combination of icons and text to provide students with an easy to search for information on the Internet. By placing their mouse pointer on a word or picture, students will see subcategories from which to select information. With minimum of direct instruction, young students can begin searching the web. Quintura provides a platform for introducing students to searching for information on the Internet. www.quintura.com .

Sweet Search is a great search engine for students. It offers a narrowed search by school subject, a beginner search engine for young students, a search engine for librarians, a search just for social studies subject matter, and a search just for biographies. It also provides great advice on how to teach students to search effectively. www.sweetsearch.com

Boolify is a search engine that “shows” students how to conduct an effective search. Keywords are available as puzzle pieces. Students drag a keyword puzzle piece into the search field. Then students drag a qualifying word (AND or OR) next to the keyword(s), which narrows down the search. The results are continually modified as more qualifying terms and/or keywords are added. This search engine would be a great one to begin with when teaching students how to conduct an effective search. www.boolify.org

Ask Kids is one of the search engines that many students are already familiar with. In addition to the search box, there are five specialized search tools: Schoolhouse (to find educational sites), movies, games, videos and images. After typing in a keyword for a search, Ask Kids will present a list of related sites, along with related images, a definition of the keyword(s), and options to refine or expand the search. This is a good research tool, but you may find students getting distracted by the available links to movies, games and videos. Here are some other worthwhile search engines for kids:

=**Search Engines Fourth-Sixth Grades** =

Goofram is a mash-up of Google Search and Wolfram Alpha search. Enter your search term(s) into Goofram and it will display relevant results drawn from Google and Wolfram Alpha. Goofram really shines when you're searching for information about a topic that could potentially have a lot of numerical information as well as text-based information. Goofram is a good resource for science and mathematics students conducting online research. By having statistical information displayed side-by-side with text-based information students will save time as they are essentially getting a two-for-one with this search engine.



Twurdy uses a simple color-coded system to indicate how easy or difficult it is to read a particular website in your search results. There are three types of Twurdy searches; Just Twurdy, Simple Twurdy, and Twurdy with Pop. Here's how Twurdy defines the three search types:

//Just Twurdy - searches using Twurdy's basic algorithm with medium speed and medium results.//

//Simple Twurdy - searches using Twurdy's simple algorithm for fast speed but less accurate results//

//Twurdy with Pop - searches using Twurdy's most complex algorithm which includes looking up the popularity of words within the text. It has a slower speed with more accurate results//.

Triplify is a new search engine that aggregates results from Google, Yahoo, and MSN Live. Triplify displays results with numerical rankings for each link as it ranks on each search engine. Triplify is a good resource for showing students how different search engines rank results. In some cases the way each of the three search engines ranks results may be different enough that students will find three times the number of resources they might find by just using Google, Yahoo, or MSN Live.