Search Engines

     I find it very interesting that there are actually proper ways to search the net.  I have found with many of the articles read this week, that I am not doing the whole internet search thing properly.  I changed my ways a bit and found that I got much more specific and larger amounts of hits when searching.  It may seem a bit strange, but I learned a great deal for a site that was designed for students in middle school!
     The debate I have been waiting for on this topic has finally arrived, Wikipedia.  I have been told through high school and college that Wikipedia is not a credible source and is therefore, "NO good for research projects."  Anyone can write on Wikipedia, and because of that the information may be false.  I did learn this week that there is a team that goes though the information to check for credibility.  False information may be up for a day or two, but overall it is delete at a rather quick rate.  I have done very little searching with the site up to this point, but I did take this opportunity to try it out.  I was amazed.  All I have been told before did not seem to be true.  I looked up things I have a very strong knowledge base on and others I don't.  I knew much of the information and anything I questioned, I looked around the net to see if I would find the same information.  Every 2nd opinion I got supported the original information from Wikipedia.  This will be a site that I use for seaching much more often. 
      The issue with searching the net and my teaching is that we do not do enough projects that require teaching how to properly search at this point.  We do 1 or 2 projects we use the net for and are limited on the time we have the labs.  It is because of this that we are not to indepth with our search engines in 2nd grade yet.  We are continuing to work on our typing skills yet.
     Overall, I am excited about the searching and creating of my form to evaluate websites.  I think that taking the time to really look at how to properly use a site and what they can do will help me not only in my classwork for MEIT, but also in my teaching.