Thinking outside the Desk: Take Home Edition
INTERNET SCAVENGER HUNT
When I have written about activities previously, they have been in the context of the classroom and how the students are able to work together in order to complete tasks and critically think for themselves and within a group. This blog is in the spirit of that but will have a distance learning approach.
This blog’s activity is a digital scavenger hunt. All you will need is an internet connected device and the search engine of your choice. For this blog post I will be using Google as the primary reference.
This blog post serves two purposes, helping students learn to use their search engines efficiently and guiding students into self-study and exploration of learning materials that relate to your course.
I always have safe search on (Check settings or perform a quick search in your browser address bar to check), and I would recommend that all students and those at work to do the same. You and your students can’t control what or how other people tag images. The image tags are how we will conduct this scavenger hunt.
Step One open Google to the image search (Getting students used to search operators):
- Have students input a phrase: i.e. Baby duck.
- Then ask them to remember the first 5-10 pictures.
- Then have them search for: baby.
- Then have them search for: duck.
Here are some questions that will help you discern their creativity and problem solving.
Are any of the pictures the same? What do your students think the search engine is doing with Baby duck that is different from when baby and duck searched separately? How many search results did the search engine say it found for each one?
Now have them search “Baby duck” in quotes. The quotes tell Google that the picture must have the tag baby duck specifically.
How many of the first 5 pictures are the same? Are all 5-10 the exact same? Are they in a different order?
They can use OR, AND, -, + to narrow down searches or expand them. These are called operators.
OR: Will search pages that include one or the other word.
AND : Will search pages where both of the words exist.
– : Will exclude searches that include that word. (EX: Baby -duck)
+ : Will include words you want in the search. (EX: Baby +duck)
These operators help create specific searches that return what is being looked for more accurately.
Step two is to create specific information relating to your subject matter (I will use Geometry as an example).
Students will find polygons in the world surrounding them.
Students will also not be allowed to use street signs.
Then include scenery that should be included with each shape.
Triangle: City or Urban
Rectangle/Square: Country or Wilderness
Pentagon: City or Urban
Hexagon: Country or Wilderness
Heptagon: City or Urban
Octagon: Country or Wilderness
Nonagon: City or Urban
Decagon: Country or Wilderness
Just as examples I have included some options to add to depth of search the students should be doing. The more specific the search the few results.
Now have the student include the picture for each image search that best represents what they were looking for and label it with their search term for the image wherever you have them turn it in digitally or on paper if you are able to collect it in person. (IE: Triangle +city -country -wilderness)
You have just finished your first digital scavenger hunt! This lesson is flexible and will help students start to critically think about how they search for material on their own moving forward.
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