Google Search Ninja

Level: Beginner, Intermediate

Audience: Upper-Elementary, Secondary, Post-Secondary

The days of “just Google it” without thought are long gone. Even Google advocates that we have to learn to find good information. This begins briefly with a fundamental understanding of how to seek reliable information, followed by an interactive session in which participants play with some of Google's advanced search functions. When students (and educators) learn to use Google Search effectively, better and more reliable information will be found. This session will emphasize skills to get better information: focused keywords; “filtering” your search and search operators to narrow down results (to find specific web sites or words, or even exclude specific words or web sites); searching for specific kinds of files (like ppt or docx); narrowing image searches and finding copyright-free images; and Chrome browser apps and extensions that support research skills. We will also explore Google Scholar, Google Books, and the Google Newspaper Archive. Finally, we will briefly look at the free course Power Searching with Google so participants can take their own Google Search learning to the next level!