Online Resources for EFL teachers- Searching and organizing information on the Internet

Assignment 5.1:

In this session 5 we will learn how to search for information across the Internet. Lin (2013) says that today it has been a necessary basic quality 

and ability for people to search for information using internet technology. More and more people rely their daily information search heavily on search engines

like google, yahoo, or bing. However, since very often the results of the searching in a search engine are so vast and not focused then search engines may also confuse them. Thus, ingenuity and skills on how to use search engine is necessary.

The following websites provide information on how to use search engine for searching information over the Internet.

1. Google Tips and Trick

2. Google Search Operators

Actually Google is not the only search engine in this Internet business but it has been the most widely used nowadays (Sullivan, 2013). Other search engines that we can try for searching information over the Internet are explained in the following websites:

     

     The Search Engine List

And if you want specific review on list of search engines which are good for ESL learners you can visit the following site, which list some of the websites that can be used for the purpose of language learning info search. However, unfortunately, links are up and down sometimes. Yet, it is still worth visiting in order to know how people may work with search engines.

The best search engines for ESL/EFL Learners

Then how we  can  use search engines for language learning. Definitely, search engines provide almost unlimited opportunity for language learning, but how? the following article in Internet TESL journal discusses about how to teach students how to use the Internet search engines and develop their English.

Herington (2002) Teaching EFl/ESL How to Use Search Engines 

Having finished reading those websites and article above, it is time for you to know how much you can get from your reading by going to the quiz section. Remember this quiz is graded.

Assignment 5.2: 

In groups of 5 ( Check the grouping page), using search engines, find resources  that can be used in teaching or learning English such as: grammar, listening, speaking, reading, writing, and vocabulary. Then, use a web-based mind map tools such as POPPLET andCOGGLE to create an information map/mind map like example below, make sure that the information is clickable (hyperlinked), so that each information can be directly accessed by just clicking the link in the map, see here.

Made with COGGLE

Or you can use Popplet:

Or you can also use other tools. To search for other tools you can use Google ( See other information about search engine in Assignment 5.1 above), and type in something like related:www.popplet.com.

Another alternative tool which is downloadable and does not require internet connection when using it is XMIND, you can try download it here if you wish.

Once you finished creating the mindmap, you should do one of the followings:

1. take the screenshot of it, start MS WORD or MS PAINT and save it . To take the screen shot you can see the instruction here.

2. or Just send me the coggle/popplet links to your mind map

3. When you send me link or file, donot forget to mention your group names. Otherwise, I can not identify your work.

Reference:

Herrington, R . 2002. Teaching EFL/ESL students how to use search engines and develop their English. The Internet TESL Journal, Vol. VIII, No. 12,

Sulliva, D. 2013.  Google still the world’s most popular search engine by far, Accessed from http://searchengineland.com/google-worlds-most-popular-search-engine-148089 

Posted Mon Feb 19, 2018 at 9:25 pm