As I construct new research experiences for my fifth graders in social studies, I'm careful to walk them through our library link on our classroom page, pointing out the search engines we subscribe to that are expressly for elementary school use. However, I silently lament some of the limitations of these engines. They have certainly gotten exponentially better in the past 10 years, but some of the content, graphics and visuals are still stuck in the 20th century.
Sweet Search is a multiple-product website, but all products are intended for student use, and search websites their engines use are all screened for both quality of content and inappropriate and/or distracting peripheral content and advertising. Dulcinea Media (named after the woman who Don Quixote searched for in vain) is the company behind the family of search and research tools, and their home page offers a thumbnail sketch of each product. There's a page just for all of the widgets they've set up for each product, some in varying sizes and colors. I added a Sweet Search 4 Me widget to this blog in about 30 seconds. All are well-designed and thoughtful in both the tools and resources included, and in the way they've set up the navigation.
I used Sweet Search 4 Me, more geared to elementary children, and looked for American Indian, a term that has recently been used again in social studies. From the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian to our new TCI Social Studies series, it seems that it is replacing "Native American". I wanted to see what kinds of information I'd find with this search; really out-of-date or very current? The result is an extensive, intentional list of current sources. Sweet Search creates a clean, focused list of possibilities. I especially appreciated the break-out notes on each site, and the fact that each word in my search was highlighted in a different color, so my students could easily see the relevance is deeper when the words appear side-by-side.
Sweet Search/Dulcinea also offer a teacher resource page for each level (elementary, middle, upper) divided by by subject area. The links offered take you to the major websites you'd expect for each subject, a good resource alone to have all on one page, plus an assortment of unexpected, high-quality smaller sites that add new perspectives to planning.
I especially appreciated the clear and easy to navigate subject-area pages for students; the social studies page offers tips for web research and history research, links to "beyond the headlines" stories, web guides by social studies sub-topics, and tutorials for writing social studies pieces such as biographies.
They've obviously done their homework to discover what interests upper elementary and middle school children, while maintaining appropriate and childlike standards.My favorite Sweet Search product is Sweet Search 2Day, "a daily curated assortment of the best content on the Web for history, language arts, science, news, culture and other topics". The uncluttered page is organized into boxes that are clearly labeled, and contain just enough information for kids' attention spans. The page offers links to their own blog, daily cartoons from Calvin & Hobbes, Peanuts and Dilbert, "of-the-day" features (word, poem, question, interview), Today in History, a featured web guide from their library of guides, links to BBC World News, brain teasers, Photo of the Day... a wealth of information in pleasant little doses!
I'm looking forward to introducing the many features to my classes in the coming week or two. They've already gotten the basic tour, and the link is posted on our classroom homepage. I'm hoping to hear from parents that it gets some use at home; I suggested to my fifth graders that they use Sweet Search 2Day as their home page on their browser. Even if they only read one of the boxes, they've seen something new they wouldn't otherwise!
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