Blog Post # D chapter 5

    Three concepts that I picked to blog about this week from chapter 5 is search engines, electronic note-taking, and free text search. These three concepts are things that I use on a daily or weekly basis or plan to use in the future. I think there all great ideas that have impacted many people lives. Changing the way we receive information. Technology is a great tool to have when searching for information.

           We all use search engines to get information from the internet. I know I use google all the time. Just last week I seen a guy that reminded me of an actor in a movie I seen a long time ago. I couldn’t remember the actor name or any of the movies he had a role in. I asked my mom and sister by describing him and saying he was a 1980 actor, they couldn’t help me and really had no information for me based on what I told them. So I just googled it. I put 1980 actors in the search box and sure enough he popped up, Steve Guttenberg. I really didn’t need to know that information but the technology allows me to get answers to silly questions like that.  I really didn’t look into the real technology behind search engines until I read chapter five. A Search engine is a software program that uses networks of computers to access information from its databases. Its fast and it gives you a ton of sites with information related to whatever you typed in the search box. It’s one of the most popular activities on the internet. I personally use google all the time and I’m pretty good at finding the information I’m searching for.

            Now depending on what you’re looking for you have a few ways to search. A lot of search engines offer three ways to search information on the internet. I personally like free text search also called full text search. But that’s only if I’m looking for random information. Like on celebrities or anything that I’m just browsing for myself. Basically you type something in the search box and it looks for sites that have those words in the title, keyword, and description fields. Then you quickly get thousands of sites with the information you wanted. The only problem with this kind of search is its time consuming. If you have deadlines you would want to do a keyword/exact match search which retrieves only resources that contain that exact word or phrase you put in the search box. I usually do a free text search I personally find my information faster that way. The last way is Boolean search you use the terms AND, OR, and NOT to create more complex queries. I’ve never used this way of searching and actually never heard of it till this chapter.

           My last concept is electronic note taking, at first I thought it was those like receipt scanners that file all documents and stuff, but I was wrong. But I picked this because I thought it was very interesting because you use technology to organize and speed up note taking. Electronic note-taking transfer the work of writing, filing, and organizing to your computer allowing you to just take notes without thinking about anything else. It allows you access to your notes from any electronic device. This type of system is great for teachers who move from different classrooms. I thought it was interesting because a lot of times note taking makes your hand hurts. So I thought it was a neat idea for students who have classes with a lot of note taking. But it’s also great for teachers. There are more and more programs coming out for electronic note taking. I’ve personally never used any I have like a note pad feature on my phone but that is not the same as the electronic note taking that is being discussed in the chapter. I ‘am interested of actually working in one of these programs.

       These three technology terms are a familiarity with the majority of the U.S population. I know that I really enjoy using search engines and the different types of ways you can research information whether it’s for leisure time or because you have a report due. The electronic note taking I have never used but I ‘am intrigued by the system and having your notes and stuff there and available to you whenever you need them. I think these are great things to have as a student or a teacher.

photo credit to: FindYourSearch on Flickr

 















Resources:

Maloy, R., O’Loughlin, R., Edwards, S., & Woolf, B. (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.

Flickr