From the mailbag:
"Dear MamaBear,
My kids will be starting middle school soon, and I want to give them a good edge. Knowing how to find stuff online is the first step, I think. I've heard that you can use Google in ways that aren't well-known…do you know anything about that?
Thank you,
Anon"
Dear A,
Ah!
A question MamaBear loves!
Anything that requires kids to actually *think* when researching online warms the cockles of me heart, it surely does.
Yes, there are many many ways you can use Google that mere mortals never consider.
Google gives you advanced search operators including:
- site: – this allows you to limit your searching from within a specific site, say, cnn.com or mamabear.me or *.edu etc.
- intitle: – this lets you search for web pages that have specific words in the title tag
- filetype: – this allows you to find specific files online, ie, search for ebooks in pdf, search for pngs of pictures and the like.
You can do far far more, of course!
Here's some of the best places to master Google:
- 20 Tips for More Efficient Google Searches
- Advanced Google Cheat Sheet
- Explore Google Search
- Top Tips for Great Google Searches
The above should definitely get your kid searching in the right direction!
Thus speaks…MamaBear
