2. How Can a Boolean Operator Help Me? Kathy McNeiece For 2 nd -3 rd Grade Students Help!

3. Suppose you want to do a search for purple. What do you find? That is a lot of purple!

4. Can I narrow my search for purple? YES! I can use what is called a Boolean operator. I use certain words to help me get specific information. – AND AND – OR OR – NOT NOT Click on each word to see how it is used.

5. Let’s narrow your search. We will use the word AND to help us. Purple AND Round Now you have less choices!

6. WHAT NOW? But it is not what I needed! Click here to go back to choices…

7. Let’s search again. Purple OR Triangle Too many?

8. WHAT NOW? But it is not what I needed! Click here to go back to choices…

9. Last one! Purple NOT Green A little better!

10. Results… How many results did we get using the Boolean word AND? How many did we get with OR? How about NOT? Now let’s practice! – Get together with your partner. Partner one will set up the laptop. Partner two will go and get a topic from Mrs. McNeiece

11. Where to go… Log onto the computer and click on our class webpage Find the tab for student page Click on the kids infoBits linkkids infoBits

12. Type in your topic How many choices did you get? Too many!

13. Let’s narrow our focus… Now click on Advanced Search

14. Type the topic that is on your paper along with the search words. See how many choices appear.

15. Results… Talk to your partner about what happened. – What was the best search word to use? – Does this make researching easier or more difficult?

16. One More Database… Click on For KidsFor Kids – Click on Search Help – You and your partner will go through each heading. Wildcard Characters Boolean Operators Range Searches Advanced Features – Find at least one new fact to share with the class. What did you learn?

17. What about the Internet? Select one of the following internet search engines: – Kids Yahoo – Google for Kids – Kids AOL Type in your main topic. What comes up? Talk to your partner about what you are finding.

18. Internet vs. Database When we searched in the infoBits and For Kids databases, we were able to find specific books, articles, and journals about our topics. When we searched on the internet we found lots of things! We had lots of websites to choose from. Some didn’t even have to do with our topics! Which would be better for researching a report?

19. Credits: Clip Art http://school.discoveryeducation.com/clipart/ category/tech.html http://school.discoveryeducation.com/clipart/ category/tech.html