When you have a clear purpose in mind or want to travel to specific sites , you'll want to use the resources on this page to target your destination amidst the millions available in Cyberspace.

If you are looking for general information, you may want to begin your journey with a DIRECTORY SEARCH.  Directory searches only search sites that have been specifically selected and organized for certain audiences. Kid-friendly directories only take you to sites chosen with kids in mind. Some of the most comprehensive ones can be accessed through the links provided below.  For a detailed list of directories for educators, visit the  Sites for Teachers page. For a great page of search engines for kids, visit TekMom. Some of the directories listed below return results that include reviews and reading levels. 

 
(includes the reading level for all sites returned in the searches) 

Ask Jeeves for Kids
Ask Jeeves is a trademark of Ask Jeeves, Inc.,
 Copyright 1997 Ask Jeeves, Inc

If you're having a hard time deciding where to start, you might want to check out the great chart of links to the very best search tools for your needs at: NoodleTools Choose the Best Search Site  or  Bernie Dodge's Specialized Search Engines and Directories page.

Middle School Students may want to use some of the following DIRECTORIES with their parents' or teachers' guidance.  (Parents and teachers can set up a search guard on Lycos using a password to prevent it from being disabled. On Google you can select SafeSearch.)

If you haven't found what you need on the DIRECTORIES provided, you may want to use a SEARCH ENGINE.  Search engines use "spiders" that check every page of all the web pages in their database for the word or words you suggest.  Search engines gather HUGE amounts of information.  They all organize the information in different ways, so you will want to choose the best one for you.   (On Alta Vista you can enable a safe-surfing option by clicking on the "Advanced Search" tab and turning the "Family Filter" on.  It also makes it easy to search for images, sounds, and movies too.  Infoseek provides a safe surfing option called "GoGaurdian" that can be enabled by clicking on it and setting a password.)

The above search engines will return thousands of sites unless you practice some search tips to help you hit your target site the first time.  A site that explains this in a format that is somewhat kid-friendly is the ADAM site.  An explanation for older kids is found at  Bernie Dodge's Four Nets for Better Searching Site. Adults will appreciate the information on Search Engine Watch. It provides outstanding explanations as well as great charts of current information describing the Boolean search techniques which are supported by the most popular search engines. A newer meta-search engine that searches all the others and deletes the duplicates, while sorting the best sites and putting them at the top is: Ixquick.
 

Once you've collected a number of sites, how do you decide which ones provide quality information that is accurate, reliable, and relevant?

Sleuthing

Cyber Control Center for Teachers

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