Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Visual Search Engines: Do they help students find information better?

Most people have used Google to find information on the Internet, but fewer people have ever used a visual search engine to location information. The Web site, Searchme.com, is one such Web site where you can preview pages before you look at them.

Currently, I am doing some research on whether such search engines are less, more, or just as useful as something like Google. If you have a moment, please take my survey on this topic, and/or share your opinions. Try using a topic with key words like "cell phones cheating" or some other topic in both Google and Searchme.com. Which search engine helps you find information?

Best,

Randall

3 comments:

  1. Hi Randall,
    Well, I'd never used searchme.com to locate info on the Web before. I really liked the fact that we can preview pages. It gives us an idea what kind of information will be most likely to be found on the page. Also, if the page is either cluttered with useless info or if it's neatly organized.
    And speaking of the visual aspect of search engines, have you ever used a visual dictionary? I think it's great when teachers/students get the chance to associate the image with the word. Here's a good one: http://visual.merriam-webster.com/
    Best,
    Bruno

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bruno,

    Thanks for the tip on the visual dictionary. Very useful indeed.

    Randall

    ReplyDelete
  3. To Bruno,
    Thank you so much for your visual dictionary website.This is the first time I know about it.
    About the visual search engines,I usuaully use Google,that's the best search engine I've known.But now there's a new interesting search engine : Bing.That's kind of visual search engine.When you type a keyword,like "Transformer",it'll display everything related the keyword,classified by trailer,image,video,... and things are same of the keyword,in this case is a movie.Try it!!!

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Thanks for posting a comment. I appreciate your interesting in sharing your ideas.

Best,

Randall

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