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Editor's Notes

• #2: Hello everyone, we¡¯re Sharon and Maria and we¡¯re here today with a mission ¨C to make you better searchers! There¡¯s a whole universe of information online and we¡¯re going to help you find the good stuff you need, to learn more about outer space.
• #3: So ¨C you may be wondering, how do I find out more about my mission? Well here¡¯s the answer: Searching the internet using keywords! Now, what do you think keywords are?
• #5: But first of all, we need you to do some fact-finding. We¡¯ve just divided you in pairs and given you a mission that you both need to find some information for. You¡¯ll need to search the internet for this
• #6: So ¨C you may be wondering, how do I find out more about my mission? Well here¡¯s the answer: Searching the internet using keywords! Now, what do you think keywords are?
• #7: Just to check ¨C does everyone know what a search engine is? Who here has used Google, Bing or Yahoo before today? On what device? Search engines crawl the Internet, gathering information about millions of websites. At the click of a button, a search engine sorts through what it ¡°knows¡± and lists the sites it ¡°thinks¡± you want. You tell the search engine what you want by using keywords. ¨C from commonsensemedia website. Some people enter in full questions, but this can return a lot of results that aren¡¯t very useful. By using key words you are telling the search engine ¡®THESE are the words I think are important¡¯ ¨C full questions can contain words that confuse the search engine and bring up too many results. *read the slide* A keyword tells the search engine what type of information you¡¯re looking for ¨C think about the words you want to find on the websites you¡¯re searching on the internet. What kind of words would they be? As you can see, search engines work better if you use more than one key word ¨C would you rather read 48 million web pages or 955 thousand? Of course you¡¯ll never read them all (unless you¡¯re very very keen), but choosing your keywords carefully means that your top results will better fit your question. Another slide? : When you think of keywords, it¡¯s always helpful to think of other similar words that might appear on websites. For example, ¡®outer space¡¯ could also be ¡®the universe¡¯, ¡®space¡¯ or ¡®cosmos¡¯. You¡¯ll always get better results if you do more than one search ¨C this means you have more websites to compare and better information to help you answer your question. To be a top astronaut, you have to be a top searcher!
• #8: Make sure your keywords are ¡°precise¡± ¨C that there¡¯s no other words that the search engine could confuse them with. Here¡¯s an example ¨C I¡¯ve put two space keywords in these search boxes ¨C what other things could these be referring to? These are both also the names of popular chocolate bars ¨C tasty, but no good for finding out about space!
• #9: Here¡¯s a question I made up earlier ¨C has anyone ever launched a rubber duck into space? What do you think the keywords in this question might be? These are the ones I chose ¨C ¡®launch¡¯, ¡®rubber duck¡¯ (as the two words work together) and ¡®space¡¯ ¨C and these are the results I found!
• #10: So this was one of the first pages that showed up after I typed my keywords into a search engine. People have actually tried to launch rubber ducks into space! And as you can see, all my keywords are in this web page, which is why it was one of the first results on Google. This is called ¡®ranking¡¯ ¨C the search engine orders the web pages according to which ones match your keywords best. ¡°Ranking can be quite tricky as some websites often use certain key words to get more people to visit their website even though they don¡¯t have very good information, so always try more than one website to make sure you get good information!¡± ¨C is this an appropriate level for them? More complicated/simple?
• #11: CAN BE CUT IF RUNNING SHORT Here¡¯s another website about another space topic. Can someone read out this headline for me? Hands up who¡¯s heard about the Rosetta spacecraft landing a probe on a comet a few weeks ago? Now, what do you think the keywords in this might be? What words would we type into a search engine to find this newspaper article? Ok, these are the ones I¡¯ve circled.
• #12: CAN BE CUT IF RUNNING SHORT Who can read out this headline? What keywords would help us find this website? These are the ones I thought would work.
• #13: Back to our fantastic team of astronauts ¨C now it¡¯s your turn! Have a look at the missions we¡¯ve given you and circle the keywords in them. We¡¯ve also given you a sheet of paper where you can write down your keywords and, underneath, write down other similar keywords that could also bring up some useful websites. We will both come round and help you out, but make sure you both talk to each other about what keywords you think you should use and what websites you think would be useful. All great astronauts have to start somewhere! Present here ¨C can be cut short or go on longer if time is an issue.
• #14: So, now that you¡¯ve got the searching basics down, we¡¯re going to help you figure out how to pick reliable sources from your search results ¨C it¡¯s not as easy as picking just the first thing that comes up on your results list! You need to check information and look in more than one place to make sure that what you¡¯ve found is correct and reliable.
• #15: So we¡¯re going to go back to earth briefly to show you this video about the importance of finding reliable information on the internet. So the main message here is that you shouldn¡¯t rely on just one piece of information you find on the internet. If you find some information that you think may be useful, you need to check this through another source to be absolutely certain that the information is correct.
• #16: So now we¡¯re going to play a game ¨C bin or basket! We¡¯re going to give you photocopies of some sites we¡¯ve found on the Internet ¨C you¡¯ll get two each. One of these gives false information and the other gives accurate information. We want you to discuss them together and then tell us which site you think is unrealiable and you want to bin and which one is reliable and you want to put in your basket. For the first five minutes we want you to talk to each other about the sources and why you think they¡¯re realiable/unrealiable. Then you can do some Internet searching to find out the answers and tell us!
• #17: Bin or Basket?
• #18: Bin or Basket?
• #19: Bin or Basket?
• #20: Bin or Basket?
• #21: Bin or Basket?
• #22: Bin or Basket? It¡¯s good to check facts with websites which you think are likely to have good information - many of these will have recognised names like BBC. If you¡¯ve heard of the name before, it¡¯s likely that the content on the site has been checked by lots of people before it went up. Of course, this can be hard to tell sometimes and there are exceptions ¨C for example, most people have heard of Wikipedia but not everyone would say it¡¯s a good source of information ¨C make sure you still check information against other sources, books, websites, people etc.
• #23: Bin or Basket?
• #24: Bin or Basket?
• #25: Bin or Basket?
• #26: Bin or Basket?
• #27: Bin or Basket?
• #28: Bin or Basket?
• #29: Now you¡¯ve learned how to be good searchers and find reliable information, nothing can hold you back! Go and explore the wide universe of information.