Connecting to the Future
Search Engines and Criteria for Evaluating Websites
The Tienanmen Square search offered the famous picture from 1989 of the student who stood in fron of the tanks to stop them from entering and taking over the square. I found it very interesting, but not surprising, that the Chinese version of Google only offered beautiful and well-decorated pictures of Tienanmen Square.
I used Google's Advanced Search feature to look up current information about Hurricane Katrina. It brought up Wikipedia firstly, and an archive of all their articles published about Hurricane Katrina, but mostly its affects on the city of New Orleans and the people living there. There was no mention of Alabama or Mississippi, nor was there mention of how the surrounding states are coping with that influx of homeless people. I was living in TX at the time, and believe you me, we were all influenced directly by someone moving in to our cities and towns. I was teaching in the public school system. We had families living in their cars while other people (like criminals) were taking advantage of the system and the Red Cross. It was very sad for the many good people who were truly in need.
When I used Ask.com, the first site listed was actually a U.S. Dept. of Commerce Oceanic website with scientific information and data and pictures. This site provided definitions of things like "tropical storm" and "tropical depression" and seemed informative and legit.
Dogpile offered New Orleans updates as did the Google Advanced Search, but the third option down actually was about the coast of Mississippi. Refreshing, but when I actually visited the site, it was an author writing about his time in New Orleans and Mississippi, and he was plugging his book.
Then I tried bing.com, the new microsoft search engine, and looked up abortion. I pitted this search engine against the old standby Yahoo and my results are: The yahoo search engine must have had my old zip code (from when I lived in Denton, TX) in my profile and gave me clinics in the Denton area that service people seeking abortions. The new bing search engine also brought up service clinics, but in the NJ and other metro. areas. They don't have my profile thank God!
About the 6th option down on the yahoo options offered an article on religious tolerance - yikes. It was made to look like researched facts. I sure hope a young girl looking for information doesn't stop at this site and figure it has all the answers. The Bing site also didn't offer anything that looked liked facts until the 6th or so site down. This one was titled "abortion facts" - wow that was convincing (sarcasm). This site is sponsored by Heritage House '76 - I don't know who they are, but it made me VERY uncomfortable. If I were to read or use this information, I would certainly look them up first.
I used Google's Advanced Search feature to look up current information about Hurricane Katrina. It brought up Wikipedia firstly, and an archive of all their articles published about Hurricane Katrina, but mostly its affects on the city of New Orleans and the people living there. There was no mention of Alabama or Mississippi, nor was there mention of how the surrounding states are coping with that influx of homeless people. I was living in TX at the time, and believe you me, we were all influenced directly by someone moving in to our cities and towns. I was teaching in the public school system. We had families living in their cars while other people (like criminals) were taking advantage of the system and the Red Cross. It was very sad for the many good people who were truly in need.
When I used Ask.com, the first site listed was actually a U.S. Dept. of Commerce Oceanic website with scientific information and data and pictures. This site provided definitions of things like "tropical storm" and "tropical depression" and seemed informative and legit.
Dogpile offered New Orleans updates as did the Google Advanced Search, but the third option down actually was about the coast of Mississippi. Refreshing, but when I actually visited the site, it was an author writing about his time in New Orleans and Mississippi, and he was plugging his book.
Then I tried bing.com, the new microsoft search engine, and looked up abortion. I pitted this search engine against the old standby Yahoo and my results are: The yahoo search engine must have had my old zip code (from when I lived in Denton, TX) in my profile and gave me clinics in the Denton area that service people seeking abortions. The new bing search engine also brought up service clinics, but in the NJ and other metro. areas. They don't have my profile thank God!
About the 6th option down on the yahoo options offered an article on religious tolerance - yikes. It was made to look like researched facts. I sure hope a young girl looking for information doesn't stop at this site and figure it has all the answers. The Bing site also didn't offer anything that looked liked facts until the 6th or so site down. This one was titled "abortion facts" - wow that was convincing (sarcasm). This site is sponsored by Heritage House '76 - I don't know who they are, but it made me VERY uncomfortable. If I were to read or use this information, I would certainly look them up first.
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