I love Google … really I do! It is my “go to” search engine. However, for an elementary school kid, Google is very overwhelming. Did you know that if you type in “dogs” to Google, you get 496,000,000 hits??? Yup, overwhelming. And THAT is exactly what a kid searching for facts about dogs would do. I know …. I know … I need to teach my kiddos about keywords, booleans, and web review. I do. I swear to it!
But apparently, once a kid sits down and clicks on “the blue e”, all of those well-planned lessons have disappeared … it is like magic. So, as I practice pulling a rabbit out of a hat, I have also taught my kiddos that there is “More Than Google.” Imagine the looks on their faces when I tell them that there are other websites that they can use for searching. To make it ultra easy … easy is good, right? … I have the following button at the TOP of my library’s website. Go, ahead click on it.
It will take you, and the kids, to a sqworl. No, not to a furry nut-collecting, tree dwelling critter, but to an awesome bookmarking tool. I like sqworl, because you can collect a bunch of websites and the kids can see a picture of the homepage of that website. I am a bit cheap, so I haven’t paid for the “free of advertising” subscription. So, one of my boxes is an advertisement, but the kids just overlook it.
This sqworl will show you eight different search engines that are just meant for kids. There are all different kinds … visual, textual, webs. You name it. I especially love that all of the results are geared for kids! Feel free to steal my button and add it, as well as the squirrel link, to your own website.
If you happen to use a search engine with your little ones, and it isn’t listed on the sqworl, please let me know!
