Search Findings: Chris Smithey

My experience in “searching the search engines” was surprising.  I first checked out the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction’s “Standard Course of Study” site.  I concentrated on resources for eighth grade social studies: North Carolina History.  The DPI site for N.C. History curriculum: http://www.ncpublicschools.org/curriculum/socialstudies/scos/2003-04/050eighthgrade  lists the standard course of study for this curriculum as well as resources for middle grades teachers.  The tab “Middle Grades Resources” provides a short list of available documents and sites.  The “Discover North Carolina” tab provides examples of lesson plans for middle grades teachers.  In my opinion the DPI site is a valuable resource for educators because while providing information on the required curriculum, it also serves as a link to other sites where teachers can find helpful information.  Also the DPI site is “powered by Google” so a general search of “N.C. History” will take one to resources from across the web.  Care will need to be taken here however, as accuracy of information may be questionable (Wikipedia etc.)

My other search experiences were interesting (though not quite as successful).  The “Kids Konnect” website was very tedious to maneuver.  After several “clicks” and re-directions to pages, I finally found myself in the “N” section (Kids Konnect has an alphabetical listing of topics) and located “North Carolina.”  There are several good links to North Carolina social studies topics here (everything from Native American Storytelling to Blackbeard the Pirate).  This site will be helpful to social studies students and teachers, though I found it a little difficult to move around in.  I believe students (in middle grades or late elementary) will also be “bogged down” working through the site.  The third site I investigated was www.pbs.org where I found a “PBS Teachers” tab which led to a link to “Lesson Planet.com” which describes itself as a resource for lesson plans for teachers.  Lesson Planet.com is a pay service however, costing $29.95 yearly.  They offer a “free trial offer” but require a credit card number to qualify for the trial (so that they can immediately begin billing for the service once the trial offer is over). 

All in all, I found the DPI site to be one of the best resources available (along with its links to other sites).  The traditional search engines (I used Google and Yahoo) are also good starting points, provided one verifies the accuracy of the sites listed.  In my opinion, Kids Konnect is useful (though a little too hard to maneuver) and the PBS website was somewhat of a dead-end.