Thursday, January 16, 2014

Boolean Searches Explained

The word "Boolean" is unfamiliar to most of my students. It sounds harder to understand than it really is. When you use Google's advanced search, it is really doing a Boolean search for you, yet most people will not venture to do a Boolean search on their own. I'm here to assure you that it's very easy to understand.




The image at the left shows the three Boolean operators used in an advanced search.






This illustrates a search of A NOT B.









This illustrates a search of A AND B.









This illustrates a search of A OR B.
Pretty easy, right? If you or your students would rather do a Google advanced search, click HERE.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Google Can Do That?

It's true that Google is constantly adding and modifying things. One place we have all seen changes is in the Gmail account. One day, I opened up my inbox and found the black strip across the top was missing. So how do you get to everything like Google Drive, Blogger etc.? Look for the little box in the upper right hand corner which is made up of nine dots. When you click on it, there is a drop-down menu of all the apps. Here's a screenshot which shows where you can find everything:









Google search is another place where things were changed. Advanced search used to be located at the bottom of the page, but now things are easier with "Search Tools" added under the search box.  Look at all the choices you have, including the time, (past week, past month, etc.) and the reading level of the webpage.






You can now see that 82% of the articles are on the intermediate level, with 14% basic and 4% advanced. Click on your level and only those articles will appear.







On the left you can see an example of your choices for the currency of the article. If you would like a specific range of time you can choose "Custom range".









Search tools also work when you are doing an image search. Choose your size, type of image, (clip art, photo, face, line drawing, animated) usage rights and whether or not you want the sizes of the images to be show.




When you choose to show sizes (you can choose the exact size, if you like) it makes it easier to find what you need. For printing, choose "large"; for PowerPoint presentations or websites, choose "medium". There is also a choice for choosing icon size.






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Monday, January 13, 2014

I'll Fight You For the Library:

Here's a wonderful video of Taylor Mali performing as part of the Page Meets Stage Series at the Bowery Poetry Club. If you've ever been bumped from the library, you'll understand why this is so funny.





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