WEEK 2. WEB SEARCHING TOOLS

I decided to make websurf on all links. We have to get familiar with as many search engines and web directories as possible during our course in order to make the work effective and to be a good source of advice for our students and colleagues. Additionally, as all of us see different search engines are helpful for different purposes like academic research, teaching materials and practical tools for collaborative use with your students.
Clusty. I have chosen the topic for the search "Games in English learning", which opened me not only search results, but also divided them into categories like "Kids, students, English Language", ESL games, teaching English, mobile phones e t.c. As I did not clearly understand mobile phone division I explore that one: it explained the technique of playing a game using cell phone and offered to download. Somehow this display of search results is useful, while searching we can narrow the topic ourselves though. It had "Tests and quizzes category", so I searched "tests and quizzes in english learning" : then it had different categories like "Language Teachers, Download, Kids Picture, University" etc. I was curious about templates so I
followed this link, found http://www.soft411.com/software/computer-aided-learning.html
computer aided learning: create your own tests and quizzes and almost recognized advantage og this searching engine since it had subcategory FREEWARE, ut there I found just 2 downloads one of them was Basic Chinese, another in German (I expected them to be for English learning purposes ? ) Although I did my search with Cluster I faced there with GoogleAds.
Social Issues. http://www.multcolib.org/homework/sochc.html
I would strongly recommend this search engine for students who are going to write essays to read about pros/cons of the issue.
INTUTE.
Searching for "using technology in efl/esl classes" I found brief description of each of the search results. There are discussion groups in this topic, if you are a teacher there are lectures of different topics , moving images led me to youtube of Berkley http://uk.youtube.com/ucberkeley
It is a good search engine to make research for lecturers and researches. I would recommend it to my classmates.
INFOMINE. I surfed in social science and humanities
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JTE/v19n2/
Ask.com
technology for writing in efl classroom
I found following PPTs,
Reading approaches in efl Emirati classroom.
http://www.slideshare.net/fiandp/reading-approaches-for-an-efl-classroom
Implementing Writing in the EFL Class & Blogging project with students
http://www.slideshare.net/thiagoedu/implementing-writing-in-the-efl-class-blogging-project-with-students
Material for writing in efl
http://www.slideshare.net/camayora/materials-for-writing-in-efl
Teaching writing for efl students.
http://www.slideshare.net/aspired/teaching-writing-to-efl-students-presentation


There are so many practical things you can find on the sites offered by this search engine. I recommend ask.com along with Infomine.
Wikipedia . One of the first search results even in Google is wikipedia- free encyclopedia, I love this because it is open and very democratic: you may edit and add information you have to share with. In links it provides the volume of the article – Kbs and word counts, but mainly gives the definition of searching items, e.g. I looked for "technology for writing in efl classroom" and useful link for reading I found was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer-assisted_language_learning
But it is again for making imagination what these terms are and history of CALL.