Custom Search Engines

For my blog post this week, I want to discuss Google's Custom Search Engine.

• What is a custom search engine you ask?  A custom search engine is a search engine that you customize to your content and grade level.  You select the websites that are part of the search engine.  When a search is carried out, only those websites are part of the search.  
• Why would you want to make a custom search engine?  By creating a custom search engine you are creating a pool of sources that you know are reliable for students to search.  Google is an amazing tool.  There is an almost infinite pool of resources for Google to search anytime you complete a search on Google.  For students, this can almost be overwhelming.  By selecting the websites that make up their searches you are greatly decreasing the amount of information the students will get back when they complete a search.  Lastly, you are hand picking the sources.  You are assuring that students are using reliable sources.  
• How do you make a Google Custom Search Engine?  
• Go to www.google.com/cse
• This is what the page should look like.  You will want to click on sign in to Custom Search Engine.  You will sign in using your Gmail account.  

• After you sign in you will be able to begin typing in the websites you want to be part of your search engine.  
• You can name your search engine, change colors, and the layout. 
• Once you have completed your search engine, you will have the option of getting the URL or getting the code to embed on a website.  
• I would recommend doing a test run of your custom search engine before trying it with students.  
• Here is the Google Custom Search Engine I created for a research project on famous mathematicians.  Feel free to try it out!

• For even more information on Google Custom Search Engine click here.  

Before wrapping up this weeks blog, I wanted to share a cartoon I found about search engines that I found humorous.  

Cartoon Credit http://effectiveproductmanagement.blogspot.com/

Once again, I hope you enjoyed my blog on Google Custom Search Engine and learned something useful for your classroom.  I hope to see you next week for my blog on Google Drive.