Week 5, Thing 12

Rollyo is a handy to restrict searches to sites of your own selecting. After looking at several of the ready-made search rolls, I decided to make one for the students in our religion classes. The procedure was easy and the search roll is now on my blog site. (see right margin) It will need some refining, because my list of links is on my computer at school, but I have a start. Sharing the search roll with the teachers will provide an opportunity for collaboration.
I am not happy to see advertisements on the hit list, but students will encounter that on most search engines and the ads are at least clearly indicated by the color change.
I can see two ways that Rollyo could be useful for getting students away from going for their favorite search engine. First, the librarian or teacher could set up search rolls for appropriate sites based on teacher assignments and student age and ability. This should result in fewer, but more valuable hits. The second use would be to teach computer literacy to students by having them research sites to create their own search rolls. I haven’t gotten to wikis yet, but it seems like a class could collaborate to create a group search roll with students justifying their additions to a list. If they could convince the rest of the class, their choice would be added to the final search roll. Criteria for website evaluation would naturally be a part of the project.