Thursday, November 8, 2001

tech.life@school | Joyce Kasman Valenza

Search Survivors: What Ever Happened to the Search Tools for Kids?

Joyce Kasman Valenza

I came across an article I wrote last year about free search tools for kids and cringed when I realized that more than half of them had either bitten the dust or morphed into “alternate webforms.”

What happened? I asked Jerry Kuntz, Electronic Resources Consultant at Ramapo Catskill Library. Kuntz was responsible for developing one of the most significant children’s search tool survivors, KidsClick!. Kuntz offered reasons for the changes and his ideas about how the field might be improved overall.

According to Kuntz, three factors have contributed to the narrowing of the field.

One--the search tools offered nothing innovative to help students learn to search better. They basically stayed the same. Kuntz has studied the KidsClick! search logs and those logs suggest critical areas for improvement for children’s search tools.

“I’d like to see them add a spell check,” said Kuntz. AskJeeves for Kids does check spelling against a dictionary. But Kuntz notes though this feature is a good start, it might be improved. “A large percentage of children’s queries are proper names that would not necessarily be included in a standard dictionary.” He suggests that the best approach would be to check spelling against the more inclusive index of the search tool.

Two—children’s search tools don’t make money. Some, like StudyWeb, were adopted by fee-based subscription services, like Lightspan. Others, like the only true children’s search engine, Searchopolis simply dissolved last August. Kuntz is discouraged that no one has taken the lead in creating an effective and up-to-date search tool for kids. “You really need support and money to design an interface that will be truly effective. No one is doing that because they cannot figure out how to make money doing it.”

Three--“for quite a few educators,” noted Kuntz, “Google works just fine and they may believe there is no need for a specialized kids’ search tool.” But Kuntz takes issue with Google as a serious alternative for children. “There are developmental issues. Google’s interface is not intuitive and doesn’t contribute to developing search skills.”

Kuntz is discouraged that none of the existing search tools for children have added any features that would make them easier for children to use. One of the features of which makes Ask Jeeves so popular concerns Kuntz.

Kuntz suggests natural language searching, or the ability to frame a query in real English, or as a question (Who was the 35th president?), may be more confusing than helpful to children. “It’s the source of lots of errors,” said Kuntz. “Children are transferring this strategy [or non-strategy] to other search tools, the majority of which do not support natural language.” I’ve seen it too; the results are truly ugly.

Another concerning student behavior that Kuntz has observed through his logs is the tendency to repeat same search that failed the first time again and again. “When a search tool fails to display search terms on the results pages,” said Kuntz, “kids just type the same search in again. Children don’t think to hit the back button to refine their searches.”

He noted that the KidsClick! search logs reveal a clear pattern in the way kids use search engines. “On weekdays, they use them for academic support; on weekends they use them for recreational support. So why not change the interface on weekends?” Though Kuntz pointed to studies that suggest students return to tools with appealing features rather than ones that give better results, the appeal may really work against focused research. “Both Yahooligans! and AskJeeves for Kids throw in spurious links and activities, distracting when what kids really need is information.”

It’s time to update your kids’ searching toolkits. Here’s a list of the survivors.

AOL Kids Only Search (http://webcenter.search.aol.com/kids/) Kid-safe searching for young children with links selected by AOL editors.

Ask Jeeves for Kids /AskJeeves for Schools (http://www.ajkids.com or http://www.ajschools.com) “The Jeeves” support natural language searching, help with spelling, and offer a suite of reference tools. For fewer distractions (no Fun and Games section), bookmark the school version. Make sure children know that they need to click off frames to discern the true address of the site they are visiting.

Awesome Library for Kids (http://www.awesomelibrary.org/student.html) Since 1997, the Awesome Library “has organized the Web,” now “with 19,000 carefully reviewed resources, including the top 5 percent in education.” It’s relatively simple interface organizes materials for parents teachers and students.

Berit’s Best Sites for Children (http://www.beritsbest.com/) Maintained by librarian Berit Erickson since 1994, the site is a directory of “a thousand top-notch fun and educational sites” for children up to age 12, avoiding “blatant ads for children's products.”

bigchalk.com (http://bigchalk.com) HomeworkCentral, one of the directories with serious curricular relevance, was adopted by subscription service, bigchalk. Though bigchalk’s excellent databases are premium services, HomeworkCentral’s database of links, tailored to the needs of elementary, middle, and high school students, selected by academic specialists, is still available free of charge.

CyberSleuth Kids (http://cybersleuth-kids.com/) This teacher-developed K-12 search guide includes an impressive collection of classroom clipart and a small, but selective group of links.

KidsClick! (http://www.kidsclick.org) is a very selective subject directory offering thousands of links accessible from the search box or 15 clearly identified categories with scores of subheadings. The focus is grades K through 7. Results feature annotations, reading levels, and the amount of graphics. Don’t miss “World of Searching” for kid-friendly tutorials, and the links to media and other search tools.

Learning Resources--Apple Learning Interchange (http://ali.apple.com/ali/resources.shtml) EdView’s SmartZone has resurfaced as part of this Apple-sponsored site, featuring Web resources “selected and cataloged by educators and searchable by keyword, subject, topic, level, content type, and language.

Multnomah County Library Homework Center (http://www.multcolib.org/homework/) is a magnificent public library effort to respond to students’ curricular needs.

Yahooligans! (http://www.yahooligans.com) This huge searchable directory is the granddaddy of children’s search tools. Colorful and attractive, it offers appealing categories, an impressive reference suite, and Downloader for accessing appropriate pictures, sounds and video. Though the directory is filtered for the “inappropriate” there is much of the popular and the commercial that is likely to distract the student researcher from his appointed task.

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