webhound leader's guide:
Activity Sequence
Starting Points

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Materials

• Webhound guide (print version)
• Starting Points worksheet
• Multimedia Computer connected to Internet
• Web browser software
• Whiteboard, flipchart, or other means to write text for the participants to see

Approximate Time

This section should take around 20 minutes.

Procedures

1. Tell the participants that often the best way to find things is to look at places on the Internet where other people have already assembled pointers to information and have organized them by subjects. Other times, you may use sites devoted just to one category of information (i.e stock quotes, weather data, movie reviews).
   
   
2. Look for the kind of web sites that seem to be recently updated. Also, look for a description of how new information is added-- some sites every item is carefully reviewed before adding it to their collection.
   
   
3. Talk through one or more of the examples presented in the webhound guide under the heading Webhound's favorite starting points.... These continue to use our example of looking for information about Egyptian and Mayan numbering systems by visiting the sites for Yahoo, Clearinghouse for Subject-Oriented Internet Resource Guides , and the WWW Virtual Library.
   
   
4. Next, tell the participants that it is time to start some exploring for the topic they had "scoped" out in their worksheet for the lesson Scoping your Search.
   
   
5. Have them copy the items they wrote down for Identify Broad Categories from the Scoping worksheet into the area labeled Work Area for the Starting Points worksheet.

These are the categories you want to start looking for when you visit some of the Starting point sites listed in the worksheet.

6. Tell the participants to explore at least 2 different starting point sites listed on their worksheet. For the subject categories they have listed, they should find at least 3 links to sites that appear to contain related information. They should use the chart on the worksheet to document their results-- listing the name of the starting site they used, the category they looked under, and the URL for a site listed there. (Refer to the examples on the worksheet)
   
   
7. Ask the participants to answer the questions listed under the heading Look at where you are... You may have them answer aloud, write down their answers, or share with a neighbor.
   
   

Why would you have to explore different categories from the same site, such as Yahoo?
The location of the information depends on the choices made by the people that set up the categories-- these are somewhat subjective choices.

What are the advantages of going directly to a site like the Clearinghouse for Subject-Oriented Internet Resource Guides? What are the disadvantages?
Information linked from this site is very carefully reviewed by educators. However, the style and scope of different areas varies by author, and you cannot find listings for some subjects.

How many different sites did you investigate? Which ones seemed the most comprehensive? the most responsive?
Yahoo is well known for being fast and comprehensive. Internet Scout Report is geared for educators. The Magellan sites are carefully rated. The Galaxy site is somewhat dated.

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Searching with Engines