Searching

 I first looked at basic searching to get some tips on how to get the best results.  The first advice it gave is to keep searches simple.  They then suggested adding relevant words one by one to try and narrow your search (if you didn't get what you wanted first time around).  They suggested using words that the website you are looking for would use: like using "headache" instead of "head hurts" because "headache" is more likely to send you to an informational website.  They then suggested using only important words rather than a full sentence because a full sentence may narrow your results too much.  Something I didn't know is than certain types of searches (like weather or math problems) will show you results directly below the search box.  Advanced searching uses the same basic principles, but it allows you not only to look for certain phrases, but also to exclude certain things, and to narrow your results by very specific parameters (which I will talk about under advanced image searching in the next paragraph). 

One of the options for searching I looked at was the advanced search for images.  This is a very specific way to search for images that will narrow down the field a lot.  You can search by "all these words,"  "this exact word or phrase," "any of these words," or "none of these words."  You can then narrow your search by size, shape (aspect ratio), colors, type, region, and domain.  You can adjust the safety settings and images with certain usage rights.  You can also search for an image by uploading an image and looking for a similar image-- I had no idea you could do that!  It's a little scary, but I can see it being very useful.  A student could, for example, take a picture of a leaf and search for pictures of similar leaves in order to identify their specimen.  

The next thing I looked at was Google Custom Search.  I found this really interesting, and really useful for a classroom.  You can list what websites you want the search bar to look at, so that your students are able to find relevant information quickly, without wasting time on sites that are not very helpful, off-topic, or just plain incorrect websites.  This would require a little bit of research and work in advance on the teacher's part, but it really would be worth it.  It's also extremely easy to set up and use, and it's free!