Objective(s)

• Students will various search techniques to find information about an African-American that has made a difference.
• Students will create a Power Point about their selected African-American, which will be assessed on content, layout and design.

Summary

Seventh graders at Dozier Middle School in Newport News, Virginia, learn about good and more effective ways to search the Internet for information for their Power Point presentations on an African-American that has made a difference. Linda Boyce states in the segment "...you have to know how to ask the questions and find the information."

National Standards

Check your own state and districts standards.

Technology and/or Materials Needed

• Computers with Internet access
• PowerPoint software for each computer
• Speakers/headphones for each computer
• LCD projector hooked up to the teacher's computer

Implementation Time Frame

5-10 class periods

Activities

1. Have students discuss how they currently search the internet for information. Make a list of current places that students go to search and how they go about searching.
2. Have students define the following terms by going to http://www.dictionary.com or http://www.wordcentral.com:
   • Boolean operators
   • Keywords
   • URL
   • Electronic libraries
   • search engines
   • meta-search engines
   • database
   • domain names
   • triangulation
3. For students become more familiar with how to make their searches more effective, you may wish to have the visit a couple of the following sites:
   • Internet Quest This is a wonderful resource of links to get information about searching on the Internet. Select one or more to have your sudents visit.
   • Using the Internet to Increase Understanding of Topics in History, Science or Language Arts Have students complete the entire webquest or certain portions. This site was selected from one of the links from "Internet Quest" from above.
   • Interactive Boolean Tutorial from New York University Have students do this tutorials in pairs to learn more about boolean operators.
   • Google Search Go to google.com and do your own search for other sites about searching for the Internet. Suggested search: "Search the Internet"+webquest
4. Go back to original list from #1 and discuss what students have learned more about how to search on the Internet. Have students list some important pointers to be effective in finding good information on the Internet.
5. Make a list of 50 African-Americans that have made a difference. Try to pick names of people that students may not have necessarily heard about. Check out this month's Netfiles' Net-igration.
6. After the students have picked their person they will research, have students make a Power Point presentations using information they find in their searches.

Assessment

For this project, you may wish to create two rubrics, one for assessing the research portion and the other for assessing the multimedia portion. To create the assessment rubrics, check out Rubistar and select "Research Project" and "Multimedia Project." (Rubistar is a site that enables you to make quick and easy rubrics with pre-set criteria). You can then select the criteria and edit criteria that best servies your students' needs and abilities.

Resources and Links

Check out Netfiles' Net-igration for this month for links to other Black History resources.