Lesson 6

Searching the Internet for Information

In this lesson you will learn:
How to search for information on Internet.
A m How to take precautions while browsing.

Jyoti and Tejas were reading a story book. They were using a dictionary to look up meanings
of new words.
Moz: Good to see that you use a dictionary while reading. Let us go to the library. I want
to pick up a book.
Tejas, Jyoti and Moz go to the library.
Tejas: Which book do you want?
Moz: I want a book on dinosaurs.

Tejas and Jyoti start searching for books on dinosaurs.

Jyoti: We can find the books in Science section.
Tejas: It can also be in General Books section.
Tejas and Jyoti go to different sections of the library
and returns with books.

Tejas: You gave us one word “dinosaur”. We searched and found five books on this topic.
Moz: Let us now see how to get information about dinosaurs on the web. Enter the URL
“www.google.com” in the browser.

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Moz: Now enter the word ‘dinosaurs’ at the cursor and click on ‘Google search’.

URL of the page displayed Quick search box

Search word

Images hyperlink

Text hyperlink

Tejas: So many hyperlinks!

Jyoti: Let us see what we find on some of these links.

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 Tejas: Should we enter only one word? What if we want to find out about ‘Vegetarian
dinosaurs’?
Moz: You can even enter a whole sentence. The phrase or the sentence should be relevant to
what you are searching for.
Jyoti: This is good. So let us bookmark this web site. Let me name it as Google searcher.
Moz: This is called a web search engine. You have used the search engine provided by Google
site to search for web sites.
Tejas: Are there many more search engines?
Moz: Yes. Some of the popular ones are www.yahoo.com, www.msn.com.

Search engine:
• A web search engine is a web site that helps you search for
information on the World Wide Web.
CONCEPTS
• The search results are usually presented as a list of links.
• The links may point to text, images, audio or video files.

Jyoti and Tejas continue searching the web for their favourite topics.
Jyoti: Look at this. When I entered ‘volcanoes’ one of the links has videos of volcanoes.
Jyoti clicks on the videos link and all three watch a volcano in action.

Searching
1. Open the Browser and go to the search engine web site.
2. Enter the word, phrase or sentence related to the information that
you want to search for.
3. Click on the hyperlinks that the search engine shows as results. S
I LL
4. Usually the most relevant sites are provided in the first few pages. SK

Tejas: This is very good. What else can we get?

Jyoti: Let us search for some city and see what we get.
Jyoti enter search word as ‘New Delhi’.
Tejas: There is a map of the city.
Tejas clicks on the hyperlink which has maps etc.
Jyoti: We can find details of the streets, and there is also a link which gives traffic details.

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Tejas: We can also find weather forecast.
Jyoti: We can search for computer games too!
Moz: Web is a very useful place where you get various types of information.
Tejas: Searching is fun. But look, I wanted to find some foot ball games that I can play.
I entered the phrase Football and it has given me sites which has information about football
but not about football computer games.
Moz: Ok. Now enter “Football game” with the quotes around the phrase.

Tejas: Ok. Now I found the sites that I wanted.

Moz: Here are few more tips to search the web.

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 Tips to search the web:
• To include complete phrase in the search use double quotes (“ ”)around
the phrase.
Example: Trees and soil erosion
“Trees and soil erosion” gives websites which contains the phrase
trees and soil erosion, while without quotes gives those sites which
contains information about trees and about soil erosion.
• Use specific words.
Example: You want to know about a particular game. Try “Games”
and “Football game”.
The phrase “Football game” gives specific web sites about the
game.
• Use many words to get relevant sites.
Example: To find information about digestive system in humans
enter following two phrases and see the results! “Digestive systems”
and “Digestive systems in humans”.
“Digestive systems in humans” gives information on only human
digestive systems.
• If you want a word to be included in the search then add + before the
word
Example: Try Spider man + comics and Spider man comics.
• If you want a word to be excluded from the search then add – before
the word.

LS
IL
Example: Try Solar system - Pluto, Indian animals - Lion
SK
Jyoti: Now I can search the web from home too.
Moz: Yes. But whenever you want to access web you must take the permission of your
parents or teachers.
Tejas: Ok. I will tell my parents. But why is it so important? This is just browsing and
searching for information, isn’t it?
Moz: Web is an unfamiliar place for you. There are all types of
information, good and bad, on the web. It is always advisable to
keep your parents informed of the sites you are searching and
browsing and take their permission.
Moz: Have you noticed that there are some movies which children
are not allowed to watch?
Tejas: Yes. At movie theatres if the movie is rated as an adult
movie, then children below a certain age are not allowed.
Moz: Similarly, while searching for information on the web, there
are sites where you should observe this rule.
Jyoti: I understand what you are saying. I wanted to
search for Lego toys site. While typing the search key
word I missed out on ‘o’. Then all sorts of sites came up.
So I checked my search phrase again and retyped it.

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Tejas: Once when I was browsing some personal information was asked by the site.
Moz: Never give your personal information like name, phone number, address, name of
school, while you are searching and browsing.

X • Never give
your personal
information
while you are
searching and
browsing.
• Only in rare cases
(about which
you will learn
later), It is ok to
give personal
information.

Jyoti: There are also these small windows which

suddenly come up. Sometimes we get a message like
“You have won million dollars”. Click “Ok”.
Moz: These are called pop ups. Do not believe in such
messages. Do not click on “Ok”. They may sometimes
cause problems to your computer. Your computer may
not start up next time. Just close pop ups.
Jyoti: Oh! Some pop ups can cause so much damage.

Tejas: While I searched for information on space, I browsed two sites. There was some
difference in the information that I got.
How do I find out which is right?

Moz: Very good question. Sometimes the

web sites mention the source from where
they get the information. You should ask
someone who knows about the topic like
your teacher, family members and find
out if the source of the information is
reliable.

The Internet is an information highway. Just like road highways have

some rules, we have to follow some rules while using the Internet.
Info

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 Tejas: I have heard my parents say that
Internet is an information highway.
Jyoti: The highways can also be dangerous
if we do not take precautions and follow
rules.
Moz: Very good comparison. Observe
the safety rules of information highway
and gain from the vast information that is
available.

Safety Measures for Internet Browsing and Searching

• Seek permission of your parents/teachers before using Internet.
• Do not give personal information while browsing.
• Close the pop up. Do not perform any action requested by the
pop up. This may cause the applications on your computer to stop
working.
• When you come across information that you do not like or is upsetting
you, inform and discuss with your parents about the same.
Info

Tejas: My brother’s birthday is coming up. I want to send him a greeting card. I have already
created it using Tux paint. How do I mail it?
Moz: You can use an application called e-mail service provided by some websites. Tomorrow
we will learn more about this.
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Book V Lesson 6 WORKSHEETS
1. It is football season. Football matches are being played around the world. Aditya
is searching for information about the match schedules and broadcasts on TV.
What search phrases should he give?
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________

2. Christie wants to visit India. She wants to first look at web sites of interesting places
that she can visit in India. What search phrases should she give?
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________

3. The following links are displayed by a search engine. Write a list of 3 possible
keywords which could have generated these search results.

_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________

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 Book V Lesson 6 WORKSHEETS
4. You have to write a brief description of about 5 lines about the solar system. Write
a list of resources you will use to gather information about the topic. Across each
resource, write the information gathered from that particular resource.
Example: Internet - Images of solar system
___________________________________.___________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________

5. Class 5 students want to go for a picnic. The teacher said they can plan for a picnic to
a hill station in India which satisfies the following conditions:
• The altitude of that place should be more than 2000 metres above sea level.
• The place is situated in the north Indian state of Himachal Pradesh.
• The river next to the hill station is a 4 letter word starting with B.
• The 2nd, 3rd and 4th letters form a word which is the masculine gender of
the word “her”.
• The letters HLISAM are an anagram of the place.

i. If you don’t know the name of the place, what are the keywords that can be used to
search for information about this place?
_______________________________
_______________________________

ii. Where are they going? ___________________________________________

iii. What is the name of the river, which starts with the letter B? _______
6. In the following questions, circle all the correct options.
i. Jeet is browsing the Internet. He suddenly came across a website which said ‘‘You have
won Rs.10,000.’’ He is very excited. What should he do next?
a. Ignore the message and close the window.
b. Give his address to receive the money.
c. Inform his parents.

ii. Rehana is planning a trip to Jaipur. She searched for the weather conditions in Jaipur, on
the Internet. In the results page given by the search engine, she came across conflicting
information. What should she do now?
a. Refer only the first hyperlink on the results page.
b. Check with her teacher and parents.
c. Crosscheck in the newspaper.

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 ACTIVITY Book V Lesson 6

1. Teach me browsing and searching:

Visit the site
www.teachingideas.co.uk/welcome/start.htm.
Go through the links “Getting Started Online” and
“Using your browser”. Face the challenges in these
links and have fun!

2. Untangle:
You are given a number of points, some of which have lines drawn between them. You
can move the points about arbitrarily; your aim is to position the points so that no line
crosses another. To move a point, click on it with the left mouse button and drag it into a
new position.
To play this game, do the following:
Applications ---> Games ---> Untangle

3. Tell me how much I have got?

Hari is studying in an international school in Kerala. On his birthday he received gifts
from his friends and parents as follows:
• American friend gave him 10 Dollars.
• Italian friend gave him 30 Italian Liras.
• British friend gave him 20 British Pounds.
• His parents gave him 500 Indian Rupees.
i. Look up a currency converter website to convert the various currencies to Indian
Rupees.
ii. How much money in Indian Rupees did Hari totally get on his birthday?
____________________
iii. Name the websites you visited to calculate the amount of money got?
________________________________________________________________

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 ACTIVITY Book V Lesson 6
Group Activity:
Pauker:
Pauker is a flash card based learning application. You can make your own flash cards
using this application. The question to be asked is written on one side of the card. The
answer is written on the other side.
To play this game, you have to make group of four students. The team members should
mention the topic on which information needs to be gathered. Two team members will
make the flash cards. The other team members can now try to answer these questions.
List the resources used for getting the information.

Project
Do project 6.1 from lesson 8.

Explore!
1. How to search for online information in your
mother tongue?
2. Type the name of your school in a search engine.
What are the search results?

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 Teacher’s Book V

Corner Lesson 6

Students already know about the Internet and how to use a browser. The purpose of this
lesson is to teach how to search for information on the Internet.

Mention that the power of the Internet is to provide information conveniently. Just as one
searches for books on a particular topic in the library, one can search for information on
the Internet. Give a demonstration on the computer of using a typical search engine. You
can ask students to suggest the topic for searching information and enter it as keyword.
Now click on the different options such as images, video, map, to show the different search
results.

Educate the students about the different ways for entering keywords for effective search.
These are included in the lesson. You can form four groups of students and ask them to
search for the same information using the different ways – with and without quotes, entering
multiple words, etc.

You can use the filamentality strategy of treasure hunt to teach ‘searching information on
the web’. Prepare an HTML file of treasure hunt by providing different links on title “How
to search the web?”.

Encourage the students to find out if a web site mentions the source of information. Tell them
that not all the information on the Internet is authentic and they should take the assistance
of an adult before trusting any information. Emphasize that young students need to be
cautious while surfing Internet. Use the example mentioned in the lesson about seeking
permission before going out to highlight the issue.

Summarize the lesson and end the class by giving appropriate Internet based activities to
the students.

Further Reading:
http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/welcome/start.htm
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/moredone/searchenginetips.mspx
http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/resources/special_initiatives/wa_resources/wa_
teachers/tipsheets/search_internet_effectively.cfm

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