Google Custom Search

Podcast – ITRT Happenings

The internet can be a scary place. Teachers are always a bit apprehensive when having a classroom of 30 students surfing the web while working on a research project. Proximity is always a good idea when students are online, but how can a teacher monitor every site that all their kids are visiting? Thankfully the filter blocks a good deal of the adult content, but there are always a few sites that manage to bypass the filter. Google Custom Search (GCS) allows a teacher to create a personalized google search of only those reputable sites that they would like for their class to use. I created an example search below that will only search websites, wikis, or blogs that I have personally created or collaborated on. Every other site on the internet is ruled out except for those URL’s that I manually entered when creating the GCS. Teachers may even want to have students in their class create their own customized searches by having them follow a rubric explaining what makes a site reputable and worthy of being included in the list. You can create a free google customized search in 3 easy steps. Just go to the following URL to get started – http://www.google.com/cse/ and click on the button that reads “Create a Custom Search Engine”

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// <![CDATA[ google.load('search', '1', {language : 'en', style : google.loader.themes.SHINY}); google.setOnLoadCallback(function() { var customSearchControl = new google.search.CustomSearchControl('011469107490066204217:mchg7e6uhes'); customSearchControl.setResultSetSize(google.search.Search.FILTERED_CSE_RESULTSET); customSearchControl.draw('cse'); }, true); // ]]>

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