Using Google to research can be too big at times!

Maybe you just want to give students a curated set of sources to search within. It is possible to create your own search engine that will only search within a certain set of sites or even sections of sites.

Sites to search

 

  1. Go to cse.google.com and then click on 'Sign in to Custom Search Engine'.
  2. Sign in with your school Google Apps for Education account [firstname.surname@ecolint.ch].
  3. Enter the URL of one the sites you wish to focus upon into the 'Sites to search' box.
  4. Repeat step 3 for each of the sites you want the students to search within.
  5. It is possible to include individual pages of websites, entire sites and even just sections of websites.
  6. Give your search engine a name and then click 'Create'.
  7. You now have a couple of options:
    1. You can get a link to visit your custom search engine's search box on its own individual webpage (this link could easily be shared with students).
    2. You can embed your custom search engine's search box into a webpage (of your own website, your departmental website or a section of ICT Nations - if you wish)
  8. It is possible to go back and edit the sites your custom search engine search uses etc.
  9. You can create as many custom search engines as your wish - so you could have ones for different projects or even different year groups.

Example

The following search engine could be used to focus student research upon climate change. It only searches the following: ed.ted.comun.org/sustainabledevelopment/climate-changeclimate.nasa.gov and theguardian.com/environment/climate-change. You can use the custom search engine below or at this webpage.