Drama in Education: Materials

Information Communications Technology

Beginner's Guide - The Internet - Finding Things - What's On - Email - Discussion - HTML

The Internet

All Drama Teachers will at some time want to make a search of the Internet. At present there is not one ideal search engine. Try a variety and see which suits the type of enquiry you are making. Search engines are constantly being developed and gain new features. From time to time it is worth making a search for 'search engines' to find out what is new. There is also ace dedicated to monitoring new search engines called Search Engine Watch. Also the University of Wolverhampton runs a very useful sute called Search Engine Evaluation and Development.

For those restricted to using a modem speed will be important. It is worth looking for UK based search engines and reading the instructions carefully.

Finding

Search engines come in three basic types: Search Engines, Subject Guides and Meta Search Engines.

Search Engines

If you have a specific item that you are searching for start here. Read the instructions and use Boolean operators. Otherwise you will quickly find yourself overwhelmed with the amount of information returned.

• Search UK

• Lycos UK

• Mirago

Non-UK but still fast and worth using

• Altavista

• ASK

• Google

Subject Guides

These give you categories that you can burrow through until you find the area you are interested in. If you are only interested in browsing what is available on Drama this is a good place to start. I recommend Yahoo.

• Internet Subject Guide

• The Internet Subject Resources Guide

• The Mining Company Clearing House

• Yahoo UK

Meta-search Engines

These send your search request to many search engines at the same time. They can be suprisingly fast.

• Ask

• Dogpile

• Metafind

• Metasearch

• SavySearch

You can, of course, use a search engine to find other search engines. For an example try Finder Seeker.

For further tips on searching look at

• Yahoo: searching the Web

• The Internet Research FAQ

• The Spider's Apprentice

• Sink or Swim: Search Tips and Techniques

• Netskills Resources

• FAQ on Searching the Web

• The UK Online User Group - Searching Links

Once you have a grasp of how to construct your searches take a look at the Internet Detective and start to consider what value you should place on the material you find.

• The Internet Detective

Finding Software

• Tucows - hundreds of applications for all platforms

Finding Companies

• Scoot - an online directory service for finding businesses.

• Yell - online Yellow Pages.