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March 15, 2001
In Search of the Best Kids Search Sites
What makes kids search sites different from regular ones? And which ones are the best? In the second of our two-part review of search tools, we look at several designed just for kids.
By Judy Salpeter
In the February issue of Technology & Learning, we evaluated several search engines that help surfers of all ages locate sites on the vast World Wide Web. This month we return to look at search tools designed especially for young users. Such resources fall into two broad categories: filtered sites and directories. Filtered search engines scour the Web for "appropriate" and "safe" matches. Directories prompt users to search within a database of pre-reviewed, kid-oriented sites.
Although we offer brief evaluations of some filtered search options in the sidebar on page 16, our focus here is mostly on the directory-based engines. Regardless of which choices districts and states make about filtering mandates, there will always be a need for expert guides to help students locate sites that are not only safe but also age appropriate.
The four Web sites reviewed in the chart on pages 14-15 represent the best and most comprehensive directories we found in our hunt for kid-friendly resources. All four use adult reviewers to analyze a broad range of sites for readability, interest level, and applicability to the sorts of topics young people need or want to know about.
We put each site through a series of test searches. Several were similar to tests used last month. For example, we searched again for information on giraffes, tried narrowing in on sites that had photos of giraffes, checked out information about Saturn and its rings, and looked to see what would happen when searching a topic as general as "girls." In addition, we searched for information about New Zealand, looked more closely at New Zealand schools for possible pen pal exchanges, tried to locate sites about the Boston Tea Party and Boston Massacre, and checked to see how a difficult concept like "communism" would be treated in a kid-oriented resource.
The Search and the Results
The four directory sites that were selected for inclusion in this article all feature large enough databases to result in at least a few matches for the majority of the test searches. And the matches were almost always age appropriate. Of the four, KidsClick!'s search options are closest to those of a standard search engine-allowing the use of Boolean terms such as AND (to specify that the site must contain all the words entered), OR (to look for any of the words), or NOT. The others each have a single, less complex way of searching, which suggests they feel this is sufficient for younger users. While such simple searches may be fine for most situations, it's too bad they don't all offer a few Boolean options for those occasions when the search results just aren't working without them.
While the general-purpose search tools reviewed last month searched through multiple pages at a Web site to find matches, the directory tools described here tend to search only within each site's name, URL, and description. Such a shallow search may yield incomplete results. For example, although searching for "Saturn" generally leads to many sites about the planet-most of them containing information about its rings-a search for "Saturn AND rings" might yield nothing if none of the site descriptions include the word "rings." For this reason, students may need to supplement searches by browsing within the directory to narrow in on what they need. All the sites except Ask Jeeves for Schools offer the ability to browse-for instance, clicking on a broad category such as "science," then on subcategories such as "animals" or "astronomy."
Look on the chart to learn how each tool displays the results that match a search. Descriptions of matching sites range from a phrase to a short paragraph, and several engines offer helpful information such as reading level. Unlike some filtered search tools that culled both relevant and arbitrary results, all of the directories reviewed here did a great job of selecting sites that were readable and interesting to students in the target age groups.
See How the Search Tools Compare
How the Search Tools Compare: Commercial Aspects and Extra Features
Filtered Searching
Unlike others that preselect and prereview, these Web sites use filtering technology to select sites for kids. Here's a quick summary of two popular search sites. For detailed summaries of the strengths and weaknesses of general-purpose search tools with a filtering option, check out last month's review of search engines.
AOL@SCHOOL offers a search tool that can be used from any browser or in conjunction with the AOL@SCHOOL software. AOL does not vouch for the filtering aspects of its search unless you use the AOL@SCHOOL software-which we did not test for this article. They do, however, invite all users to search by grade level for sites that are "appropriate and understandable." Unfortunately, this can lead to baffling results; for example, an elementary school search using the word "girl" yielded a hard-to-read speech about society's problems and a definition of the term "call girl." We had better luck with several other test searches but the results were inconsistent enough to prevent us from giving it a thumbs-up.
At its Searchopolis site, filtering company N2H2 features two types of filtered Web searches, the more narrow of which eliminates most e-commerce sites as well as the ones deemed "unsafe." This tool also promises to lead searchers to age-appropriate sites that have been approved by experts, but as with AOL, it didn't work well. For example, searching at a fourth-grade level led to esoteric pages from a high-energy physics symposium and to a university site talking about "postdocs and bursaries." Searchopolis does have a directory (smaller than the resources in the chart) that is definitely age appropriate. Surprisingly, there is no way of searching the directory; you can only browse. |
Judy Salpeter, consulting editor to T&L, is a freelance writer and education technology consultant.
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