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Twurdy — Search by Reading Level

Paul Hamilton — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 14:42:33 +0000

“Everyone has different reading abilities. Some people searching the web are university professors and others are 5 year old children. Twurdy has been created to provide people with access to search results that suit their own readability level.” –Twurdy

I wrote recently about Google’s new option for searching by reading level; and now I’ve discovered another option that is perhaps even easier to use.

Twurdy is a search engine (powered by Google) that indicates the reading level of each page in a search result. Pages are given a reading level score, and results are color coded to make it easy for a user to recognize which results are likely to be most helpful.

Twurdy’s goal is to provide web searchers with information that is most appropriate for them. This will mean that 10 year olds doing school assignments don’t have to click through difficult material to find something they can use. It will also mean that phd students do not have to click through websites designed for kids in order to find what they are looking for.

Here are the first four results of a search for ‘Vancouver Island Geography’. Predictably, the Wikipedia article yields a higher reading level than the other 3 results.

Qwiki — Experiencing Information in Multiple Formats

Paul Hamilton — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 01:02:00 +0000

A fundamental tenet of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is that information must be available to learners in multiple formats. Here’s a resource that presents information visually, with text, and auditorily by way of text to speech.

Qwiki‘s stated goal is to “…forever improve the way people experience information.“ Although Qwiki is still under development, I think they’re off to a great start! There is nothing unusual about Qwiki’s search box. It’s the multi-modal way in which search results are presented that is truly exceptional.

In response to a query, Qwiki presents a slide show of related images, along with text that is read aloud in a high quality voice by a text-to-speech engine. The slide show and scrolling text can be paused, and the source of an image is revealed by rolling the cursor over it.

When a ‘Qwiki’ ends, you are offered links to Qwikis about related subjects. There are also links to articles on the same topic in Wikipedia, Fotopedia, and Youtube, along with Google search results for the term.

Clicking on the ‘Contents’ tab of a Qwiki yields yet another way of accessing the information. The text of the article is displayed next to the related images. A convenient option for printing the article is available as well. Qwiki articles can be embedded elsewhere, or shared via Facebook or Twitter.

Check out the Qwiki of the Himalayas that I’ve embedded below.

Search-Cube for Visual Search Results

Paul Hamilton — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 20:53:21 +0000

Long lists of links to websites, even when accompanied by brief descriptions, do not work well for me. I’ve discovered that I am far from alone in this regard, so I’m sharing a search tool that yields engaging visual results.

search-cube offers a straightforward search box for entering search terms. The search results it yields, however, are images of home pages. These home pages are arranged on the six faces of a cube, with 16 sites displayed on each face.

It’s easy to rotate the cube with the arrow keys on the keyboard, or by holding down the shift key and dragging the mouse. Rolling the cursor over an image on the cube brings up a larger image beside the cube, along with a little more information about the linked website.

Here’s what the search term ‘tiger’ yielded. It’s easy to see at glance which sites might be worth visiting. It was quite easy to locate the Wikipedia article, but I was disappointed that I couldn’t find the entry for Simple English Wikipedia.

View Google Search Results by Reading Level

Paul Hamilton — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 03:21:35 +0000

Wow! This is almost beyond amazing. Google is not only NOT evil, it goes the extra mile to create goodness. Yesterday, thanks to Cheryl Oakes, I learned that a Google search will now yield results by reading level. We can check out search results that are designated either basic, intermediate or advanced.

[It was lovely to have the opportunity to meet Cheryl in person. Cheryl shared the hot tip about Google's new search feature at the informal but incredibly informative 'AT Smackdown' at ATIA in Orlando. ]

Here’s what you do if you want to search by reading level…

1. Go to Google.com or Google.ca or whatever, and then click on ‘Advanced Search’

2. On the box that opens, enter a search term, open the drop down menu to select whether you wish to see and annotate all results with reading levels, or see only basic or intermediate or advanced results. Finally click on the ‘Advanced Search’ button. It couldn’t be much more straightforward.

Navify for Multiple Means of Representation

Paul Hamilton — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 23:49:22 +0000

Multiple means of engagement and multiple means of representation are essential if there is any chance of connecting with all learners, or of meeting the diverse learning needs in any given classroom. With the rapid proliferation of digital resources, there is less excuse every day for educators who do not encourage learners to use resources and tools that work for them.

It is paramount that teachers recognize and remember that most of their students do not learn in the same ways that they themselves learn. Simply trying harder doesn’t work if you learn differently!

I’m especially pleased when I discover new resources that put multiple means of representation together in one place! Here’s one that gathers text, images, and videos into one place. Of course, you can add an audio version of the text as well, with one of many readily available text-to-speech options.

Navify is a service that combines Wikipedia articles with related videos from Youtube and online images. So, when a topic is entered into the search bar, it brings up the pertinent Wikipedia article along with videos and images on the same subject. With the multiple means of representation offered, there is a far greater chance of engaging a wider range of learners.

The first screen shot below shows the Wikipedia article that opens when ‘tiger’ is typed into the search box. You can see the tabs above the article for Images and Videos. The second screen shot shows what appears when the Images tab is clicked, and the third shows the videos.

It should be noted that it is up to users to select the images and videos that are associated with an article. For all of the search terms I entered, I was offered an extensive collection of images and videos to choose from. Since Navify is a relatively new service, there were relatively few videos associated with any of the topics I searched.

Two other features of Navify are also worth mentioning. The first is that users have the opportunity to comment on topics. Secondly, related topics are suggested with search results.

Tag Galaxy (Online Resource)

Paul Hamilton — Fri, 01 May 2009 13:33:08 +0000

Thanks to a Twitter tweet from Silvia Tolisano earlier today, I checked out a terrific resource that I hadn’t seen. It’s a remarkable search tool that’s been around for almost a year; and this illustrates two things. First, there is so much goodness online that it’s impossible to keep on top of it all. Secondly, it underscores the value of the sharing that happens on Twitter.

Tag Galaxy is an application where folksonomy, Flickr, and creative three-dimensional presentation come together in a way that is highly effective. The net result is an intuitive visual way to search for images on Flickr and to see the relationships between tags.

You enter a tag into a search box, and that tag becomes a “sun” that is orbited by a “galaxy” of related tags. The related tags are presented as planets orbiting the sun. If you wish to combine tags, you simply click on an orbiting tag and create a new sun with its own galaxy of related tags.

Once you have the desired tag, or combination of tags, you click on the planet you’ve created to view a globe of related images, as shown in the screenshot below for the tags Himalayas and Nepal. (This globe shows the first 235 of the 17,994 Flickr images tagged Himalayas and Nepal!) The globe can be tilted, rotated, and spun in any direction to find and select an image.