This week I’m taking a few days off to ski, play with my dogs, visit with friends and family, and generally recharge my batteries. If you’re on vacation this week too, I hope that you’re having a great vacation. While I’m away I’m rerunning the most popular posts of the year. The selections are based on pageviews during 2012.

One of the big stories shared all over Twitter this week was Google’s updated Search Education pages. I didn’t get to check it out until this morning and I have to say that I am impressed with what the new pages offer. There are fifteen lesson plans aligned to ISTE NETS, Common Core, and American Association of School Librarians standards. The lesson plans are arranged according to skill level in five categories. Those categories are picking search terms, understanding results, narrowing results, searching for evidence, and evaluating credibility of sources.

Google’s new search education promotional video is embedded below.

Applications for Education
Being able to use Google (and other search engines) effectively is a skill that all students need to develop as early as possible. The lesson plans available on Google Search Education might not fit every classroom situation, but at the very least they provide a great framework for teaching search strategies and evaluating information found on the web.