Finding Content

There are so many search engines available. How do you know what to use to find what you need? While search engines like Google or AltaVista are good for finding information, where do you go to find blogs on particular topics, podcasts, videos?

Answers
This is a great place to go for information.
http://www.answers.com/

Technorati
Technorati now catalogs blogs, videos and music. You can search by key words (tags) to find what you need. Don't send your students there. Inappropriate sites turn up.

YouTube
Unfortunately, many school boards block access to YouTube. There are many excellent videos on all kinds of topics, but there are also inappropriate videos which is the reason for blocking.

TeacherTube
This is a growing source of videos for educational purposes. You can find videos about education as well as videos to use within the curriculum for your students. It is also a place to safely post videos done by your students.

Blinkx
This is a searchable database of videos on the web. You can turn on SafeSearch to avoid inappropriate videos.

Flickr
Flickr is a site where people post photographs. When posting you can designate photographs public (viewable by anyone) or private (viewable only by you or the people you invite to see them). Tagging them (giving them key words) allows anyone who uses the site to find photographs based on those words. Most photos can then be used in projects (remember to give attribution). This is a great source of photographs from around the world.