A Specialized Search Assistant for Learning Objects

Abstract

The Web holds a great quantity of material that can be used to enhance classroom instruction. However, it is not easy to retrieve this material with the search engines currently available. This study produced a specialized search assistant based on Google that significantly increases the number of instances in which teachers find the desired learning objects as compared to using this popular public search engine directly. Success in finding learning objects by study participants went from 80% using Google alone to 96% when using our search assistant in one scenario and, in another scenario, from a 40% success rate with Google alone to 66% with our assistant. This specialized search assistant implements features such as bilingual search and term suggestion which were requested by teacher participants to help improve their searches. Study participants evaluated the specialized search assistant and found it significantly easier to use and more useful than the popular search engine for the purpose of finding learning objects.