Granted that title is pretty extreme but for librarians Rollyo is a tool with potential. For HS students, this is too good to be true--the best sources searched with one click. The sites were selected by the teachers so no argument on the quality of the source. Pretty magical.
At first, I wasn't impressed. The "sponsored links" gave me pause for concern. It reminded me of those early free Geocities sites. Searching by domain is already easy so that wasn't an advantage.
I created my first searchroll on sites I like to use to find the best airfare. All the sites are great in their own way, and about 20% of the flights they list are unique to that site. It really pays to check them all. But I realized that this type of searchroll wasn't practical. It just gave me links to the sites in general when I wanted flight comparison. Kayak and Vayama already do that. Bad design on my part.
Then the obvious hit me. I often provide my students with a list of links suitable for a specific assignment, such as a research paper on American authors. Creating a searchroll for that assignment, I then tried it with Jimmy Santiago Baca. Whew. Great sites filled the page. Confession: My first thought was--this is great. My second thought was--this makes it too easy for my kids. Every now and then that thought pops in my head, but I'm kicking it around.
Next I'm going to make a genealogy searchroll.
Here's my searchroll:
Search American Authors now by typing the author's name in the box that says SEARCH, moving the pull down box on the next line to American Authors, and clicking the word GO:
Sunday, July 20, 2008
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