Why Use Boolify:
Librarians, teachers and parents have told us how hard it is for students to understand web searching. Boolify helps students bridge that gap by visualizing the process and letting students interact with the abstract concept behind the search process in a tangible and hands-on way.
See Boolify in action.
* Boolify is intuitive and easy to use with your class or in your library.
* You and your students will be up and running with the tool in a few short minutes
* Search results come through Bing's Safe Search "Strict" technology to prevent objectionable content from appearing in Boolify’s search results.
NOTE: The Strict filter is good, but no filtering technology is 100% secure, as this blog posting astutely points out, and we are unable to control or modify the results, beyond the filtering settings available through Bing.
More Background:
Dede (2000) astutely noted that “children must learn how to sift vast quantities of information through their fingertips” and “thrive on chaos”. In our lifetimes, the quantity of information available for sifting-through has increased exponentially.
The tools for “learning or teaching how to sift” have not maintained pace with the growing need to teach those "sifting" skills. With this challenge in mind, the Boolify Project developed a software solution that models Boolean operators in an easy-to-digest and interactive format.
Boolify’s primary audience is elementary and middle school children, but the tool brings value in many spaces. Ultimately, our goal is to increase a learner's ability to perform effective web searches - whether that learner is 6 or 66.
Boolify helps people visualize the logic behind their searches. Understanding how the logic works improves people’s ability to effectively search. The visuals help learners build mental models of the searches that they perform. A mental model is an internal way of remembering information guides future practice of that information.
Boolify’s graphical representation shows Boolean logic as a puzzle - literally, a jigsaw puzzle. It has interconnected search terms and operator pieces. Fitting these pieces together perform a search.
The learner can change the search and see the results change by connecting different pieces of the puzzle. This provides real-time feedback and lets the learner see how well - or not so well - the search worked for them.
Additional information on: Mental Models, 21st Century Skills
Dede, C. (2000, March). Emerging influences of information technology on school curriculum. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 32(2) 281-303. http://www.virtual.gmu.edu/ss_pdf/DedeJCS.pdf
About the creators:
Public Learning Media, Inc is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that creates web-based applications for teaching complex concepts to elementary and middle school students, and shares these applications freely with the education community.
By drawing on proven research, great teaching, and innovative thinking, we create tools that help teachers use the modeling and interactivity that is inherent in digital applications to bring deeper and clearer understanding to their students. We focus on tools that support information literacy, including math concepts, science knowledge, and how to think and work with data.
Each Glean technology is the result of collaborative effort by Public Learning Media, Inc along with expert educators, designers, coders and many others.
Please send questions (or report bugs) to us through our online contact form.
