A Search Engine with a Voice!…Finally

I spend a lot of time with educators. Many whom work with students who are just getting ready or mastering the art of reading. When I talk with them about the web and more specifically the discovery & research process for young students I always here, “but Floyd, my kids can’t read so how am I suppose to use a search engine with my students” so we talk about whole group instruction and how younger students can start the the process of understanding “the search” by doing teacher led and mediated search activities which lead to the discovery of new facts, thoughts and ideas. That seems to work pretty well. Then recently a colleague texted me to ask if I had seen the new search engine that talks to you. Yep, talks to you.  Qwiki  is a new comer in the search engine market but it is different, very different. Its the “Storyteller” search engine. Instead of sorting through a list of results that the search engine assembles for you Qwiki pulls out a short list of narrated slides shows about the topic you sesarch for. Very cool and interesting. They are just on their first release “Alpha” so I’m sure we will see more exciting things to come from them. Although I don’t think we turn the talking search engine over to our non readers I do think it opens up a entirely new world of access of information for all students. So, next time you want to learn about something just type it in and sit back and listen.

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