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Searching the web effectively does present problems for many students. Tag Galaxy provides an engaging, easy-to-use interface which supports the searching process. 
Enter a keyword or tag into Tag Galaxy (http://taggalaxy.de/). The example above is the result for ‘frog’. The results are displayed as an interactive, multi-dimensional visualization … each planet represents a group of photos that have the related tag i.e. amphibian, pond, animal, green.
Choosing one of these orbiting planets narrows the search further. When the central globe itself is clicked, the related photos are presented in an amazing fashion. Photos fly in and ’stick’ to the globe, which can be rotated and turned.
When a suitable photo is found you can click on it to zoom in and to access the related Flickr page. Students can then view closely to make observations or download to use in multimedia presentations (provided copyright is appropriate).
Searchme (www.searchme.com) is a search engine that returns your results as images of the web pages rather than text. Like any other search engine, you enter your search keywords. As shown in the above example of Australian Goldrush, the search results appear as a screenshot of the web site’s home page instead of like Google’s link and text-based description.
This search engine can be effectively utilised on a SMARTBoard. Each of the search results can be paged through without actually visiting the site. When you find a page you want, you can tap or click on it to enter the website. You can also save the pages in a “stack”. A stack is a way to save your favourite pages in one tidy folder that you can visit again and again.
