Best Metasearch Engine – Google - I liked this search engine the best because it is has the largest index of all search engines (or “search directories”) and it is fast and comprehensive. I really like the way it has the clustered results in the left margin to help the search go faster. http://www.google.com/

The search engine that I choose as runner-up to Google is Vivisimo. This is a fairly new search engine that is very comparable to Google as it is fast and comprehensive. It also has the clustered results in the left margin, which they have affectionately named “Clusty”. The word on the web is that if and when the empire of Google falls, Vivisimo will take its place! http://vivisimo.com/

Best News Search Engine – MSN News – I really think this is the best news site. I like it because it is organized and very up to date with legitimate news sources. I would think that it would a great site for secondary students to navigate and research. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/

I choose Yahoo’s news site as the runner-up. I really think it probably ties for first place with MSN actually. It contains a section of all the top stories from about 10 major newspapers and I also like that the left margin is clustered according to specific news topics. http://news.yahoo.com/

Best Media Search Engine - ALTAVISTA – I had never researched media search engines before, so when I explored Altavista’s I was impressed by what I could find there. You can find a wealth of different media types that would be very useful for teachers. This is a great source to have when finding different ways to make literature come alive. It is a very easily navigated site as well as very organized. http://www.altavista.com/

The runner-up search engine I choose was Lycos. I choose this as runner-up because it has a lot of distracters for students on the search page like movie trailers and clips of top songs. Otherwise, it is very comparable to Altavista’s site. http://multimedia.lycos.com/

Best Kid Safe Search Engine – Yahooligans! The Web Guide for Kids is my number one choice for kid safe search engines. My kids love this site because it includes everything! They love the math games and the National Geographic science section the best. They also like to search for the new movie games. I like Yahooligans! because it has a teacher’s and parents section that includes lots of good ideas to use both in the classroom and at home. http://yahooligans.yahoo.com/

The runner-up in this category is AskJeeves Kids. This site is a great one to use in the classroom because it has mostly school related subjects. I like how it is organized with a stack of books on the right hand side with topics intended for study tools. Another great feature on this site is its news resources. It also has natural language so kids can type in a question without having to word it in computer gobbledygook. http://www.ajkids.com/

Best Government Search Engine – Whitehouse.gov is definitely the winner in this category. It contains everything from currant policies, radio addresses, biographies and a kid’s only site, to jobs, tour information and pictures of President Bush’s dog Barney. http://www.whitehouse.gov/

The runner-up is Firstgov whose site is contains information on national, state and local governments and addresses a range of audiences such as students, military, parents, and seniors. Here you can find out how to contact different agencies and how to find information regarding laws and regulations. I choose this site as runner-up, but I would not hesitate to use this in the classroom as it is a great resource, especially when researching local government. http://www.firstgov.gov/