It's a Wonder (wheel)!

Wheels are wonderful things, including this example from a VW Golf!

Time to ramp up, and have a go at some expert searches. First on the list, is a play with Google's Wonderwheel! What a great tool, as it brainstorms your search term for you in graphical ("wheel") format - very much like a mind map! How good is that!

Here is some info on WonderWheel from the website: http://www.googlewonderwheel.com

"Whether you are a student, a webmaster or just need to find something online, this tool is relevant for any of us and enable us to navigate the jungle of the Internet more easily.

The wonder wheel is meant to provide a more visual display of relevant search terms and keywords for the user. If from some reason the google wonder wheel is not yet available in your local google search, give it some more time as development in other languages is taking place.

Did you say mind mapper? This tool is a built in mind mapper with the intention to sort out search results in a logical way of relevancy creating a visual wheel of terms that can make your searching enjoyable and time effective at the same time."

 
Here's some examples from me playing around looking for information on the topic for the assignment (which just so happens to be Guided-Inquiry learning in a Tertiary setting):

As you can see (above), Wonder Wheel has found a bunch of terms related to what I put into the search engine. Here, with the search term "guided inquiry" the wheel came up with: guided inquiry approach, guided inquiry planned, guided inquiry definition, guided inquiry learning 21st century, guided inquiry model, and ross todd guided inquiry.

This time around (above), the wheel worked a bit differently - it seemed to find terms related to other areas that might apply to what I was looking for: for example, I was looking for a university context, and the wheel pulled up "TAFE", "College", and "School".

Here (above), I thought I'd use an alternate title for my search topic - to widen the search a bit. Inquiry based learning is the broad title for this style of teaching and learning, though the difference being that Guided Inquiry learning is a style of inquiry based learning with a structured "guidance" element.

Here I am (above), using the alternate term in combination with "university". I could have also used "tertiary" as an alternate term.

I rate WonderWheel highly, I give it 4 and half stars out of 5 on the Stef scale of usefulness (not an official scale!). I think it really helps you get your head around alternate terms to help you find information, and I can see how this would be a big help in a school settings, getting kids to think of alternate search terms when researching.