December 19, 2006

Quintura for kids - a search engine for our youngest surfers

Quintura_1 Yakov, CEO of the Quintura search we are using as part of East Lothian's relaunched community from January 2007, has just got in touch to announce the launch of KidsQuintura. What I clumsily but, I hope, descriptively coined as visual connected searching has wowed most people we've shown so far for its intelligence at working out what it is you really want to know about.

Quintura for Kids is a step into the elementary/primary sphere, with a cutesy search panel, changing with the seasons, providing some graphical 'I'm feeling lucky' buttons to keep the youngest searchers happy and some limited searches to keep those aged 5-8 or so a little more focussed. Just clicking on the donkey gave me some animal results that would help any Extreme Learning project like this one.

It has some drawbacks because of the limited search results but would prove more useful than Google, say, as an initial search for kids embarking on new projects. As we near completion of Mark 1 of our general East Lothian sharing and exploring portal, due in January, we are already looking at how we can differentiate and offer younger learners something more suited to their tastes. This looks like a first positive step in that direction. Thanks, guys!

I'd be keen to hear from Yakov and the team on how they will expand the educational content included in the results. Can we have all the content from Scottish kids' blogs included in the searches, for example? I'd also love to hear what some of the Primary teachers and parents think of it and what tweaks might be made.

Comments

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This is great news. I love Quintura - thanks for sharing this link.

Thanks for the link. Looks very nice and inspiring. What a pity, that my sons are too old now (21 and 23 years).

So I have to wait for the grandchildren ;-)

Thanks for the link Ewan I shall try it out on my 6 year old son. Primary education is definitely needing something a little more focused and I shall certainly have a go at using this next term.

Thanks for the link Ewan I shall try it out on my 6 year old son. Primary education is definitely needing something a little more focused and I shall certainly have a go at using this next term.

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About Ewan

Ewan McIntosh is the founder of NoTosh, the no-nonsense company that makes accessible the creative process required to innovate: to find meaningful problems and solve them.

Ewan wrote How To Come Up With Great Ideas and Actually Make Them Happen, a manual that does what is says for education leaders, innovators and people who want to be both.

What does Ewan do?

Module Masterclass

School leaders and innovators struggle to make the most of educators' and students' potential. My team at NoTosh cut the time and cost of making significant change in physical spaces, digital and curricular innovation programmes. We work long term to help make that change last, even as educators come and go.

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