Google Search makes it amazingly easy to find information. Come learn about the powerful advanced tools we provide to help you find just the right information when the stakes are high.
Daniel Russell is doing a free Google class on how to search the web. Besides six 50-minute classes it will include interactive activities to practice new skills. Upon passing the post-course assessment you get a Certificate of Completion.
Advanced search skills are not only a useful everyday skill but vital to doing scholarship. Searching the web is a superpower that would make thinkers of previous centuries green with envy. Learn to use it well. I recommend checking out Inside Search, Russel's Blog or perhaps reading the article "How to solve impossible problems" to get a feeling about what you can expect to gain from it.
I think for most the value of information is high enough to be worth the investment. Also I suspect it will be plain fun. I am doing the class and strongly recommend it to fellow LessWrong users. Anyone else who has registered please say so publicly in the comments as well. :)
Registration is open from June 26, 2012 to July 16, 2012.
I think it must be aimed at beginners and not someone like me. Class 1 was just laughable, but Class 2 started to get into the real skill of searching: thinking about synonyms and alternative phrasings and how someone else would write what you want, and Class 3 (finally) covered the most useful operators like negation and
site:. The midterm was easy, but with the basics out of the way, I'm hopeful that 4-6 may teach me something new and so I'm going to continue (as much as it's otherwise been a disappointment).I also think the exercises & questions are skimpier than they ought to have been. Testing your syntax understanding is fine, but surely more can be done?
I finished the final exam just now. It was harder than the exercises, which was a good thing (although I still don't see how one could answer one of the book questions).
Overall, my opinion remains the same. Good for beginners, for power users who already know Boolean operators and site: etc, not such a good use of time. Also, probably everyone should skip the videos and read the documents instead (unless they're very fond of videos). It was a nice touch that they tried to teach about confirmation bias.