It's not your grandmother's search engine!

As a middle school computer teacher, I am constantly having to find ways to stay ahead of my students and keep them on task. In December, I thought that I had a foolproof plan, slaving away for hours blocking iTunes and most of the internet except for just a handful of sites. Although I like the Yahoo search engine, it is way too busy with the music, movies, and everything else it offers... it had to go. Google - on the other hand - has always struck me as a more basic tool and I picked it for its stripped-downedness.

I should have seen the handwriting on the wall last week when my friend sent me a link to a guy playing guitar on this Google Video, which I had never heard of. The guitar playing guy was sort of cool, but I never gave Google Video a second thought... evidently, just some place where people post homemade videos.

Today, about seven or eight boys from my seventh period class were standing around a computer looking at none other than... you guessed it, Google Video! When I arrived on the scene, I realized this computer had attracted the attention of so many of my fine young gentlemen:



That's not all... There are some great fights, too, and even the young ladies in my class could appreciate the raw footage of people beating the hell out of each other! Seriously, so many students had crowded around this one e-fight that I couldn't even get close enough to the computer to turn it off.

It looks like my kids have caught up to me yet again, and I will have to find another way to outsmart them. My assignment this weekend is to find a stripped-down search engine that does not include a striptease on the side.