El buscador de Internet como objeto cultural: la perspectiva de los alumnos

search engines are cultural objects which represent semiotic and epistemological challenges as well as ideological bias, like every tool destined to the organization and circulation of information. this article analyzes the conceptualizations of elementary school students about a search engine that frequently used. the adopted theoretical perspective considers both the contribution of the vigotskian sociohistorical tradition and the piagetian relational constructivism. the methodological design consisted of a qualitative study of cases. two data collection instruments are used: observations in the classroom and in the computer lab and post-clinical-critical interviews. the results show that in those didactic situations where the search engine becomes an object of analysis, the students develop awareness of the fact that the construction of keywords places them in a writing situation for a "robot reader" that does not cooperate in the interpretation. in view of this problem, they propose to use a syntax in which the words connect with different signs. but the students give to these signs functions linked with their own knowledge of the natural language. the contradiction occurs because the search engines use logic close to the mathematical languages.