I recently read the blog post “How to Make Students Better Online Researchers” on www.edudemic.com and it really hit home with what I am seeing and teaching today. Last Friday I went to the 9th grade Pre-AP English classes to teach them about website credibility and how to find quality sources online. Doing a quick online poll, I found that 71% of students in four classes only use the Internet when finding information for a research assignment. But, do they know how to search?
The article suggests that it is necessary to teach students critical thinking skills along with any research you assign. It is your obligation as a teacher to help them acquire the skills they need to search in a way that will achieve the most relevant results.
That’s where I come in. I am available to assist you with research assignments. Even if you do not want to take a whole day for searching instruction, I can come to your class and be available as a resource as students are searching. I can remind students of how to find credible sources, assist them in coming up with valid search terms, and assist you in finding quality sources for your research projects. I can also assist students in creating a works cited page for their assignments. And remember, they must use these skills across the curriculum, not just in English class!
Not only do students need to know how to find information, they also need to know how to evaluate the sources they do find for quality, validity, and relevance to what they are researching. If you are planning or in the middle of a research assignment, contact me today!
Showing posts with label Research Tools. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Research Tools. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Citing Your Sources? There's an App for That!
[caption id="attachment_281" align="alignright" width="230" caption="Once you scan your book, the citation will pop up and you can write it down or email it to yourself."]
[/caption]
MLA formatting for correct citation of your sources for research papers and projects has gotten easier with the Easybib app for Iphone and Android. If you are not familiar with it already, Easybib.com is a free online bibliography and citation maker. This website makes citing books, websites, databases, and images a breeze. Gone are the days of meticulously checking every period and comma. Now, researchers can focus on the content and the information needed to create the citation.
To make citing books EVEN EASIER, there is now a free Easybib app that you can download. With this app, you can scan a book barcode, and a citation for that book will generate automatically! Remember, if you use specific page numbers you will have to manually enter that information. Your friendly HHS librarians are, as always, here to help you if you have any questions or issues with this website or the app. It's definitely an app we love!
[/caption]MLA formatting for correct citation of your sources for research papers and projects has gotten easier with the Easybib app for Iphone and Android. If you are not familiar with it already, Easybib.com is a free online bibliography and citation maker. This website makes citing books, websites, databases, and images a breeze. Gone are the days of meticulously checking every period and comma. Now, researchers can focus on the content and the information needed to create the citation.
To make citing books EVEN EASIER, there is now a free Easybib app that you can download. With this app, you can scan a book barcode, and a citation for that book will generate automatically! Remember, if you use specific page numbers you will have to manually enter that information. Your friendly HHS librarians are, as always, here to help you if you have any questions or issues with this website or the app. It's definitely an app we love!
Friday, February 10, 2012
Scoop.it: Useful Tool for Web Research and Evaluation
In the past few weeks, I have been using Scoop.it with a couple of classes, including Holly Hamm's AP Langauge and Comp classes and Melenie McBrayer's Environmental Science classes. This is a site that allows students to access up to the minute news and information about topics that interest them. They can then choose the information they want to "scoop" and add to their topic page. Other members of the site can view their topic page, read articles, their comments, and make suggestions for new information.
To create a topic, students add a title, description, and key words for the site to use to search. The key words the students use are important in finding relevant information. This gives us the opportunity to teach necessary searching skills and ways to narrow results, so they aren't looking at a lot of information that isn't relevant to them. Scoop.it crawls the web using Google News, Google Blogs, Twitter, Youtube, and Digg to find information based on those key words. It then lists articles as suggested content. The suggested content will look like this:
Students then have the opportunity to evaluate the article and source, and decide whether or not it is credible. They can discard the source, or scoop it. A completed topic page looks like this:
So, why should you use Scoop.it with your students? If you require students to gather articles or current events, or research current topics, then Scoop.it is a tool that can help them do that. It can also help teach them how to navigate the web intelligently and evaluate and manage the sources they find. They can also create beautiful and creative topic pages and keep up with their notes by typing them on the page. Lastly, they can search other topic pages and "follow" other topics that interest them. If you are interested in using this tool with your class, let the library know today!
Go to their site for more information:
www.scoop.it
Here is the link to the Libguide we created to instruct students how to use it:
http://homewood.libguides.com/scoopit
To create a topic, students add a title, description, and key words for the site to use to search. The key words the students use are important in finding relevant information. This gives us the opportunity to teach necessary searching skills and ways to narrow results, so they aren't looking at a lot of information that isn't relevant to them. Scoop.it crawls the web using Google News, Google Blogs, Twitter, Youtube, and Digg to find information based on those key words. It then lists articles as suggested content. The suggested content will look like this:
Students then have the opportunity to evaluate the article and source, and decide whether or not it is credible. They can discard the source, or scoop it. A completed topic page looks like this:
So, why should you use Scoop.it with your students? If you require students to gather articles or current events, or research current topics, then Scoop.it is a tool that can help them do that. It can also help teach them how to navigate the web intelligently and evaluate and manage the sources they find. They can also create beautiful and creative topic pages and keep up with their notes by typing them on the page. Lastly, they can search other topic pages and "follow" other topics that interest them. If you are interested in using this tool with your class, let the library know today!
Go to their site for more information:
www.scoop.it
Here is the link to the Libguide we created to instruct students how to use it:
http://homewood.libguides.com/scoopit
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