I know that I get frustrated when I can't find what I am looking for on the Internet, so I decided to research the website 21st Century Information Finder. Of course being an English teacher, I am always on the look out for ways to teach students to find information on the Internet in an effective manner. This website has tutorials that does just that. I spent a couple of nights taking interactive quizzes that helps you refine your search so that you can pull up the exact information that you are looking for. This website takes the students through levels that builds upon their knowledge so they don't become overwhelmed and frustrated. I used the Digital Investigator Training (DIF) that specifically has modules for middle and high school language arts students.
In addition, there is Wizard Tools which helps with citations (for both MLA and APA), searches, and evaluations of web pages. To evaluate the web pages all you have to do is type in the web page and then you choose at least 3 things you want the students to evaluate the page on. Once you have chosen the criteria they are the evaluate on, you can print them out so the students can have them in front of them with the website at the top of the page. This tool give the students the opportunity to learn what to look for in a reliable web page when completing research for a paper.
Overall, I found this website to extremely helpful for teachers to use as a resource. I know that the Internet is the first resource our students go to when looking for research. However, many of them don't have a clue on how to decide if the information if reliable or not. This website gives them the tools they need to do that. I know that I will definitely use this with both my freshman and sophomore classes when they are completing their research papers.
Jayne Kreifels
The web definitely has a lot of useful information that is easy to access if you know where and how to look. Tools like these are great because it enables us to filter the useless from the useful to a certain extent.
ReplyDeleteI love doing research, looking things up, trying to investigate something however you want to put it so I get frustrated when students say they couldn't find anything on a given topic in their textbook when I know they just didn't try because there is information to be found. I realized that this may be something that I like because it is easy for me like some people are good at writing papers (not me!).
ReplyDeleteI need to check out this website so I am able to help students who have amore difficult time searching and give up because they are frustrated.
Well I tried a couple of the web searches and got the first one in under the 10 minutes and started on a second one. I will have to do some more, as I said I think I just have a knack for it but don't know if I could teach what I do or if that is just how my mind works.
Thanks for the great write up.