Evaluating the Research Process
Tech Tip: Quick Page Zoom in Internet Explorer 7
Photo Credit
21st Century Literacies
AT&T and UCLA have developed a Website with individual lessons focusing on aspects of essential research skills including questioning, identifying/collecting, evaluating, sensemaking, reflecting/refining, using information and assessing the final product.
21st Century Information Fluency
The staff members at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, including UW-Stout online instructor Dennis O’Connor, have developed free tools, games, and tutorials to help students effectively locate, use and evaluate digital information. Try the excellent “Getting Started” page for “mini lessons” on such topics as “Thinking Outside the Search Box.”
Rubrics to Evaluate Student Research Process Tasks
UW-Stout online instructor Karen Franker has developed two ready-to-use rubrics for students and their instructors to effectively assess the major steps of the research process --planning, gathering, organizing, citing and presenting information.
Research Process Rubric – Elementary
Research Process Rubric – Middle School
Rubric for a Research Project
Joyce Valenza's rubric describes six key areas for efffective assessment of research projects at the senior high and college level -- thesis question/problem, information seeking, analysis, synthesis, documentation and product/process.
Tech Tip – Quick Page Zoom in Internet Explorer 7
Some Web pages contain images and text which are much too small to be easily viewed. Internet Explorer 7’s zoom feature provides a quick way to magnify pages for improved readability.
With your Web page open, look in the lower right hand corner of your screen. You will see a small magnifying glass with a + (plus) sign inside it and the word 100% next to it. If you click on the downward-pointing black triangle, you will get a menu of magnification percentage options. Select any above 100%, and your Web page text is instantly enlarged. You may also reduce the text size below 100% to see more of the page at once.
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Dates of Summer Online Courses
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EDUC 744 967 Understanding Autism Spectrum Disorders
EDUC 744 966 Implementing Instructional Technology Innovations
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EDUC 744 964 Workforce Development: Every Teacher’s Responsibility
EDUC 744 928 Instructional Applications of Digital Photography
Labels: 21st Century Skills, Tech Tips
posted by Karen Franker, Editor @ 3/25/2008 09:52:00 AM
Joyce Valenza –21st Century Research Skills: Navigating the Shifting Information Landscape
Tech Tip:Personalize Your Desktop With Gadgets and Widgets
Interview with Joyce Valenza
This interview is with Joyce Valenza, Springfield Township (PA) High School Teacher-Librarian and technology writer, who is a featured blogger and presenter at numerous conferences.
This interview is with Joyce Valenza, Springfield Township (PA) High School Teacher-Librarian and technology writer, who is a featured blogger and presenter at numerous conferences.
What are the greatest challenges for teachers and teacher-librarians when teaching the effective use of research skills/strategies?
At this moment it is understanding the shifting landscape. The last two years saw dramatic change in the information landscape. The change forces us to examine new questions: How do we respect intellectual property in a mash-up universe? What do creative, effective information products look like? How do we balance issues of privacy and safety in an information landscape that busts through borders and invites us to share our ideas and our work? How do we use these new tools to participate creatively in global discussion? How do we best exploit exciting new opportunities for authorship and audience? What "old world" tools and skills need to be carried over into our new projects?
You have spoken of students as being either "sponges," absorbing information passively; or "miners," actively searching for information gems. How can educators structure research assignments to help students become “miners” instead of “sponges”?
If they haven't already done so, every district should ban the "report." If you asked me to write a report on Pennsylvania, I'd likely print you an encyclopedia article. That work has already been done far better than I could do it myself. Students need to use information to imagine, to solve, to analyze, to propose, to invent, to create. Give me a challenge or allow me to create my own information challenge based on my own questions and passions. Ask me (or allow me) instead to create a commercial promoting travel to my state and post it on YouTube. Ask me to make a decision (based on criteria I myself develop) about whether to move to Philadelphia or Pittsburgh. Ask me to collaborate on solving a local problem in a wiki and to present my solution using a media slideshow I could share on the Web.
How can Web 2.0 tools such as blogs, wikis, del.icio.us, and GoogleDocs enhance and transform the teaching of K-12 information literacy/fluency skills?
Among the most powerful applications we've used so far:
Blogs to record, manage and reflect on major research projects. These make the chaotic process more transparent and more interactive. They allow teacher, librarian, mentor, and peer intervention. They can also prevent research disasters.
Wiki pathfinders allow teachers, librarians and learners to collaborate as they construct guides for projects and lead students to sources they might not discover independently. We've moved most of our lit circle activity to blogs. Each circle manages its discussion, setting up timelines, establishing categories. Our teachers love that they can easily assess the level of participation and quickly gather what any group or student had to say regarding characterization.
We love using tools like Animoto and Voicethread for preparing powerful media presentations.We use GoogleDocs for group writing and to allow teachers and librarians to suggest edits. We are exploring ZohoPolls for original research as well.
Students work hard to craft solid questions and make sense of the data they collect.We've recognized what our misuse of PowerPoint has done to our school. We are considering new presentation options and tools, as well as the concept of "presentation zen." How can we best connect with an audience? What does effective storytelling look like in the 21st century?
How can we help our students create their own meaningful information spaces to support their work as learners?
I think we may need to guide them to widgetizing their personal desktops. This year we asked our seniors to use iGoogle as a tool to organize their senior projects. I see more tools like that emerging. Now students can open an interface and be presented with their favorite online dictionary, foreign language tools, mapping tool, thesaurus, calendar, to-do list, while they push research-relevant RSS feeds to them through a reader. They choose their theme. Their little game applets are there too. This was perhaps the "stickiest" activity they've done yet this school year. The spaces continue to grow more personally meaningful.
I look forward to the day when we can offer more widgetized library tools. So the student who needs the American History database this semester can drag that widget onto her desktop and replace it (or schooch it further down) to substitute a science database widget next semester. We also ask students to consider their research blogs as their own information spaces. Blogs help students organize, categorize, reflect. They can be customized learning spaces.
Tech Tip: Personalize Your Desktop With Gadgets and Widgets
A host of free “mini-apps” are available to personalize your computer workspace for fun and productivity, and to gather your frequently-used information resources in one spot. In Macintosh OS X, these are called “dashboard widgets”, in Yahoo they are “widgets”, in Windows Vista they are “sidebar gadgets” and in iGoogle they are simply “gadgets”. Since there is no universal format for widgets/gadgets, a widget designed for Mac’s OS X Dashboard won’t work in iGoogle or Vista, or vice versa. However, there are options for converting Google gadgets to Dashboard or Vista Sidebar formats.
Here are links to directions and galleries for adding widgets/gadgets to Mac OS X, iGoogle, Vista, and Yahoo.
How to Add Widgets to Mac OS X Tiger Dashboard; Apple Downloads – Dashboard Widgets
How to Create and Share Your Own iGoogle Gadgets
Personalize Windows Vista Sidebar
Yahoo! Widgets
Announcement
Download our new poster for your bulletin board at:http://www.uwstout.edu/soe/profdev/pdf/poster.pdf
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Labels: 21st Century Skills, Tech Tips, Web 2.0, Wikis
posted by Karen Franker, Editor @ 11/14/2007 08:16:00 AM
Beyond Fact-Hunting: Teaching 21st Century Research Skills
Today’s Topic:
Beyond Fact-Hunting: Teaching 21st Century Research Skills
Tech Tip: Sending Extra-Large Email Attachments
- Why should we be concerned about making learning meaningful and authentic for today’s students?
- What do we know about what really works to transform learning in the 21st century?
Claudia Wallis and Sonja Steptoe challenge us to consider how schools might shift to a new way of teaching which incorporates “portable” thinking skills such as: making connections between ideas and learning how to learn.
Putting an End to Topical Research
Jamie McKenzie is adamant about the need to transform research from a mindless “scoop and smush” process to one that encourages students to think for themselves and synthesize information to solve essential questions.
Online Activities Promoting Information Literacy
Here are resources from Joyce Kasman Valenza and others on incorporating the best information literacy skills into your teaching.
Research Models Supporting the Essential Curriculum and Information Literacy
The Baltimore County Public Schools staff has developed examples of effective K-12 projects which incorporate Jamie McKenzie’s research process model.
Tech Tip: Sending Extra-Large Email Attachments
Looking for a way to send that extra- large Powerpoint presentation or super-sized photo? Sending extra-large files as email attachments can be a problem if their file size is bigger than that allowed by your email system. Here are two free Web sites that let you send large files from popular email services, including Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL mail, GMail, and Microsoft Outlook:
1. Pando.com. Go to the Pando Web site to download the Pando software (Mac or Windows) and send up to a gigabyte using your regular email service. Your attachments are temporarily stored on Pando’s servers for your recipient to access.
2. Yousendit.com Go to the YouSendit Web site, register for a free YouSendIt Lite account, and send up to 100 MB of photos, mp3s, and videos. Up to one hundred recipients can download each file within a one-week time limit.
Announcement: Summer Registration is Available Online
Dates of Summer Online Professional Development Courses
Sign up soon to reserve your spot!
What Our Students Are Saying…
About the Digital Classroom: Teaching Information Literacy course:
"It's amazing that once you KNOW about primary sources, it's the first thing that enters your mind! This class is JUST what I needed to get several groups back into the library asking questions, using books AND the internet in a productive way!"
~ Media Specialist; Weatherford, Texas
"My information literacy skills grew tremendously throughout this course. I am more capable of narrowing down my searches and continually thinking of ways to refine my searches to get the results I am after.”
~ Middle School Librarian; Wisconsin Heights, Wisconsin
“I will take from the class the knowledge that primary sources can be used for any number of things in all disciplines. Each time I use primary sources I am amazed and excited about the level of engagement the students have. Primary sources in the digital age have endless possibilities, and this is exciting!”
~ Elementary Librarian; Blandon, Pennsylvania
Call University of Wisconsin-Stout Online Professional Development (715) 642-0209 if you have questions. UW-Stout is an "international-student- friendly" program.
Labels: 21st Century Skills, Tech Tips
posted by Karen Franker, Editor @ 4/26/2007 07:03:00 PM