This is a great choice for me right now! I'll be working with the English 9 classes for the next several weeks on a research project and Thing 9 will help me to take the time to focus on what I can do to assist them.
Databases:
I started by looking at the Noodletool tutorials. I had only used Noodletools for works cited pages in work that I had done, and was interested to see how this tool could be utilized with students. Students can input their information about their sources and link their notes to the source. What a great way to keep track of where they get their information!
We'll have to see how things go with the notecards. I like how they are split into sections that students can use those sections to input quotes, paraphrase, and add new ideas, but I'm not sure about how that seems to pigeonhole them into one note per card. Maybe that's not true, but when I tried it out with a couple of sources it did seem best suited to one note per card. My plan is to suggest to students that they stack notecards that are linked to a particular source.
The features for tagging notecards are cool. For example, students can label them by color, add tags to identify them, and add symbols that represent incomplete notecards, or topics they need to do further research on. They can also manage their notecards as mentioned above, by stacking them and labeling their stacks. When cards are in a pile the top card has a number that indicates how many cards are in that pile.
I'm looking forward to introducing this tool to students and helping them to dig deeper into all of the options and features available. I know the English 9 teacher has a deadline for their outlines to be completed and plan to have students utilize the outline feature which allows them to drag their notecards to the section of the outline they support, and allows for the outline to be exported to a word processing format. I'm sure that I have more to learn and look forward to discovering new options and benefits to this tool as I work with these classes.
To look at some of the other databases that students might use for this project I played around with some of the options our district subscribes to. In using Academic One File I liked the option to choose Content Type. For the example topic I searched "Glassmaking" and the content types available were academic journals, magazines, books, news, and videos. There were also many limiters that can be utilized to minimize the number of results. I was happy to see that if students signed in with Google they could save their searches to a folder. When I tried to do that though and went back later the folder was no longer saved. I haven't figured that out yet, but did suggest to the three ninth grade classes that they might try to see if they could. If anyone reading this knows of a solution, please share!
The Scholastic Go suite of databases which include Amazing Animals of the World, America the Beautiful, and Encyclopedia Americana, among others which are all listed on the left when entering, have some choices as soon as the page opens. Students can choose between elementary, middle, and high school tabs. This allows them to choose the appropriate level, but actually gives them access to all levels. The benefit to this is that a high school student who is not a strong reader can choose to read an article that is written at a lower level. Conversely, a strong reader in elementary could choose a more advanced article. Once a topic has been selected, these databases give students other search options in addition to articles. The tabs along the top offer links to Fast Facts, Magazines, Websites (with a disclaimer in regards to accuracy and validity), Media (such as related photos and art), and an option to access information in Spanish.
Search Tools:
I was interested in checking out instaGrok because it offered the ability to create quiz questions on a topic, one of the requirements of the English 9 project, but found the page no longer available.
Next I checked out Carrot Search and that was so cool! When I accessed it through the link on the assignment page I was able to get right into it. When I put Carrot Search into the search bar it turns out that it's a subscription site. Thankfully there's another option to go to Carrot2. When I put in the topic to search I got 100 results. The cool thing about this search is the ability to select Circles or Foam Tree, both of which split the topic up into subtopics. The larger the section, the more information on that subtopic. I can't wait to show this to the English 9 students!
Update: I shared with the English 9 students and a couple of art classes that were researching in the library. I'm not sure the students were as excited as the teachers were, but they used it.
Instya provides many search results. There are Web options such as: Google, DuckDuckGo, and GigaBlast. Other options include: Images, News, Videos, and others. This might be another good site for the ninth grade students to look for the websites they will use for their research. DuckDuckGo offers searches that are not kept track of. There's a statement when you arrive at the site that they don't: keep personal info., push ads, or track your browsing. It can be set as the default search engine, but I did not do that at this time. I took a quick look at GigaBlast and didn't feel it was something I would suggest students use.
In searching for other options for the ninth grade students I took a look at DibDabDoo. There are links under a variety of topics, but the initial page looks like it would be attractive to primary students, not high school kids. When clicking on a topic a list of Google ads shows up as the first several choices so students would need instruction to scroll down a bit before choosing a link. This might be something I would share at the elementary school, but will not introduce at the high school level.
Next I wanted to take a look at Sweet Search. I remember using it in the past, but it's been many years. It's now called SweetSearch4Me, but they were experiencing difficulties and I couldn't access it. I saw Sweet Search Biographies and decided to try that instead. There is an alphabetical listing for students who know which person they are searching for. There's also an option to look at categories of people such as Athletes, Explorers, and US Presidents. The categories section also lists those entries with recent birthdays. I have meetings soon with both third and fifth grade teachers who will have their students looking at biographies and this will be a good search tool to share with them and their students.
The last search tool I looked at was KidRex. Again, it's one that is better suited to younger students. The elementary kids would enjoy it, but it's too young looking to share with the high school. It was also very slow and a couple of their links were not accessible. Nothing else on my computer is slow right now, so I think it's their site.
Overall, I'm happy with my explorations of databases and search tools and their usefulness with students. It's great to take the time to preview and know which are appropriate to which level. I'm excited to use these with students!
Databases:
I started by looking at the Noodletool tutorials. I had only used Noodletools for works cited pages in work that I had done, and was interested to see how this tool could be utilized with students. Students can input their information about their sources and link their notes to the source. What a great way to keep track of where they get their information!
We'll have to see how things go with the notecards. I like how they are split into sections that students can use those sections to input quotes, paraphrase, and add new ideas, but I'm not sure about how that seems to pigeonhole them into one note per card. Maybe that's not true, but when I tried it out with a couple of sources it did seem best suited to one note per card. My plan is to suggest to students that they stack notecards that are linked to a particular source.
The features for tagging notecards are cool. For example, students can label them by color, add tags to identify them, and add symbols that represent incomplete notecards, or topics they need to do further research on. They can also manage their notecards as mentioned above, by stacking them and labeling their stacks. When cards are in a pile the top card has a number that indicates how many cards are in that pile.
I'm looking forward to introducing this tool to students and helping them to dig deeper into all of the options and features available. I know the English 9 teacher has a deadline for their outlines to be completed and plan to have students utilize the outline feature which allows them to drag their notecards to the section of the outline they support, and allows for the outline to be exported to a word processing format. I'm sure that I have more to learn and look forward to discovering new options and benefits to this tool as I work with these classes.
To look at some of the other databases that students might use for this project I played around with some of the options our district subscribes to. In using Academic One File I liked the option to choose Content Type. For the example topic I searched "Glassmaking" and the content types available were academic journals, magazines, books, news, and videos. There were also many limiters that can be utilized to minimize the number of results. I was happy to see that if students signed in with Google they could save their searches to a folder. When I tried to do that though and went back later the folder was no longer saved. I haven't figured that out yet, but did suggest to the three ninth grade classes that they might try to see if they could. If anyone reading this knows of a solution, please share!
The Scholastic Go suite of databases which include Amazing Animals of the World, America the Beautiful, and Encyclopedia Americana, among others which are all listed on the left when entering, have some choices as soon as the page opens. Students can choose between elementary, middle, and high school tabs. This allows them to choose the appropriate level, but actually gives them access to all levels. The benefit to this is that a high school student who is not a strong reader can choose to read an article that is written at a lower level. Conversely, a strong reader in elementary could choose a more advanced article. Once a topic has been selected, these databases give students other search options in addition to articles. The tabs along the top offer links to Fast Facts, Magazines, Websites (with a disclaimer in regards to accuracy and validity), Media (such as related photos and art), and an option to access information in Spanish.
Search Tools:
I was interested in checking out instaGrok because it offered the ability to create quiz questions on a topic, one of the requirements of the English 9 project, but found the page no longer available.
Next I checked out Carrot Search and that was so cool! When I accessed it through the link on the assignment page I was able to get right into it. When I put Carrot Search into the search bar it turns out that it's a subscription site. Thankfully there's another option to go to Carrot2. When I put in the topic to search I got 100 results. The cool thing about this search is the ability to select Circles or Foam Tree, both of which split the topic up into subtopics. The larger the section, the more information on that subtopic. I can't wait to show this to the English 9 students!
Update: I shared with the English 9 students and a couple of art classes that were researching in the library. I'm not sure the students were as excited as the teachers were, but they used it.
Instya provides many search results. There are Web options such as: Google, DuckDuckGo, and GigaBlast. Other options include: Images, News, Videos, and others. This might be another good site for the ninth grade students to look for the websites they will use for their research. DuckDuckGo offers searches that are not kept track of. There's a statement when you arrive at the site that they don't: keep personal info., push ads, or track your browsing. It can be set as the default search engine, but I did not do that at this time. I took a quick look at GigaBlast and didn't feel it was something I would suggest students use.
In searching for other options for the ninth grade students I took a look at DibDabDoo. There are links under a variety of topics, but the initial page looks like it would be attractive to primary students, not high school kids. When clicking on a topic a list of Google ads shows up as the first several choices so students would need instruction to scroll down a bit before choosing a link. This might be something I would share at the elementary school, but will not introduce at the high school level.
Next I wanted to take a look at Sweet Search. I remember using it in the past, but it's been many years. It's now called SweetSearch4Me, but they were experiencing difficulties and I couldn't access it. I saw Sweet Search Biographies and decided to try that instead. There is an alphabetical listing for students who know which person they are searching for. There's also an option to look at categories of people such as Athletes, Explorers, and US Presidents. The categories section also lists those entries with recent birthdays. I have meetings soon with both third and fifth grade teachers who will have their students looking at biographies and this will be a good search tool to share with them and their students.
The last search tool I looked at was KidRex. Again, it's one that is better suited to younger students. The elementary kids would enjoy it, but it's too young looking to share with the high school. It was also very slow and a couple of their links were not accessible. Nothing else on my computer is slow right now, so I think it's their site.
Overall, I'm happy with my explorations of databases and search tools and their usefulness with students. It's great to take the time to preview and know which are appropriate to which level. I'm excited to use these with students!
Wow! You did a lot of exploring! Did you leave anything to dig into next year? :) The automatic quiz feature on InstaGrok seems to be back. And the easiest way to get to the CarrotSearch page is to bookmark that link. I"m not sure why your AcademicOneFile/google folder didn't save. I'll try it out to see what happens for me. Great work!
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