09.22.09 posting

Quick venting: The last week I have students using the same old excuses, "my printer isn't working, we ran out of ink, I left my flashdrive at home," etc. It is only the third week of school! I have had SOOOO many frustrations using our district site, Moodle, that I am leery of asking students to upload their documents. Hence, I am considering using Ning and Google.'s blogger to allow real wiki options and blog time without spinning. Richardson's chapter two makes it sound so simple! I currently use Google to house my classroom site, again to avoid the frustrations of uber-clicking to add a document or update a homework page, so why not?!

Enough of the ranting: this week's posting...

I thought I was done with databases after my methods to writing a thesis class, but I teach research paper writing, and to avoid the google overload, I model those same databases for my eighth grade students. We look at EBSCO, Opposing Viewpoints, ERIC, Facts.com, Issues and Controversies @FACTS.com, InfoTracKids and InfoTracStudents. Our school site only has access to so many of these databases, but the Hennipen County Library system does have licenses to these; all a student needs is the barcode number on their personal HCLIB card to access the world. My issue with most of these DB's is that they are way above a 13- or 14-year old reading level. My higher readers can struggle through them, but my lower and many on-grade-level readers struggle. 

The search categories or keywords depend on the student's topic. All topics are related to a human right's issue locally, nationally or globally. We teach the use of narrowing a search using better fitting key words and use of scanning. I would LOVE to use the delicious site and tagging so students can share sites or articles they find and get updates for them with RSS feeds, too. That will be new to my teaching this year. One more reason to get them working blog options.

As for determining validity and/or credibility, we discuss the types of dot extensions (e.g., com, edu, gov, net) and looking for who sponsors the site, when it was last updated and finding similar information in more than one location. Blogging as a source option brings credibility into play. Is it an opinion and therefore because it is on the Internet a valid source? No. I have bookmarked some sites that I can use, beyond the hard core reviewed sources, using delicious (globaissues.org/humanrights.org) to supplement and find some lower reading level options. 

I realize there are a TON of blogs out there that deal with topics I am interested in, thought I was too busy to use, but the youtube video did make it seem feasible to spend just 10 minutes a day on it. I can manage that. So I have begun adding teen book review sites, poetry sites and research sites. I think that at this time, I will only use delicious, not diigio, to keep myself sane. I am becoming overwhelmed with id/pw creation and which is which. 

I think the way I have taught database and search method use will be of a higher quality than I describe above. By finding websites that utilize the students' overall topic (human rights), I/we can find specific blogs or sites that drill into their main topic (e.g., women's rights in Afghanistan or clean water availability in South America, etc.). I think the way I teach validity and credibility will remain the same with the exception of blogging ownership. I also think that source options will be greater using RSS, delicious, tagging and sharing of this through their classroom blog.  If students can better find and read the sources, they will be more engaged and less frustrated. Being able to share sources beyond our class will also be useful and keep the kids connected.