Research & Digital Literacy
The 21st Century Student
Different Elements of Research & Digital Citizenship
- Digital Literacy: How to research effectively
- Digital Safety: How to stay safe
- Digital Honesty: Giving credit to the original author
Digital Literacy
Picture Retrieved from (http://coachingheat.wikispaces.com/info+curators)
Using the school resources:
- Mackinvia: Use your ID # and password. All the websites are appropriate and school approved. Mackinvia has the following resources n one convenient place: ebooks, information websites (databases/educational information), audiobooks, and links to different educational resources.
- Launchpad: Use your ID # and password. Launchpad has access to multiple online resources that are school approved. Brainpop had educational videos. Galileo is an online encyclopedia. Launchpad has access to textbooks and other educational information.
- Destiny: Our Media Center has physical books and ebooks. The catalog can help you search for books by subject. The catalog can also tell you if our library has specific book for you to check out. Destiny also has links to appropriate websites, textbooks, and other educational resources.
Search Engines
The first step is finding the right search engines:
- Kiddle
- Google Safe Search
- Kidsclick
- Study Search
- Galileo
- Kids.gov
- dogonews.com
Picture retrieved from (www.ibtimes.co.uk)
More Resources
Weather Specific Websites
https://www.weatherwizkids.com/
https://www.weather.gov/owlie/science_kt
https://eo.ucar.edu/webweather/
Pollution Specific Websites
https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/explore/nature/kids-vs-plastic/pollution/
https://www.ducksters.com/science/environment/air_pollution.php
https://www.ct.gov/deep/cwp/view.asp?a=2708&q=457594&deepNav_GID=1763
(How to save the planet) https://www.worldwildlife.org/
Animals
(baby animals) http://www.zooborns.com/
https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/
https://www.worldwildlife.org/
(FUNNY games) https://switchzoo.com/
Lifecycles
http://education.abc.net.au/home#!/digibook/1456674/remarkable-animal-and-plant-life-cycles.
Create a Research Question
- Choose a topic. What are you interested in? What do you want to know more about?
- Create a plan to develop a research question. Brainstorm with this topic.
- What do I know, What do I want to know, What have I learned?
- Write a question: Look at your question. Is the question clear, is it hard to argue, can I answer the question in one sentence?
- You may need to do background research to find the right research question.
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Choose one of the general research sites or look at books on your topic. Pay attention to the articles or the subheadings. Does any one part of your topic stand out?
Choosing Key Words
The next step is choosing your key words to search for your research.
- Write out your question or topic in a complete sentence.
- Circle the main words.
- Think of synonyms for your words.
- Start searching.
- Change your words based on your results.
- Truncation: Use a part of the word and the truncation sign: child* = child, childs, children, childrens, childhood.
- Boolean: Use the words AND and NOT to narrow the search: cheetah and extinction or cheetah not extinction.
- Say the sentence as you would speak it to another person. Write that down. You can use this sentence to find your key words.
How do I choose the right website?
You want more fact and less opinion. We want to use resources who are responsible for sharing truthful information. Here are a few strategies:
- Blogs & Wikipedia is unverified information.
- Use the listed resources in blogs or wikipedia such as education sites or news sites.
- .com: commercial and anyone can write anything
- .net: Business or technology provider.
- .org: Companies or organizations.
- .edu: Education provider or school.
- .gov: Government website
Digital Honesty
What is Plagiarism?
"Plagiarism is when you use someone's words or ideas and pass them off as your own." (Kids Health, 2014).
If you are reading it or looking at it someone else created it. You can make your own conclusions, but if you use another person's work you must cite it. Examples:
- I cited the above sentence because I quoted it from a website.
- I cited where I copied the pictures for this flyer.
- I cited the videos I used in this flyer.
- This is an example of in-text citations. (reference in text and at the end).
- Below is an example of citing your refrences at the end.