Reference skills through Inquiry ~Navigating digital and print materials
This unit has been very relevant to my current role as a
teacher- Librarian. I connected with
some of the concepts such as inquiry skills and reference skill and had similar
questions as posted in the course content and readings about digital resources
versus print materials as well as concerns about price and evaluating how
useful the materials are on my situation.
I have found reference skills so important for students have
yet sometimes very difficult to teach. I often don’t have time in my library
program to spend a lot of time on these skills with students. However I have
found it help during collaboration to teach reference skills through working on
inquiry/passion projects with a class. This is a great opportunity to teach a
skill and have them practice the skill in meaningful way to them by using that
skill to research their passion. Many of the students are eager to do their
research on the Internet, and some must use digital sources, as their questions
cannot be answered using the book in our collection. Luckily our district
subscribes to online resources, and I encourage the students to use Infotopia
before Google and learn 360 before youtube. I try to teach them how those sites
have already pre filtered some information for them and they don’t need to
filter as much as using a regular search. Yet the temptation for Google is
still there and strong. Our last module talked about digital verus print
materials….I conference with the students as to which would be better for their
research. Yet, I still find a problem with digital materials is they can often
look up their question and find a direct answer (maybe not super creditable)
this it takes away from the sorting and synthesizing we want students to
practice. To combat this the classroom
teacher and I approve their question first and try to tweak so the students
need to offer their own opinions.
This is the sheet I use to try and encourage questions that require synthesizing and sorting of information:
I love sites like wonderopolis…… yet when students have the same questions as the site, some tend to just copy it, despite the request for multiple sources. I like this graphic that explains to kids how to sort information:
The digital world is so big so it nice when we have the opportunity to guide students using it, as it is not going anywhere.
References:
http://www.brandonrossen.com- An infographic is
http://www.caringforyoungminds.ca/resources/navigating-the-system-toronto/
http://wonderopolis.org
This is the sheet I use to try and encourage questions that require synthesizing and sorting of information:
I love sites like wonderopolis…… yet when students have the same questions as the site, some tend to just copy it, despite the request for multiple sources. I like this graphic that explains to kids how to sort information:
The digital world is so big so it nice when we have the opportunity to guide students using it, as it is not going anywhere.
References:
http://www.brandonrossen.com- An infographic is
http://www.caringforyoungminds.ca/resources/navigating-the-system-toronto/
http://wonderopolis.org
