Research, web search, library resources
Compose a valid research question
Activities
- Resource to consult as to what a good research question is, some model questions and poor questions, create three possible questions to submit to the instructor for approval. Students justify their selections and share what they know already
Create search statements appropriate to research questions
Activities
- Introduce a general search engine (Google, a visual search, and human-filtered search)
- Guide students through creating search statements for general search engines
- Students create a delicious.com account for storing/bookmarking search results.
- Introduce Wikipedia (which likely emerged during general search) - demonstrate using Wikipedia as an entry point to other resources (exploration)
- Introduce concepts of online identity. Have students perform a vanity search to view their current identity online
Identify (discover) and evaluate search resources, including required library resources (dbs, indexes, catalogs) and other collections and media: music, books, podcasts, the network
Activities
- Students find x-number of resources through appropriate mechanisms identified
Search and evaluate results
Activities
- Students perform search and find minimum number of results
- Students add all results to delicious.com
- Students expand sources by exploring bookmark connections
- Provide resources for students explaining strategies for logically evaluating the resources they find including rhetoric/spin and info from (for example) http://www.library.jhu.edu/researchhelp/general/evaluating/
- Have students evaluate their own resources (provide guidelines for minimum number of resources they must have)
- Demonstrate understanding of implications of online/shared identity
Sharing Results
Activities
- Cite sources in MLA format using x-tool and share
- Reflect on process, content, validity of sources/resources: what was rejected and why? What was troublesome to evaluate? Are any resources still suspect?
- Demonstrate research is publicly accessible through a blog reflection on finding oneself in the system.
Social Exploration
Activities
- Student will subscribe to one or more feeds for person(s) owning resources they found through exploration and follow it on their Google homepage (portal page) [add info on Google Reader, etc]
- Attempt to identify authority of that person or persons and reflect how they would be perceived if someone did the same for them (on their blog)
