I have used Thinkfinity and Hippocampus in the past. I have not directly applied them to a classroom setting myself but I have accessed them as a resource to aid classroom teachers in locating and utilizing lessons and often more importantly as a portal to quality materials and links related to topics the teachers are looking to use in their existing lessons and presentations. I have found that for me Thinkfinity and Hippocampus are packed with great links within subject areas and searching them eliminates wasted effort screening through raw search results found using Google. Whenever possible it is advantageous to let working expert professional in the subject area isolate and evaluate the worthiness of source materials on the web. As a media specialist I am often asked for assistance in locating materials in a subject area in which I have limited expertise and even very little awareness. To avoid the likelihood that fulfilling these requests from teachers with less than stellar information resources I like to borrow the expertise of teaching professionals in subject areas outside of my experience.
Both Thinkfinity and Hippocampus have been resources that I have surveyed in the past looking for resources that may be of service to the teaching staff I am serving. In this role I am acting not as a reactive information specialist but as a proactive one. This requires that I have a general working knowledge of the curriculum of grade levels my library serves. When there is time I will visit with teachers and ask them what they are covering and what if any information needs they may have. Often I will survey these two portal and disperse links and leads to teachers unsolicited. Sometimes this is met with enthusiasm and then more requests follow. It can open the classroom teacher's eyes to what is available and they will then ask for more. Even better is when they ask where it came from and then I can demonstrate the use of Thinkfinity and Hippocampus and they can the function as their own researchers. You have to maximise the teacher's potential to be self sufficient information seekers. That being said, though, I generally can take the burden of search (time consuming for a classroom teacher) of of their hands and they really appreciate that.
For this exercise I used Thinfinity to find a lesson plan on a key topic in information literacy - recognizing bias in a resource.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/lessons/18/g912/readingnews.html
Thinkfinity linked to one of the online partners - National Geographic. In this lesson plan it lays out details on a student exercise in review key concepts like editorializing, strait news coverage, and objectivity in reporting. It requires that the student examine a potentially controversial topic and review some resources garnered online. The lesson is titled "Look Between the Lines" so the students will have to some active reading in online databases and news aggrogators. Students will develop a checklist not only about the topic but about where, who and why it is being reported on. In comparisons they will be expected to write an evaluative small essay on where bias may be present in the reportage. They will also be asked to clarify where editorial point of view is the express intent of the creator/author. Identifying potential audience and what that audience should be expected to do with the information as presented. Although this lesson has a specific link to some topics to consider as the media specialist I will consult with the teacher to select topics directly related to what their curriculum is covering.
The outcome will be judged on how effectively this exercise enlightens a student population prone to accepting what is read in the news or online as simple unvarnished facts. This tendency is a real road block in getting students to be effective researchers. It also is a trait that many carry on to higher learning institutions and into their adulthood. The lack of instinct to evaluate the potential for bias is preyed upon by even so called mainstream media and it is certainly used by those who wish to manipulate the electorate for less than good intentions re the democratic process.
The second tool I investigated was Readwritethink. This is my first exposure to the resource. I like the use of tabs in the layout and I found the resource to be easily navigated. The depth of coverage is satisfactory and the lesson plans are rich in content with nice links to related resources. The tab marked comment provide some feedback and reflective evaluation from professionals who are either commenting on how the lesson worked for their needs or if there were concerns.
I chose a lesson on summarizing content called "Get the Gist: A summarizing strategy for any content area"
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/lessons/18/g912/readingnews.html
The target audience is grades 6-8 but in the high school I think it would work nicely when I am assisting special education teachers and their student in research projects. One of the great hurdles a special education student faces in research is the amount of reading required to master a topic well enough to write on it. Many will not even attempt to tackle a significant amount of reading and often they fail when they do read to understand and then articulate what they have read. This lesson provides a directive, printouts and linked websites with strategy assistance in implementing the Gist process with students. The Gist strategy involves prereading, reading and postreading prompts and activities. The outcome of the process is a Gist statement that requires that students read and evaluate a selection or resource and then in written form briefly declare what it is they just read and why it is of value.
With more skilled students I have had them create an annotated bibliography with similar expectations. Gist building being a simpler format than that it lends itself to the less skilled student. The assessment lends itself to being included in the process of research in preparation for a final more involved paper or project. Too often I find myself struggling to get students to focus not only just on accruing resources on a topic but also taking time to evaluate whether that source is truly of value to the outcome of their research. It is a complicated concept for some students to understand. This is often the byproduct of a research rubric created by the classroom teacher that emphasizes quantity of resources rather than quality. That is a difficult thing to balance and it is even more difficult, as a media specialist, to broach the subject of overemphasis on quantity with a teacher. They tend to get a bit defensive about their rubrics and expectations.
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