Hi Everyone,
The response to this query was amazing and Ireceived loads of ideas. This really is
the best listserv. Many thanks to Beth and Jacqui for letting me quote them and the
links. I apologize for taking so long to get this up.
Original Request: I thought if this has been done anywhere it was done here! Has
anyone
taught a research class to middle school students where there is nopaper used? It
is all done on the computer. Students cut and paste cites from the Internet,
hi-light their information, write outlines and thencomplete their paper all on the
computer. Is this an effective way to teach these skills? Does the risk of
plagiarism increase? I would love to
hear from anyone who has tried it. If there is any interest I will post a hit.
Some people had some of the following questions/concerns?
a)Have they all learned keyboarding well enough so they don't think
better with the pencil?
b)What do they write the outlines on?
***********************************************************************
Responses: From Beth
We are trying this in a collaborative lesson that I am doing with a history
teacher. However, it is not required that the final project be paperless-
but they do have to provide an electronic project to me for uploading to the
website, and they are supposed to be using the forms that we give them
online to organize their project.
We're still fine tuning the project, but I've "hidden" it on my website so
that the teacher and I can both look at it. If you go to
www.pelhamweb.org/phslibrary
Then scroll down and click on strauss at the bottom, you'll come up to the
first page of it.
Thanks Beth
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From Jacquie – Thanks so much!
I am very interested in this concept. I was hired to do some research this summer
and I realized just how much the internet has changed research. It made me realize
that teaching research withoutacknowledgement of these changes is not a good idea.
The biggest thing that I question is the use of note cards. Kids have been ignoring
this step for decades - and with the advent of the computer - it is even more
irrelevant. I think teachers feel that if they encourage students to take notes by
copying and pasting & typing notes directly into word documents - they will be
encouraging plagiarism. But - bottom line -
cut and paste and writing rough drafts and notes directly on the computer are here
to stay. Students will do their research this way - regardless of what teachers and
librarians teach them. I think that teachers need to catch up with the realities of
internet research.
I will say this though. I have a problem with students doing EVERYTHING on the
computer. I know that we would like to save paper. But doing everything on the
computer just does not allow the thinking time that students need to do thoughtful
research. Doing everything on the computer is assembling research - not processing
the facts and opinions into real knowledge and creating something new with that
information. To do that, students should be printing out articles, reading books,
copying pertinent sections of the books and then going away from the computers,
printers and copiers to READ what they have printed and THINK about what they have
printed. As they read, ideas will come to them. As these ideas present themselves -
students should write the ideas in the margins, highlight pertinent sections in the
readings etc. Then - when they go back to the computer, hopefully they will be able
to put subheadings into their note-taking file and start typing their notes &
citations under the headings. Students should be learn to be ever vigilant about
using quotes if quoting directly and using citations if what they are typing came
from a particular source. Once the notes are taken, students should be taught to
step away from the computer again for some more thinking/organizing time. This will
be the time that they really formulate their own opinions about their research and
decide exactly how they will present it and where they will put their own thoughts
and interpretations. They will do this by printing their notes and reading them and
taking margin notes again. Then they will go back and use their notes to start
writing.
Here is another problem - the issue of those students who do not have access to
computers at home. They will have to do the long-hand method of note taking etc.
Here is where the "digital divide" needs to be addressed. Still - it hardly seems
efficient to not teach anyone to use technology for writing research papers because
a few do not have home computers. Obviously the "few" will be much larger in low
income areas.
I posted a hit on this topic last summer. Here is the link to it:
http://www.eduref.org/plweb-cgi/fastweb?getdoc+listservs+LM_NET+202093+45+wAAA+Jacquie%26Henry
************************************************************************
It is possible I've done it on a small schedule (one paragraph) I do think however
that I prefer having kids take notes hand written first unless they already have
exceptional ability to taking brief, concise notes.
***********************************************************************
I think if a student knows how to take notes, they'll be fine.I might start off
with a quick note taking lesson (one note per index card, or on the computer divide
a Word document into subjects and keep notes like that).You'll have to excuse me --
I don't really take notes.I have been writing on nutrition, a topic I know well, so
I'm able to just write
about it.Then I find the articles that support my position and add in the
information.
***********************************************************************
If I was a seventh grader, I would divide a Word document up into subjects and I
would make a brief outline on the topic I wanted to include in my paper.Then I
would brainstorm all of the ideas I could muster about each topic and put a few
paragraphs together.
***********************************************************************
The best thing has been a purchase of a formatting program called
StyleEase (www.styleease.com).You can buy it with APA formatting or two other
choices.
**********************************************************
I am not sure if this is the one, but I like NoteStar
(http://notestar.4teachers.org/) created by the PT3 grant in Kansas. It is really
easy to use, safe, and amazing! They have lots of great tools at http://hprtec.org
which is one of the many reasons to fight hard for
the funding not to change.
**********************************************************************
I have seen teachers use Inspiration for the notetaking (diagram view),
and outlining / organizing stages (outline view).The outline is then
used as a plan for writing the essay in word.
*********************************************************************
Inspiration has been highly recommended for note taking but if you can’t afford
it the University of West Florida has a good free alternative at
http://cmap.ihmc.us/. It allows you and your students to share your maps across the
Internet. FreeMind and Open Mind are two additional free alternatives. ClaiMaker
(http://claimaker.open.ac.uk/) is specifically designed for academics to construct
arguments and debates. One possibility is to have each student up a space at Web
Collaborator (free and private http://www.webcollaborator.com/) to store notes that
are editable. They can also be downloaded as Word or PDF documents later.
A program that I find helpful with brainstorming is Inspiration.Inspiration is good
because it makes the students focus on the key ideas - if they copy and paste too
much the bubbles get too large!It's also very easy to organize all the ideas once
they are collected, into the format for the essay.The only tricky bit is keeping
track of the
sources of the information - note view seems to work OK for that.
This was done with final year high school students who did have some understanding
of the concepts of note taking and essay planning.
************************************************************************
Plagiarism, which can be a problem whether you use paperless research or not. Do a
web search on “antiplagiarism strategies” or “preventing plagiarism” and
you’ll get plenty of good suggestions for designing your project. Some tools to
check for plagiarism once projects are the free Plagiarism Sleuth
(http://tinyurl.com/6bsh2) or the not-free TurnItIn (www.turnitin.com) or EVE2 at
http://www.canexus.com/eve/index.shtml for detecting plagiarism and it is only
$20.00
***********************************************************************
Mary Willen
Teacher/Librarian
The St. John School on Gifft Hill
PO Box 1657
St John USVI 00831
Phone (340) 776-1730
Fax (340) 775-2455
email: marywillen@thestjohnschool.org
website: www.thestjohnschool.org
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