Thursday, November 21, 2013

Online Research






Some of my favorite information literacy skills lessons to teach are about online research.  It's an important skill to develop and it's never too early to start.  I cover online research with third, fourth and fifth graders beginning in October because October is Cyber Safety month and it fits nicely in that arena. This year, I broke it up into three different lessons:  1) Surfing the 'Net for Information 2) Evaluating and Citing Your Sources and 3) Note Taking.

 Here are some of the PowerPoints I used for those lessons:


Click HERE to download this PowerPoint freebie.


Click HERE to download this PowerPoint freebie.


Click HERE to download this PowerPoint freebie.



I also handout an information sheet that contains website address and information on evaluating websites to go along with our lessons.  I encourage students to keep these at home near their computer to refer to.    If you download a free copy of the handout by clicking HERE or on the picture above.

To help students practice evaluating websites, we take a look at a couple of different hoax websites and go through the process of evaluating the AUTHOR, AUDIENCE, CONTENT, and CURRENCY.  There are tons of hoax websites out there; some are really hilarious and some are very realistic.  Here are some of my favorites:

All About Explorers   http://allaboutexplorers.com/
Help Save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/
Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie http://zapatopi.net/afdb/
Dihydrogen Monoxide  http://www.dhmo.org/


Do you have any fun ideas for teaching online research to elementary students?


2 comments:

  1. These are awesome resources to use, so much thought put into it. I'm a librarian and would definitely use these in my library classes. Thank you!

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