Riley,+Joanne-920FinPro

Effective Internet Research Skills Unit I am currently a media specialist is a K-6 school and really see a need with my 5th and 6th graders to have better searching skills when it comes to the Internet, with an emphasis on validating their sources. (5th and 6th is combined in one class at my school). When the students leave my school and go to the junior high they are expected to at least have the basics of internet searching and the basics of evaluating their sources. Right now I feel those are skills they are lacking. Most of the teachers just have the students go on Google and even tell them to site that as their source. Argh! I have put out a movement to ban Google that seems to be catching on. I have posted different directories and websites in the computer lab that the teachers have been using and encouraging the students to use. I feel that the next step is to have the 5th and 6th graders begin to evaluate the web sources they are using. Unfortunately I only see the students once a week for 30 minutes in which I squeeze in an information literacy lesson and leave them time to check out books so each lesson will be approximately 15-20 minutes. This unit will span approximately 8 week. Since I am a media specialist I use the I-SAIL standards set forth by the Illinois School Library Media Association. Standards to be addressed in this unit are: **Standard 1**: Accesses information efficiently and effectively to inquire, think critically, and gain knowledge. **Standard 2:** Evaluates information critically and competently to draw conclusions, make informed decisions, apply knowledge to new situations, and create new knowledge. Both standards are aligned with **Illinois** **State** **Standard 5.B.2a**: Determine the accuracy, currency and reliability of materials from various sources. Students will be working on the various activities in this unit on teams so to address differentiated instruction those students who need some extra help will be paired with those students who are at a higher level and or work well with others. I will be collaborating with the 5/6 team on a unit they are doing on Greek Mythology. Student will be expected to have one web source for their presentation and must write out the 5W’s for the website. I will be grading this portion of the assignment. Students do not get a library grade but this project will have a rubric created by me for the website evaluation portion of their final research project. As always pencils and stickers are handed out to those groups who do an excellent job on any worksheets we complete during media center time. Assessment for this unit will be the rubric I grade on the student’s final project as well as various worksheets completed on website evaluation during media center time. I will also have a discussion with the classroom teacher to see if students had better research and better papers then previous attempts. I will also be observing students as they are working and researching their project to see if they are using the tools introduced in this unit. By the end of this unit each student in 5/6 will be able to at least identify the need to evaluate a source from the internet and be more efficient at using the 5 W’s, Who What, Where, When, and Why. This unit will incorporate knowledge and tools from EDU 920. For example I will be using the spoof sites we discussed in lesson 6 to show the students the importance of evaluating their internet sources. I will also be using the information we learned concerning directories vs. search engines and what we learned about sponsored sites and advertisements. Finally, I will be showing students the 5W’s from Kathy Schrock’s website and showing them how to use FagonFinder so that they have the tools to evaluate a website on their own. __ Lesson 1 (15-20 min) __ 1) The goal of this lesson is for the students to see why evaluating their sources is important. 2) Students will be broken into pairs at a computer and asked to look at two sites for a research paper on penguins, www.seaworld.org and www.kidzone.ws. Students will be given 5-7 minutes to examine each site and determine which is the better site to use for the research paper. 3) A few minutes will be spent on each team saying what site they picked and why they thought it was a good site. 4) Next I will show who the author of each site is and that kidzone is written by a 3rd grader. This will lead to a discussion about the importance of web evaluation. __ Lesson 2 (15-20 min) __ 1) The purpose of this lesson is to show students how they can get better results searching the Internet using an advanced search. Students already have prior knowledge of Boolean searching. 2) Students will be paired at computers where they will do a search for Hercules. We will share as a class how many results we get and then discuss ways to get a better search. 3) I will introduce students to the advanced search feature on Google and review the differences between .com, .org, .edu, and .gov (they have some prior knowledge). 4. Students will then conduct their own advanced search for Hercules facts.  5) Students will then share their search results with the class and we will discuss what worked well. __ Lesson 3 (15-20 min) __ 1) Students have some prior knowledge of using directories instead of a search engine. Kidclicks and WebpathExpress have been shown to them and they have used both before for limited research. The first part of this lesson will be spent in a discussion of why using a directory, such as these, can be a valuable tool. 2) In the computer lab as a class we will again go over examples of doing a search engine search vs. using a directory. 3) If it appears students remember what they have learned before about directories we will move on to sponsored sites and advertisements. __ Lesson 4 (15-20 min) __ 1) This lesson I will introduce the 5w’s which will be on a new poster in the computer lab. I will show students a few spoof sites and poll who thinks each is a good site. We will then connect back to lesson one and look at the sites we used and talk about why it is important to evaluate your sources. 2) As a class we will look at a website and talk about where to look for the Who, What, When, Where, and Why. 3) I will introduce FaganFinder to the students and then put a website on the main screen for them to practice in FaganFinder. __ Lesson 5 (15-20 min) __ 1) Students will be paired at computers and given this worksheet to complete from Kathy Schrock’s site to help get them thinking critically. http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schrockguide/pdf/evalelem.pdf 2) Time permitting I will go over the worksheet with students demonstrating what they did on the main screen. __ Lesson 6 (15-20 min) __ 1) Today students will be working in pairs at a computer and each group will be given a website and a worksheet where they have to evaluate the website using the 5w’s. 2) Time permitting we will go over the worksheet with students demonstrating what they did on the main screen. __ Lesson 7 (15-20 min) __ 1) This day will be set aside in case I feel that the students need more work on the 5w’s. We might go over their worksheets more or I might have them work on another one depending on how things are progressing. 2) If students are catching on well after lesson 6, lesson 7 will be skipped. __ Lesson 8 (20-30 min) __ 1) This lesson will be co- taught with the student’s classroom teacher. The teacher will be introducing the research project and then I will lead a short discussion with the students about how they are going to proceed with the project using what we have been learning. Hopefully they dazzle us with knowledge of directories, advanced searching, and website evaluation. __ Extension __ 1) After this unit is over students will be able to find information such as author, date, etc about a website. That knowledge will extend into a future lesson on website citation. Students will know have the knowledge to get all the pieces of a website needed to cite it in a bibliography. 2) I will also be hoping for word to get out that the students turned in better papers and other teachers will also want to collaborate on research projects. 3) Lastly, I will be using the same www.seaworld.org and www.kidzone.ws comparison I used with the kids in lesson one with the teachers at our next faculty meeting. I expect that some of them will also say that kidzone is the better site and I can take that into a discussion on the importance of website evaluation. 
 * __ Standards __**
 * __ Differentiated Instruction __**
 * __ Collaboration __**
 * __ Scoring Guide __**
 * __ Assessment __**
 * __ Unit Goal __**
 * __Tools from 920__ **