Help your kids Find It! @ Your Library

A web guide for parents and teachers to help kids work their way through the research process and develop problem solving skills. Age appropriate sites can be found on the children’s and teen pages.

Research Models
The following sites provide an overview of the entire research process. While the language may vary, each site uses similar elements to answer information needs.

The Big 6: An Information Problem-Solving Process
Created by librarians to provide strategies and tools for teaching essential skills for the information age for adults, teens, and children.

LOBO – Library Online Basic Orientation: The Research Process
From North Carolina State University, this site guides you through the steps in the research process.

Kentucky Virtual Library: How To Do Research
Kentucky Virtual Library offers their take on how to do research. Also available from this site is a kid-friendly tutorial on the research process.

Step 1: Define It!

Many students are given an assignment or asked to solve an information problem and have no idea where to begin. The first step is to understand what the question is and what kind of answers they hope to find. These links may help you assist your child or student to define their information needs.

GO: Graphic Organizer
Assists students in organizing their thoughts and information in graphic formats, with links to additional sources.

Questioning Toolkit
Jamie MacKenzie’s multi-part guide to defining information questions.

Step 2: Locate It!

You’ve helped your child or student define their information need and now they must search for the necessary information. What they need may be found in books, databases, newspapers, magazines, Web sites, and various media sources. The following sites cover how to search for both print and online resources, and how to find your way around a library.

General Sources

Basic Library Skills
Explanations and instructions on finding information in the library and online from Dallas City Community College.

Online Sources

Filamentality
This web site guides the student through picking a topic, searching the web, gathering information, and turning these into learning activities.

Infopeople’s Search Engine Quick Guide
An excellent tip sheet for searching in four of the most popular search engines.

Infopeople’s Search Tools Chart
A very useful tip sheet on searching with selected engines and directories.

Teaching Search Strategies
Yahooligans Teachers’ Guide gives teachers a well-defined basic guide to effectively searching a subject directory.

Print Sources

Using the Parts of a Book
Basic information on the arrangement and content features of a book. Includes a quiz and printable worksheet.

Using an Index for Information
A practice worksheet to gain practical knowledge of a book’s index.

Using the Table of Contents
A practice worksheet to gain practical knowledge of a book’s table of contents.

Step 3: Evaluate It!

Your child or student has found a lot of information. Now they must decide whether it is reliable, accurate, and trustworthy—especially if the information is found online.

Critically Analyzing Information Sources
This site from Cornell University takes the student through the steps of evaluating print sources.

Digital Index Card
A web-based tool for collecting and evaluating information found on the Internet, created by educator David Warlick.

Great Web Sites for Kids Selection Criteria
Children’s librarians and the American Library Association describe how to evaluate web sites for children’s use.

Infopeople’s Evaluating Internet Resources: A Checklist
A useful one-page tool to use as an exercise in evaluating Web sites.

Kathy Schrock’s Web Evaluation Survey for grades K – 12
Exercises are provided, by grade level, to help students critically evaluate Web sites.

Step 4: Organize It!

Your child or student has found and evaluated their sources, now they must extract and organize the information vital to their need. Below are sites with tips to help your kids find and make sense of the most relevant information.

The Cornell Note Taking System
This widely-used system for taking notes is explained in a straightforward manner.

Improving Note Taking with Mind Maps
Describes how mind maps are an effective method of taking notes.

Note Taking Skills
Some general note taking tips from Sweet Briar College.

Plagiarism: What it is and How to Recognize and Avoid it
This site, from Indiana University, is easy to follow and useful for older students.

Oral History Guide
This detailed guide on oral interviewing, from the Library of Congress, can be very useful for students.

Step 5: Present It!

Your child or student has accomplished the first four steps and now they must present their work. Presentations come in various formats; below are some sites with tools to help guide your kids through this step.

Presenting Information in a Variety of Formats

Infopeople’s How to Create Web Pages: A Webliography
Infopeople offers a list of sites to learn how to create, design, use graphics, and validate web pages.

Pathfinders for Constructing Pathfinders
A variety of examples and templates to assist in creating these longstanding and useful guides.

Technology Tutorials on the Web
A significant collection of links that covers everything from word processing programs, to digital cameras, to Flash.

Timelines: Timeless Teaching Tools
A wealth of timeline resources for teachers to guide students in their creations, as well as excellent timeline examples.

WebQuest
Webquests are interactive learning exercises using a variety of internet resources. These teaching tools allow teams, small-group learning, individual research, and entire class projects to use research skills, visual literacy, information literacy, and critical thinking skills to solve a problem or seek to answer essential questions.

Citing Sources

Citation Machine
Students can create bibliographic citations in both APA and MLA formats simply by filling in information needed for each resource type.

Citation Style for Research Papers
Describes various citation styles (APA, Turabian, MLA, Chicago, and AMA).

Easybib.com
Automatic MLA and APA formatting.

Step 6: Grade It!

This is the last step in the research process. The following sites provide tools and procedures to help your child or student review the process they’ve just finished, as well as help you evaluate and grade your kids’ completed projects.

Kathy Schrock’s Guide for Educators: Assessment and Rubric
A collection of links to a variety of general, subject and technology specific rubrics, as well as to portfolios and related articles.

Project Based Checklists
Teachers can create checklists for the students to follow as they complete projects.

Rubistar
This Web site provides handy rubrics (a scoring system for assignments) for a variety of disciplines and specific activities. Individuals can customize rubrics too.