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My Technology Use: February 27, 2018: Research

This week I was able to reserve enough iPads to allow my students to participate in research for Black History Month.  Admittedly, in the past, I have not been the best at teaching my students how to actually search for information because I have assumed that my students already know how to do this.  With the research we have recently completed in this class about digital literacy and how we still need to teach digital natives how to use technology for research and to communicate, I decided to do a mini-lesson on research.

Going into this lesson I was very anxious as I was afraid my students would be bored and already know what I was going to teach them.  My students actually ended up being very engaged.  We talked a lot about using key words to search to find exactly what information they are looking for.  I was able to assign them each an important person for Black History Month and they each received a biography sheet that caused them to search for date of birth, date of death, what they are most remembered for, a fun fact, etc.  They used the key word searches that we discussed in our mini-lesson and had great success.  Engagement was very high during this lesson and the students did not want to stop their research. 

The students have begged to do more research every day since.  This lesson taught me to be willing to take risks with my students and to trust them with projects using technology.  Technology can sometimes make me fearful that my students will try to get away with getting on apps or sites that they shouldn't, especially if the activity is more student lead. However, I am starting to realize that if the activity involving technology is engaging and the students become involved in it, they truly enjoy researching, or any activity, and have no interest in becoming off task.  I am going to start looking into more ways that we can use technology to enhance our writing or social studies time in the fourth grade.  If anyone has any suggestions, I would love to hear them!

Comments

  1. ArchloutechFebruary 28, 2018 at 12:13 PM

    This is a great personal learning for you when you stated, "I am starting to realize that if the activity involving technology is engaging and the students become involved in it, they truly enjoy researching, or any activity, and have no interest in becoming off task. "

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  2. Karen LyonsFebruary 28, 2018 at 3:35 PM

    Thanks for sharing! My students will be starting research soon for a country project. My school is having a world culture night, so every student is going to create a poster about different countries. Your blog is a great reminder that we need to teach students how to locate information. I will be sure to have a mini-lesson on how to use keywords to find important information. How did you make sure the students were finding/using safe websites?

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    Replies
    1. Danielle TerryMarch 5, 2018 at 6:13 PM

      Hi Karen! Someone has previously shown me Kiddle and I had my students use it to find safe sites. It is very similar to Google, but it is for kids and brings up appropriate sites. So far, it has been very beneficial in keeping the students on the right sites.

      Delete
  3. UnknownFebruary 28, 2018 at 7:07 PM

    Danielle, I think it is great how you quickly connected our studies to your classroom and was able to implement a lesson on researching. It's amazing how our students can change when we base our instruction around their lives and make it seem real to them. They all know how dependent they are on their phones and tablets, so they probably realize that they need to learn how to accurately search so they can stay ahead of the game. I wonder if this will open the door to greater online projects in the future for you guys?

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousMarch 5, 2018 at 8:33 AM

    Danielle,
    I have had very similar realizations in my own Art classes. In the past, I've done a graphic design project with my sixth grade students. During the process, I've asked them to do simple things like open a new word document, open a new tab on their browser, or save an image to their computer drive, and I was surprised by the number of students who didn't know what to do! I realized that I needed to take a step back and go over these fundamental skills before asking them to do anything more complicated.
    -Lauren Smith

    ReplyDelete

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