Thing 9: Databases & Search Tools
I am revisiting Thing 9 because it has been several years since I last worked on this topic and I am always interested in finding better resources for my students to use for their research needs. In addition, I will be working with grades K - 2 in the fall which is new for me. I didn't really spend a lot of time on the database section because I am very familiar with the resources my district/SLS office organizes for us on our search page. I will note that I am very sad that Amazing Animals and America the Beautiful will not be offered through NovelNY - they were two of my favorites. The new offerings look good but there will be a learning curve.
My focus for this lesson was to really explore web search tools for the younger students. I have looked at Kidrex previously and do like this search tool but have not implemented in my current school. I like the clean, kid friendly interface but wish it would be geared a little more for our younger friends. I like that there are no adds but it has a lot of white space that I think larger fonts/graphics would make it more appealing for young students. This would work well for my older students (grades 3-5) but I'm not sure it would be helpful for my new 2nd graders.
I also explored Thinga - loved the name but not the website. I didn't really like all of the video clips that show up when you pull up the main screen because I found it very distracting and I think a child would easily focus on those rather than their research topic. I did try a few easy searches like amphibians and did not find much - they listed a few articles from Duckduckgo.com. Perhaps if you sign up for this they may offer more things but it would certainly not fit into my lessons with the grades I teach. I think that perhaps the website is more for entertainment purposes rather than educational.
The next web search tool I explored was Choosito - I loved this one but am sad that there is a fee. I signed up for the free trial and was very impressed with the resource. I can see this being very helpful to the classroom teachers as well as librarians. Here is a tool that can assist teachers curate resources to expand on the topics in the modules and domains and not have to worry about what the kids will gather from the internet. I also really liked the fact that you could level the articles you were chosing which is terrific for differentiation - an area our school district has been focusing on this year. I thought the pages were nice and clean and free of ads. I tried searching for amphibians and then selected individual amphibians like the red eyed tree frog to try and see what type of information would be gathered. I thought the websites were very appropriate from both the web search and the library search. This is definitely a resource that I will be asking our department head about looking into for me - I'm not sure what the district cost would be - the fee for 5 classes was only $40 so perhaps that would also be reasonable.
I decided to also look at Duckduckgo.com first because I loved the name and secondly because Thinga seemed to pull a lot of articles from there. This web search tool is geared more for upper elementary students in my opinion. I searched amphibians, etc (can you tell I'm doing a project with that topic?). The results were pretty good although I wasn't happy to see the first site listed with information from wikipedia. Although I don't "hate" wikipedia, I don't think it's always the most reliable resource for kids to go to. I always try and tell the kids it can be a good resource for quick information but not to rely on it solely for research projects. In getting back to duckduckgo.com, it's not a bad resource but I also don't know if it would be the first place to send my students. to.
In summing up my experiences here I must be honest and say I really didn't find a free tool to use with my younger students but if money is available in my budget I would love to subscribe to Choosito. I can forsee so many good uses for this tool not only for myself but for my classroom teachers. If I am unable to purchase that resource then I will certainly make more of an effort next year to start using Kidrex with students as a safer alternative. The past two years I have been having my students use webpath express in Destiny to search the web and although it has so many positive features like leveling content, creating a resource list/citation list and safe content, sometimes there is very little that appears for your search.
My focus for this lesson was to really explore web search tools for the younger students. I have looked at Kidrex previously and do like this search tool but have not implemented in my current school. I like the clean, kid friendly interface but wish it would be geared a little more for our younger friends. I like that there are no adds but it has a lot of white space that I think larger fonts/graphics would make it more appealing for young students. This would work well for my older students (grades 3-5) but I'm not sure it would be helpful for my new 2nd graders.
I also explored Thinga - loved the name but not the website. I didn't really like all of the video clips that show up when you pull up the main screen because I found it very distracting and I think a child would easily focus on those rather than their research topic. I did try a few easy searches like amphibians and did not find much - they listed a few articles from Duckduckgo.com. Perhaps if you sign up for this they may offer more things but it would certainly not fit into my lessons with the grades I teach. I think that perhaps the website is more for entertainment purposes rather than educational.
The next web search tool I explored was Choosito - I loved this one but am sad that there is a fee. I signed up for the free trial and was very impressed with the resource. I can see this being very helpful to the classroom teachers as well as librarians. Here is a tool that can assist teachers curate resources to expand on the topics in the modules and domains and not have to worry about what the kids will gather from the internet. I also really liked the fact that you could level the articles you were chosing which is terrific for differentiation - an area our school district has been focusing on this year. I thought the pages were nice and clean and free of ads. I tried searching for amphibians and then selected individual amphibians like the red eyed tree frog to try and see what type of information would be gathered. I thought the websites were very appropriate from both the web search and the library search. This is definitely a resource that I will be asking our department head about looking into for me - I'm not sure what the district cost would be - the fee for 5 classes was only $40 so perhaps that would also be reasonable.
I decided to also look at Duckduckgo.com first because I loved the name and secondly because Thinga seemed to pull a lot of articles from there. This web search tool is geared more for upper elementary students in my opinion. I searched amphibians, etc (can you tell I'm doing a project with that topic?). The results were pretty good although I wasn't happy to see the first site listed with information from wikipedia. Although I don't "hate" wikipedia, I don't think it's always the most reliable resource for kids to go to. I always try and tell the kids it can be a good resource for quick information but not to rely on it solely for research projects. In getting back to duckduckgo.com, it's not a bad resource but I also don't know if it would be the first place to send my students. to.
In summing up my experiences here I must be honest and say I really didn't find a free tool to use with my younger students but if money is available in my budget I would love to subscribe to Choosito. I can forsee so many good uses for this tool not only for myself but for my classroom teachers. If I am unable to purchase that resource then I will certainly make more of an effort next year to start using Kidrex with students as a safer alternative. The past two years I have been having my students use webpath express in Destiny to search the web and although it has so many positive features like leveling content, creating a resource list/citation list and safe content, sometimes there is very little that appears for your search.
Choosito does sound like a good option and that pricing seems reasonable. Makes me think they're really making an effort to do a good job and be affordable.
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