Information Literacy Workshops

East Bakersfield High School

 

Each workshop will focus on one of the important areas of information literacy.  The web sites below can help you understand some aspects of information literacy and may be good teaching tools for your students.

 

Workshop 1     What is Information Literacy?

 

Sample assignment and rubric from English 2, Bakersfield College Biology professor Janet Fulks team- taught English 2 in the fall.  Here are both the assignment for the culminating paper and the rubric by which students’ papers are graded. Paper Assignment Rubric

 

Information Literacy Documents  This page brings together all of the explanations and activities that were developed by the Information Literacy Working Team of the Kern High School District and Bakersfield College.

 

Information Cycle  This web tutorial explains how we receive our information in a cyclical manner.  Produced by a team at Penn State and focusing on the Columbine tragedy, it can easily be used with students.

 

Workshop 2  Getting Started:  Developing and Narrowing the Topic; Developing a Source List

 

Jamie McKenzie’s Questioning.org  McKenzie is a former school principal and superintendent who explores ways in which to make research meaningful for students.  His suggestions, available in the articles linked to this web site, are simple yet provocative.  Look at the Questioning Toolkit, available under “Articles.”

 

For the Best Answer, Ask Tough Questions  This engaging article by Joyce Valenza originally appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

 

Finding Background Information  Places to encourage students to look for background information are located at this web site, developed by the library staff at Duke University.

 

What is a Thesis?  Many activities are here that can help your students shape what their project will focus upon. Look at the Thesis Generator.  It’s part of a great number of resources created by Joyce Valenza, a nationally recognized library media teacher.  There is also a great list of other thesis-related links at the bottom of this page.

 

Workshop 3  Online Catalog and Databases  See library staff for passwords.

 

Keyword Searching  Use this web site from Duke University to find out about Keyword searching. You can enter the site as a guest user and still see the lessons. The keyword exercise includes helpful hints of strategies to use as well as keywords to avoid. There’s much more about research techniques to explore at this site, too.

 

Online Library Catalog  Do you know that you can look for books, videos, and other library materials from your classroom computer?  Learn to use our Meriwether catalog at this site.  Note: our catalog is on a school intranet, so it can only be accessed from computers on the school network.

 

Gale/Infotrac Database   This database our school subscribes to has reference articles, magazine and newspaper articles, and images related to many topics. Get password from library staff.

 

Grolier  We subscribe to several encyclopedias at this site.  From home, you must go through KernLearn to access it.

 

Gale Resources for Teachers  You can find handouts that explain searching methods for the different resource centers at this site.  Click on “Teachers” and then “Teaching Tools.” 

 

Workshop 4  Search Engines, Search Directories, and Internet Evaluation

 

Search Engines and Search Directories  This web page directs you to some of my favorite search tools.

 

LII’s Search Tools Page  Get a start where the experts do at this combination search page.

 

Evaluation of Search Engines  If you would like to know how search engines how work and how they differ, look at this site done by a librarian in Ireland.

 

Workshop 5  Note-taking,  Plagiarism, and Copyright

 

Reading for Information You can find easy-to-use tips for helping students learn to take notes in this article by Barbara Jansen.

 

Real Life Examples of Works Cited Problems  Jaquie Henry, a librarian, has put together this helpful and humorous site.  It matches up with the Works Cited Rubric in your Info Lit binder to teach students about works cited errors to avoid.

 

Copyright Resources from Hall Davidson  Downloadable guides to teachers’ questions about fair use are at this helpful site. 

 

Put an End to Plagiarism in Your Classroom  This article by Linda Starr discusses strategies that teachers can use to fight plagiarism. It includes a printable student guide to preventing plagiarism.

 

Anti-Plagiarism Strategies You will find sensible suggestions to use with students to prevent plagiarism before it happens at this site created by Robert Harris.

 

Turnitin.com  This commercial site has some interesting statistics on plagiarism.  You might want to explore their product for discovering plagiarism.

 

 

 

 

 

Resource list compiled by Dawn Dobie, Library Media Teacher  Last updated 11/23/05

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