22 Great Places If You Teach Research Skills

If you are a teacher-librarian or media specialist, you are the one responsible for making sure students have learned the proper research skills. Since all students need to how to do research, why are school districts still cutting jobs for our position? Once kids get to middle and high school, they need to know how to do certain things tied to research, including a bibliography, website evaluation, searching techniques and so much more. Below you will find sites to assist you in teaching research skills for all ages.Use the Teacher-Librarians tab at the top to find a megalist of stuff for you.

The 6 Online Research Skills Your Students Need- from Scholastic

Copyright, Fair Use and Research Skills for Elementary Students- LiveBinder

Doing Research at the Elementary Level- written by technology teacher Mary Beth Hertz

Evaluating Information Sources Worksheet- for older students

The Future of Research- written by middle school librarian Jennifer LaGarde

Google Scholar- advanced scholarly searches

Infomine- scholarly Internet searches

iResearch: Information Skills for Life- 10 modules (covers plagiarism and searching databases) each include a PDF download

The Free Library- over 20 million articles and books

K-4 Research Materials- LiveBinder

Kentucky Virtual Library's How to Do Research- excellent interactive poster designed like a game board

Research it Right- from Acadia University's Library; animated interactive

Research Skills Lesson Plans- from Lesson Planet

Research Skills Worksheets- from TeAchnology; covers various topic areas 

Research Skills Worksheets- teacher-reviewed; grades listed

Research Skills Unit- for 8th grade students

Rutgers University's R.I.O.T.- wonderful interactive modules include: Selecting a Topic, Finding Sources, Selecting Keywords, Identifying Citations, Evaluating Sources.

State Library of Victoria- research skills for grades 5-9

Teaching Research Skills to Young Students- the role of the media specialist is explained

Teaching the Ten Steps to Better Web Research from SweetSearch


Using Critical Thinking to find Trustworthy Websites-video lesson by N.Y. middle school teacher Emily Koch (Grades 6-8)

Wading Through the Web: Teaching Internet Research Strategies- Three complete 45-minute lessons for grades 6-8

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Rutgers R.I.O.T. Rocks

Rutgers University has posted RIOT (Research Information Online Tutorial) to aid students and teachers with their research. The 5-part animated tutorial is interactive. Teacher-Librarians can use this to get students started on their research papers. Thank you Richard Byrne (Free Technology for Teachers) for posting this awesome resource for students and teachers.

NJASL Video Says it All!

Here's a wonderful promotional video produced by the N.J. Association of School Librarians. (NJASL)

Joyce Valenza at TEDxPhildelphiaED: See Sally Research

Teacher-Librarian Joyce Valenza teaches at Springfield Township High School in Erdenheim, Pa. In addition to her job there she also writes a blog for School Library Journal entitled The Neverending Search. Having met her her at this year's Edcamp Philly unconference, I am very impressed with her passion for her work and what she has done for all teacher-librarians. Here is a speech she made on September 5, 2011 at TEDxPhiladelphiaED.

You Can't Just Google It.....

My students seem to think that as long as they have Google, they don't need any other assistance with their research. When I meet with classes I show them how their results can change when they know what tools to use when on the Internet. Thanks to my colleague Nora, I have a new video to use in my presentations. Created with the wonderful site Xtranormal, this video is called "You Can't Just Google It".(It's funny, and we all know that will keep their attention)

You Can't Just Google It!
by: SweetSearch

Research Information With an Interactive Spin

In 2010, I posted this information on research on our school's media center page. The Kentucky Virtual Library now has an interactive version which takes this wonderful poster to another level. The interface is visually appealing and students of all ages would benefit from this site. Thank you, Richard Byrne of Free Technology For Teachers for posting.

33 Academic Search Engines

When it comes to academic research, Google is not the answer. Too many students feel that as long as they have Google, everything will be fine. When I ask them if Google will evaluate a web site to see if it can be trusted, they pause for a minute and say "no".  Doing research online can be a daunting experience for both teachers and students, which is why you need to use search engines which are specific to academia. Here's a list of 33 to get you and your students started.




Academic Info-subject guide descriptions provide relevant sites.

Archival Research Catalog- U.S. National Archives

BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine)- over 29 million documents

BiologyBrowser

Bubl- selected Internet resources covering all academic areas.

Chemxseer- "documents in the chemistry domain"


Citeulike- search over 5 million articles

The Collection of Computer Science Bibliographies- computer-science related information 

EBSCOHost- if you are fortunate to have this wonderful resource, (our state library provides it for us) you will find the History Reference Center, Science Reference Center, Literary Reference Center, Student Research Center and much, much more.

ERIC (Educational Resource Information Center)- "online digital library of education research and information"

Food Science Central- "world's largest database of information on food science, food technology and nutrition. " 

Google Scholar

History Engine- research historical topics

Infomine- annotated academic sites and subject databases

Infotopia- educator selected sites

Intute- annotated academic sites

IPL- information you can trust

iSeek Education- search a topic or ask a question

JURN- search 4,303 free e-journals in the arts & humanities

LibGuides Community- over 100,000 pathfinders from thousands of libraries

Library of Congress- search for primary source documents, including photos, maps, manuscripts, historic newspapers and much more

MathWeb Search- search for formulas 

NASA Historical Archive

PsycLine- psychology and social science journals

RefSeek- (currently in public beta) search over 1 billion documents, web pages, encyclopedias, journals, newspapers

Scirus- scientific information

The Smithsonian Institution Research Information System- "Search over 7.4 million records, with 568,100 images, video and sound files from Smithsonian museums, archives, and libraries."

SurfWax- search your topic and find similar, broader or narrower ones

Science.gov- "over 45 databases and over 2000 selected websites from 14 federal agencies"

Sweet Search- selective searches for students

Virtual Learning Resources Center- browse the 12 category directory or use a Google custom search 

WikiArc- archaeological searches 

World-Wide Science- international scientific databases 

38 Different Types of Online Dictionaries

Accounting, Business Studies and Economics Dictionary- 3,000 terms defined

Answers.com- the best definitions & explanations for over one million topics!

ArtLex Art Dictionary- contains over 3600 terms, with images, quotations & cross referencing.

Babelfish -translate a block of text into 36 languages

Biographical Dictionary

The Columbia Gazetteer of North America

Computer Dictionary- over 14,00 computer-related terms

Dictionary.com

Dictionary of Scientific Quotations

Dinosaur & Paleontology Dictionary -from A to Z

Dream Dictionary

EmTech Dictionary Listing -extensive list of dictionaries

ESL-EFL Dictionary

High Tech Dictionary

Hometown Locator -Location information for 1.8 million physical and cultural features with links to maps and aerial photos

How Many? -dictionary of units of measurement

IdiomDictionary- 5,000 idioms

Infoplease Encyclopedia and Dictionary: Dictionary Search gives you access to more than 125,000 complete, precisely defined entries.

Internet Picture Dictionary-choose from English, French, Spanish German or Italian

The Linguist List -dictionaries (extensive)

Little Explorers- picture dictionary with links; thirteen different languages to choose

Math Dictionary

Medical Dictionary

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Music Dictionary

Netlingo, the Internet Dictionary

OneLook Dictionary Search-over 19 million words indexed

Online Etymology Dictionary- explanations of what words mean and "how they sounded 600 or 2,000 years ago."

Rhyme Zone -rhyming dictionary & thesaurus

A Short Dictionary of Scientific Quotations

United States Gazetteer- from the U.S. Census Bureau

Visual Dictionary Online- with 15 major themes and 6,000 images, this is a great interactive dictionary from Merriam-Webster.

Visuwords- online graphical dictionary

Voycabulary-online Web dictionary and thesaurus word linking tool; twenty-nine languages!

Webopedia -dictionary of Internet and web jargon

Wordia- words are brought to life through video

Write Express Rhyming Dictionary

Your Dictionary.com -translate foreign languages

EBSCO Mobile for Research On-The-Go

Our school media center is very fortunate to have such incredible support from the NJ State Library. We currently receive a large collection of databases which cover all grades K-12 and which are extremely helpful to our students. Most recently, EBSCO created a mobile app for the iPhone, and is expanding their mobile app to include Blackberrys and Android smartphones. If your school has EBSCOHost, you should introduce your students to mobile access. See how they react when you tell them that even if the Internet is down at school, they can use their smartphone to complete their research! Here's a link to the information about EBSCOHost Mobile.