Research Project on Internet Researching

Part I: 
The Research Report

Research Report on Social Networking

My idea for this research revolved around my understanding of students aged 10-18 and their skills surrounding Internet research. These thoughts were gathered during the course of teaching 10^th Grade and the way I saw my students interact with various digital tools and assignments. Before I began teaching I assumed that my students would be light years ahead of me in all things technology: they would have the intuitive sense of tech that anyone over the age of 20 harked on about with slight insecurity. I predicted that they would all be fast typists, whizzes on the Internet and completely obsessed with everything social media. As it turned out, only the last point was even close to true. Even then, my students were Instagram enthusiasts but were ‘over’ Facebook (‘too many old people’) and scoffed at the idea of tweeting. This was both a relief in that I did not have to bicker over inappropriate sites, but also posed a huge obstacle as I quickly realized that the lack of tech know-how seriously affected the way they used internet resources and in turn, their e-researching skills that they needed for their education. I quickly assumed that I needed to back up my superficial understandings with some more accurate data, hence my first step of this project is a truly unfamiliar genre: a research report. Hoping to find some answers but more importantly, generate questions to explore in teaching, I found out what I could from academics that had already done the heavy lifting for the subject I would be diving into.

Research: “According to a recent poll, 22% of teenagers log on to their favorite social media site more than 10 times a day, and more than half of adolescents log on to a social media site more the once a day. 75% of teenagers now own cell phones, and 25% use them for social media, 54% use them for texting and 24% use them for instant messaging. Thus a large part of this generation’s social and emotional development is occurring while on the Internet and on cell phones”.

Source: Gwenn Schurgin O'Keeffe, Kathleen Clarke-Pearson. “Clinical Report: The Impact of Social Media on Children, Adolescents, and Families” For COUNCIL ON COMMUNICATIONS AND MEDIA, Pediatrics published online Mar 28, 2011

Questions:

-How much academic development is occurring at the same time?

-How can students apply these social media search and browse skills to academia?

Research: “In 2011, 95% of American teens were online and 80% of them used social network sites”

Sources: Andrea Forte, Denise E. Agosto, Michael Dickard, Rachel M. Magee. “Teenagers’ Online Question Asking and Answering Behavior”. College of Information Science & Technology, Drexel University, May 2013

Lenhart, A., Madden, M., Smith, A., Purcell, K., Zickuhr, K., and Rainie, L. “Teens, kindness and cruelty on social network sites.” Pew Internet and American Life Project, November 2011

Questions:

-How can we harness this widespread access to technology and the Internet in our schools, not just in a social sphere?

-What skills are developed at the lowest level of simply ‘being online’?

Research: Summary of defining Digital Natives: “These kids are different. They study, work and interact with each other in ways that are very different from the ways that you did growing up. They read blogs rather than newspapers. They often meet each other online before they meet in person. They probably don’t even know what a library card looks like, much less have one: and if they do, they’re probably never used it. They get their music online- often for free, illegally- rather than buying it in record stores. They’re more likely to send an instant message than to pick up the telephone to arrange a date later in the afternoon… Major aspects of their lives- social interactions, friendships, civic activities- are mediated by digital technologies.”

Source: Palfrey, John, Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives, Basic Books, Philadelphia, PA, 2008

Questions:

-How can this new norm of working digitally create a more efficient and effective student?

-How can students transition to using more digital sources for information while understanding credibility issues?

Part II: 
The Lesson Plan

Date: -----------	Class: English 10th Grade	Teacher(s): Sarah Payne-Baader	Unit: Persuasive Essay: Research Stage
Learning Objective: SWBAT to effectively complete internet research on their topic on immigration to find supporting evidence for their thesis
Targeted Standards: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.1.B Develop claim(s) and counterclaims fairly, supplying evidence for each while pointing out the strengths and limitations of both in a manner that anticipates the audience's knowledge level and concerns.
Materials: Laptop/ computer/ tablet, Note paper, Citelighter log in
Teacher				Next Steps: To be completed during/ after class to inform misconception addressing
Do Now (5 – 10 min): Let’s streamline what we’re going to be looking for: What is your thesis? Write it down! What are two things you might need to find out to support this thesis? Write down notes for each (Example: Thesis: Immigrants should be offered the same benefits and education as US citizens because it would help them become positive and useful citizens) Evidence 1: Difference in opportunities for those with high school diplomas and without. Evidence 2:
Mini Lesson (10 - 15 min): How can we use the internet to effectively find evidence that is relevant to our thesis and topic? Use voice thread to show students difference between searching an entire question using google and searching specific evidence on credible sites. What resources can we use to help us? How can we cite these sources? Quick recap on Citelighter, show students project page. Show them Highlight the poster on credible sources for students to refer to while researching.
Activity (20-30 min): Students will log into Citelighter using the class code and their passwords and navigate to their project page. Students will find evidence to support their thesis and capture it using Citelighter.
Review / Summary (5 - 10 min): Before and After: students share out how they changed their searches and how that affected their results. Students share out which sites they found useful information on.
Exit Slip (3 - 5 min): Write down the address to one website on which you found useful and credible information on a post it and stick it underneath the poster for other students to refer to.
Vocabulary: Credible, research

Part III:
The VoiceThread of Misconception

Coming soon!

Part IV:

The Citelighter Prezi (click to go to link!)
http://prezi.com/ura_xwhehqrl/edit/#4_24309637

Part V:

The Classroom Poster (click to go to link!)
http://pub.lucidpress.com/4e46ab49-1e76-4dd4-958f-9dbd32cc8530/