Research Skills

Use these online resources to help you find, select, and evaluate information.

Kid friendly search engines

KidRex

Kiddle

DuckDuckGo

Sweet Search

Tin Eye (reverse image search)

Use these before Google!


Find images and music Creative commons

Photos for class

Pixabay

Pexels



Trustworthy websites

Academic Kids

DKFindout

Encyclopedia Britannica (public)

Britannica Schools (see librarian/s for log in details)

Q Files Encyclopedia

BrainPop - use school login

Fact Monster


Reference resources

Visuwords (visual dictionary)

EVALUATING WEBSITES

  1. Authority
  • who is the author?
  • are they an expert?

2. Objectivity

  • gives only facts and does not try to persuade you

3. Verify!

  • can you prove it?
  • check with another website to confirm the facts
  • material includes a bibliography

4.Currency

  • check the site copyright date and site updated information
  • Information can change!

The term fake news is often in the media and on the internet. However, perhaps it is more useful to think of 3 categories:

1. misinformation, or “mistakes”;

2. disinformation, or “lies” and “hoaxes”, which are false and spread deliberately to deceive;

3. malinformation, or “gossip”, which may perhaps be correct but is intended to harm.

By CBC Kids News


By Commonsense Media


Grade 4 Activity: Finding reliable resources on the internet

Look through the two websites. Remember to look for the AUTHOR, OBJECTIVITY (does it give correct facts?), VERIFY (can you prove it and check with another website to confirm the facts?) and CURRENCY (check the copyright date and updated information). Choose one of these websites and answer the question in your Research Google Classroom.

Source 1: Dog Island Free Forever

Source 2: Save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus

Source 3: All about Explorers

Be skeptical of everything you see, hear, or read!

  • Satire can include fake news that makes fun of the news.
  • Some fake news is not satire, however.
  • Some fake news is intentionally misleading.
  • Some "real" news is unintentionally misleading.

Problem:

  • Incorrect or misleading news
  • slips into the social media stream and people usually cannot distinguish the "fake" news from the "real" news.

Solution:

​Always evaluate the author and source. Be skeptical. Check sources for accuracy. Don't forward until you fact-check!

Inquiry cycle - Watch the videos below to help you find useful information on the internet.

Inquiry cycle

[Kath Murdoch]

Watch these videos to help you during your inquiry process.

Tuning in:

Choosing a topic and defining a research question

(OSLIS Elementary Videos)

Finding out:

Searching Effectively Phrase Searching & Truncation

(OSLIS Elementary Videos)


Sorting out:

Crediting Experts Using Signal Phrases

  • (OSLIS Elementary Videos)

Note taking strategies

Also look at:

Kathy Shrock - Sketchnoting (Links to many many web resources)

Doug Neil has many other video tutorials on how to sketchnote.

How to Make a Mind Map - The Basics

by Susan Gregory

Published on 6 May 2009

How To Paraphrase – 3 Paraphrasing Techniques

Source: How To Do That

Published on 8 Nov 2016

Quoting, paraphrasing & summarising

Source: Lauren's the Write Way

Published on Oct 9, 2016

How to take great notes

1. write conclusions

2. use questions to make connections

3. go over your notes

Source: watchwellcast

Published on 26 Oct 2012