Research

http://wellesleyhighschoollibrary.wikispaces.com/ - This site has an easy to navigate menu and seems to cover all the main parts of the research process that kids would need. The A-Z link isn’t very user-friendly since there are so many inserted logos that it becomes hard to read and navigate. The other links are nice, but I could see some teachers balking at the idea of linking kids to citation generators; however, I like that the research databases are organized by subject and that the kids are given links to citation generators a lot. I think that at the very least those two organizational ideas would be incorporated into my school wiki. http://oprflibraryresearchpathfinders.wikispaces.com/ - this site doesn’t have a menu I love, but it does have the actual research process written on nit so that if kids get home and get stuck they can always click that link to see what they need to do next, which is a vital part of research that I think teachers and library websites often leave off. I will be sure to include this in my library wiki. I also like that it has links to APA and MLA citations examples as well as rules. In addition to all this, this librarian has gotten all the teachers in the school to give the librarian information about their major research projects and has compiled a list of well-organized links that the kids may need. The thing that is blatantly missing here are the handouts about the actual project guidelines. http://bshslibrary.wikispaces.com/ - this wiki has so much going on that it’s slow to load, which is unfortunate. However, the research link does have an excellent “Research Hints” link that can help kids out when they are researching and hit a dead end. This way they would hopefully look at the link and try again rather than just giving up in frustration. However, I think the previous two examples are far better than this one in other areas.