As students are creating digital projects that inquire research, it seems as ifthey feel there’s only one place to get their information…Google.  Although it’s a great resource, LCISD provides many other great, accurate, copyright-friendly resources.  We also need to share with students the utilization of key words, phrases, and techniques on how to accurately search for information. 

Highlighted TA-TEKS

Strand 3: Research and Information Fluency: The student acquires, analyzes, and manages content from digital resources. The student is expected to:

(A) create a research plan to guide inquiry
(B)  discuss/plan and use/and evaluate various search strategies, including keyword(s) and Boolean operators

The Plan: Resources

Talk to you campus librarian for great online resources.  The campus may have great hard copy resources as well.  But many great online resources can be found in ClassLink.  A couple are listed below.  

Library Resources Folder – Found in ClassLink hosts a variety of “databases” with accurate information.  

Discovery Education – easily accessible in ClassLink as well has a variety of copyright friendly media that can be found for projects

Also, in the planning phases, consider what devices will be used for the research.  Some devices are more friendly than others or may need an alternative way of obtaining resources and saving information from them. 

Search Strategies

Key Words and Phrases

A great resource created by our own Holly Dornak, guides teachers in students on proper ways to seek out a source.  Although this sample focuses around images, the same techniques can be used when search for other resources. 

Image Seeking and Search StrategyDownload

Boolean Operators

Boolean Operators are another great way to focus on information your seeking.  See the infographic below from a class at GCCC for various techniques that can be used within most Search bars to help refine your search results.  

In our next TA-TEKS focus, we’ll share out ways students can utilize and validate the information they’ve found online, and more research strategies.