Webbing and Wiggling

Webbing and Wiggling: Searching and Evaluating

I felt a host of emotions transitioning between Webbing to Wiggling. The collecting of all sorts of sites, and materials has been a lot of fun and has sparked further questions. I was most excited to locate some books with Haida information – right here in Muncie Indiana!

I am genuinely getting excited about this project!
In fact, this Haida Project has even haunted my dreams. I s that a good thing? It has become a real hobby for the time being.

Some questions that have come to mind are:

• How many sources are enough? I think 10 good websites, 5-7 books, a couple of museum sites, a person to talk to if possible and images (lots) would be great. So I think yes- I have too many but that is ok for now!
• Do I have a wide enough variety of sources? Yes- I’d love to find a video.
• Have I selected sources that provide information easily translated for a grade four or five student? So far so good! I plan to simplify some of the language to be more considerate of the audience.
  
  So far- I have many pages of sources. Not all will work. I think about 10-15 quality websites are fine. I feel that some of these sites are useful to compare research finds for accuracy. For example I found maps showing the Haida Lands. I compared several to check for commonness. This helped assure me that the clearest map – which I selected, was consistent with researchers of Haida Lands.
  
  I began my search by book marking lots of sites. Now I have been working at sorting them into categories- books, websites, pathfinders, web quests, and images. Within each are I also have a chart in Word that shows the source and what them or question it might best address. From this I can see that I have lots about the Art and Myths of the Haida’s but need to find more on the topic of the family structure. I would like to find more about the female roles of the Haida family.
  
  During the wiggling stage Dr. Lamb states that the student will be “looking for clues, ideas and perspectives.” Pappas and Tepe creators of the Pathways to Knowledge emphasize “Though out this stage searchers reflect on the information they have gathered and construct personal meaning.” My personal meaning is that I can communicate in a general sense to my students the Haida People’s lifestyle. I hope to find authentic sources that are easy to comprehend and convertible to an interesting format. On a more personal base- I really want to understand more about them too. It has always been a topic that interests me. I’d love to know more to better understand the Haida art that has been adorning my walls for some 21 years.
  
  I’d also like to review how to evaluate websites. I have always liked Kathy Schrock’s Guide. She accurately reports, “With the advent of the World Wide Web and the huge amount of information that is contained there, students need to be able to critically evaluate a Web page for authenticity, applicability, authorship, bias, and usability. The ability to critically evaluate information is an important skill in this information age.” I personally have been critically looking at website for years. It is my belief that too many people think if it is in print than it is a reliable source. We as educators need to teach our students to discern what good quality information include. Kathy Schrock has created tools to assist students in evaluating their found information. I like the following sources. http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/evalelem.html This is an example of her information page for elementary children.
  Tomorrow I will share a sample of the charts I am creating on sources. Additionally, I will create a rubric that helps me evaluate sources of information.