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Two Writing Teachers.
Yesterday was a great day of teaching for me. I wrote about Poetry Rocks HERE.
Earlier in the day, I worked with a second grade class which gave me an AHA moment. We start the school off using the different electronic devices with mostly the third through fifth grade crowd. Now in the latter half of the school year, first and second grade are also using the devices. This makes for a busy library as we house a variety of electronic carts.
Since February, and second grade teacher and I have been co-teaching with the computers. Getting the students to log on with the almost impossibly long login (maccujon000@student.evergrenps.org is an example) has been challenging. But yesterday, I saw improvement.
Second grade is currently working on writing animal reports. So yesterday we focused on looking up animals through using the World Book Online database. And this is where my aha took place.
Earlier in the year, I had a conversation with fifth graders who thought Google was the best for research. This led into a conversation about the difference between search engines and data bases.
So yesterday as second graders were getting onto the World Book for the first time, I used the lesson to talk about the difference between Google and World Book. Now why haven’t I thought of teaching this lesson earlier in the grade levels? Like before bad habits are formed.
And as I was talking, I also realized that an info graph might be a useful visual for all. Even the teacher was unaware of the difference.
I had a bonus in that forty-five minute time in that a student was looking up prairie dogs. They discovered that one source said the prairie dogs were threatened and another said it wasn’t concern. It was such a great discussion on how sometimes we need to come to our own conclusions based on our research.
Next up? I will be teaching about how to site their sources.
Jone Rush MacCulloch 
Yes, really, really important for students (and everyone) to learn about finding good (primary) resources and drawing one’s own conclusion.
We should keep doing this through adulthood. Wow — something I need to revisit with my middle schoolers past Expository and the Research Unit. Thank you!
There are so many lessons we need to teach when we use technology. I feel like more and more are always popping up. Good luck!
Really interesting about the research! I’ll admit I’m in the Google habit! I would love to know more!
I use Google all the time. What is important to teach students is how to research academically and for school. Google is great on a personal level.
I hadn’t really thought that much about the search engines of preference for our students. Your post was an a-ha for me!! Thanks!