Encouraging the students to use reliable websites is an ongoing challenge. The students simply want to ‘google’ the information they are seeking. Our district has purchased a number of site licenses for online resources. I spend a number of lessons with intermediate groups outlining the ways to navigate the different online resources. We even have at home access for these sites for the students. For example the district has a site license for World Book Online in both French and English. Educating the teachers regarding the value of these sites is ongoing. Our district has had the licenses for a number of years yet I always come across teachers who are not aware of them.
In addition to encouraging use of the district online sites I do mini-lessons with grade groups explaining the meaning of the URL’s in web addresses. As I do the mini-lesson I explain the importance of using reputable sites.
Another way to encourage the students to use credible web sites would be to work with the teachers to create Delicious or Diego accounts. The teachers could the pre-search the sites for the students.
As is the focus of our lesson, a great way to encourage the use of credible sites would be through the library home page. I plan to link the digital resource library I created in Assignment 2 to the library home page. As time permits a digital resource library could be created for any of the popular curriculum topics. These digital libraries could be co-created. The teacher teaching the subject could also be responsible for the ongoing checking of links, adding or deleting links.
When I first started thinking about the challenge of working with electronic resources I felt like this was just one more thing to do in my already long list of tasks. However, in the long run the digital resources may be easier to maintain than the print resources. It is a lot easier to incorporate a website on to a webpage compared to cataloguing a print resource.
I believe as students see the benefits of using recommended resources they will become increasingly accustomed to using them.
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