Citing Sources WITHIN your paper

Citing sources within your paper can be confusing. Below is a link to The Owl at Purdue which shows a sample MLA formatted paper, complete with explanatory notes. Follow this sample and you'll have no problem!

SAMPLE MLA STYLE PAPER CLICK HERE

How To Write a Thesis Statement

click here for a 4 minute video on the definition of thesis statements.

Click here for help on setting up your gmail account.

Writing conclusions

Click here for a three minute video about how to write a good conclusion.

Is Your Source Reliable?

Purdue University's The Owl has a plethora of information about writing. The link below will take you to their site where there are questions to ask about sources. NOT ALL sources you find for your research paper will be credible or reliable, thus making your paper unreliable. Take the time to check out your sources.

CLICK BELOW:
Purdue University Writing Help

How to Research, step by step

This short (2 minute) video is geared towards college students, but very applicable for middle school and high school students. There's some helpful information here!

This 9 minute video is from The Library of Congress. I posted it for parents and teachers. It discusses why 21st century learning matters. It is for parents and teachers. It talks about how students and teachers need to change their way of thinking.

Students will need to use these 21st century skills when they research for Washington DC

Click here for a 3 minute video called Educaction Today and Tomorrow. You will see how education has changed to meet the needs of 21st century skills.

Lying, Cheating, Stealing, PLAGIARISM!

Here is a very funny video remniscent of the funny identity theft commercials. The videos and commercials are funny, but obviously plagiarism is not. We'll be talking about this and how to avoid it.

MLA formatting part 2

Part 2 of MLA formatting in Word. 7 minute video

Click Here for a great PPT presentation on Noodle Tools. This presentation includes videos about:

• how to create an account using Noodle Tools
• how to create a list using Noodle Tools
• how to create a Works Cited page using Noodle Tools

This presentation also includes instructions about electronic notecards.

MLA formatting

Here is a 6 minute video about how to set up your computer for MLA format.

Works Cited

Click here for a 5 minute video about how to make a Works Cited.

Click here for a great link with the "do's and don'ts" for your thesis, intro, body, and conclusion

Noodle Bib/Works Cited

How do I teach students to make a Works Cited page Using NoodleBib? Click here to view a presentation about how to make a works cited page using NoodleBib

What is Noodle Tools

Click here for an introduction to Noodle Tools?

Creating Thesis Statements

How to make an outline

click here for a short video about how to write an outline

Writing a Good Introduction

Click here for a great "how to" of a great introduction

Paraphrasing without Pain

Here is an excellent link from Purdue University on how to paraphrase. Try the practice exercises to see how you do!

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/619/01/

Electronic Index Cards

See the presentation below for using e-notecards for your research paper:

Refining A Thesis Statement

Pat the professor

This teacher gives many suggestions for grammar, writing techniques, and best practices for teaching. click here for all his videos.

A written conclusion

Here is a written example of a conclusion. The video is one minute long

Word 2007 tricks

Click here for tricks in 2007 Word: including (8 minutes):

• how to make the computer print what you say (called Word Speak)
• hyperlinks
• auto correct
• shortcuts using "Word Scrap"
• theme
• "drop cap"
• tricks with the backspace key.
• inserting a hyperlink

2007 Word formatting:headers and footers

click here for more formating of headers and footers

Word 2007:creating a header and footer

Click here to watch a 7 minute video about creating headers and footers in a research paper.

Word 2007 sections, page breaks,

This is a 7 minute video about using Word 2007 to type research papers.

2007 Word:creating page numbers

Click here for a three minute video about how to format Word for page numbering.

2007 Word formatting

Click here to learn how to format research paper with 2007 Word. Video is almost 6 minutes long.

Google Image Search

Here is how to use google image search. Students will be able to make a movie using this feature.

How can teachers/students use Google Maps?

Here is a 5 minute lesson on google maps.

How to Use Teacher Tube

TeacherTube has videos, lesson plans, pictures, and documents to use with your students. Watch this video to see how easy it is to use. Its great!

More Than Just Driving Directions...

I was commenting to a friend the other day that I didn't know how we managed to get anywhere before the internet and online directions. Of course we had paper maps but they didn't often include street details. Twenty years ago I couldn't have found that garage sale on the east side! ;)

But Google Maps is more than just a map with driving directions. In many ways using google maps is like a virtual field trip. Sometimes when google Earth is too global (no pun intended) google maps can be more relevant depending on the information one needs. For our Washington D.C. research project google maps can give an aerial view of the monuments, buildings, and scenery. In additon, it can also give a street view so students can get a better visual of the area. Below is a video on google maps.

Google Docs

I could do an entire blog just on google docs. In fact, there IS an entire blog devoted to google docs! What exactly is google docs? watch the video below from YouTube which explains it very simply.



Idealy, I would love to have all students submit their research papers via google docs this year. This might be a stretch, so perhaps having a goal of having a large group of students submit this way would be more feasible. Miss Rini and I have talked about the advantages of this by having students use the available technology, it's a "greener" option, etc. I know our technology department is working on getting gmail accounts for our students, so this will help.

Another big advantage of using google docs is collaboration both for teachers and students. Students can peer edit each others' papers and teachers can also provide quicker feedback.

I envision google docs to be the wave of the future and I'm looking forward to incorporating it more and more into my teaching.

Staying Organized with Google Calendar

My husband suggested we use google calendar about six months ago when I could never remember his travel schedule. We shared a calendar so I would know when he was out of town and he would know when I had a meeting in the evening. It became quite handy. I never even thought about using it for school. Until now. Several times throughout the school year I print out a Word document calendar for various units for my students. My students like being able to see what's coming up for the week and month.

I am very much a visual learner. In fact, I've never been able to use a day planner since I really NEED to see the entire month at once. I think many students like this too.

Below is a sample google calendar. It's such a useful tool for everyone. Google is also updating features and I am planning on experimenting with this tool this year.

Google Chrome Home Page

If you don't have Chrome as your search engine, you might want to change that! It is fast, powerful and easy to use.

Definition of Google Custom Search

What is a custom search?

In a nutshell, here's what Google Custom Search does:
You put a group of websites in a pot, and tell Google to search just those websites, just like you would search normally, using key words, etc.
Here's how Google puts it on their Custom Search page:

• Include one website, multiple websites, or specific webpages
• Host the search box and results on your own website
• Customize the colors and branding to match your existing webpages

Custom Search 2

Google Custom Search 3

If the first video didn't convince you to use google custom search, maybe this one will!

DEEELICIOUS!

Are you tired of students saying that they keep coming up with the same research material for their projects? or Do you want to set up a way students can share their links they come up with?

Watch this DELICIOUS video and see how you can change the way they are sharing in the classroom.

How to Create A Custom Search for Students

Here is a blog about developing a custom search

Research From The Olden Days

This was the old way of doing research and writing, papers! But check out the guys face! Our kids might be feeling like this! Hopefully technology will change their ways of collecting information.

Hopefully we can use this to share ideas about our research project.

What is Picasa?