Education Tapestry - Sharon Jones

Saturday, February 20, 2010

BP12_2010023_OneMinuteMessage#2

My Web 2.0 tool of choice for this week is the Mendeley Desktop, located at Mendeley.com. I have found that my middle school students are sadly lacking in organizational skills. This tool not only helps them organize their material until needed, but also teaches them strategies of organization which can be applied to other areas. I've chosen to use the first Web 2.0 tool I reviewed (GoAnimate.com) to create this entry. Enjoy.

GoAnimate.com: Students' first research paper by spinster2

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!

Friday, February 19, 2010

BP11_2010023_Comments for Russ's blog

My comments on Russ's post can be seen here:

http://russellmgaspard.blogspot.com/2010/02/bp82010022oneminutemessage1.html?showComment=1266638899099_AIe9_BGxEIG4DGy-xiWlJ1kW7kY48arfn6C3kehN41zYWVHXAZxhpVGZ6j_W10CmId0FeF4SaB66QQXroC0FtTfTvEEFn_pBK0XbZ5e4EODpdkNYOomBKmycOK7AytuC_xrSq1606Ty4g-ZbvZ_Tee9R4FMtHVlVsqDNrXYDrqcLvic8KDaH2B7ZqRxasJQ3q5maQeI9iMpj6kVEmfkd77WN_La_O1hAWSbqmoFlMXRYUoT4LAijaJI#c388984221095143585

Thursday, February 18, 2010

BP10_2010023_Comments to JHarvey blog

Follow this link for my comments on John's blog:

http://jhspiritofmedia.blogspot.com/2010/02/bp9web20t3-youtego.html

BP9_2010023_Web2.0_T3Mendeley

I've decided to go in a somewhat different direction this week as I continue to research Web 2.0 tools. My past research has centered around tools for my students to use in the classroom. I decided to look this week at tools I can use as a student. In this pursuit I've discovered Mendeley.com. This site is a true 2.0 tool for serious students involved in research. Mendeley is a free tool for organizing your research materials. It works across all major platforms, and includes an importer button for your tool bar. Mendeley allows you to import your research materials in a number of ways. The importer can save abstracts, keywords, and citations from a number of sites including Ebsco. In addition, you can drag and drop your PDFs into the Mendeley desktop. The program then extracts the document details, including keywords and references. Your resources are now available to you from any computer by simply logging on to Mendeley.

Your research materials can then be organized into collections. This enables you to work on multiple research projects at one time, or to organize your files by sub-topics for your primary project. Articles can be filtered by publication, author or keywords.

I currently teach middle school students an introductory course on writing a research paper in collaboration with the social studies teacher. At this age, the emphasis is on process and the number of sources required is quite limited, however the statistics view in Mendeley can definitely benefit students as they are learning to review the available literature. Viewing the number of times the various articles have been accessed can assist the students in selecting articles to review. The simple organizational tools will help the students develop their own organizational hierarchy, thereby improving the flow of their writing.

The final, and to my mind, most exciting attribute of Mendeley is the ability to share collections. For my purposes, I can invite my critical friends to review the materials I am considering and make recommendations. The broader implication is the ability for colleagues to collaborate even if they are not in close proximity. Through shared collections, the amount of material reviewed can grow exponentially. Within my class, there are usually several students working on the same topic. The ability to share collections should improve the depth and understanding the students derive from their research. Each student will still be responsible for interpreting the data and creating their own paper.