As an inquiry based school, Anastasis students (and teachers) spend a LOT of time researching. Our students essentially build their own living curriculum as they follow a line of inquiry. Below are my very favorite research tools for students.
Research platforms:
1. Kiddle– This is a kid-friendly, Google Safe powered search engine. What I appreciate about Kiddle is the ease of use for younger learners. Kiddle searches safe sites that were written FOR kids. Kiddle editors hand choose sites that deliver content that is age-appropriate and written in easy to understand language. Best of all, Kiddle’s image and video searches brings about the results you would expect it to for kids. When a student innocently types in “kitten” looking for cute pictures to add to a presentation, they get actual pictures of the feline variety rather than the scantily dressed woman named “Kitten.” So, winning!
The downside to Kiddle: if you have older students doing research on social justice issues, “sex trafficking statistics in America,” they will get an “Oops” message for questionable language. It might not be robust enough as a research tool for jr. high and high school students depending on the issues being explored.
2. Boolify– The best thing about this Google Safe powered search engine is the way it teaches learners how to correctly use a search engine and how to refine their searches. Boolify teaches this skill by asking them to use keywords and Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) in a search to refine results using a drag/drop interface. Students drag elements and follow prompts to learn how to correctly complete a search to get the best possible results.
3. Wolfram Alpha– This is not really a search engine, but more of a computational knowledge engine. It is a fantastic tool for comparing information (think people in history, weather in different parts of world, etc), exploring mathematics, units and measures, data/statistical information, science, geography, technology…truly you should just go play with this knowledge computational engine because my description isn’t doing justice to the cool things it does! This is a powerful addition to inquiry. My favorite feature is the ability to compare things side by side. The nature of inquiry often has students exploring relationships between events, people, places, etc., Wolfram makes it really easy to do this!
4. Creative Commons– This is a great place to search for images, videos, sounds that are listed under the Creative Commons license that lets learners find content they can share, reuse, and mix into something new. The caution I would add here for kids: Anyone can list content under the Creative Commons license and depending on the search, some questionable material may pop up. This one is best used with supervision! Creative Commons is a great place to start a conversation about licensing and using content created by others.
Resources to help learners work through research independently
5. Michael Friermood who writes The Thinker Builder has a great graphic organizer to help learners work toward independence in their research. You can find it HERE.
6. Create a culture of thinking by giving your learners the tools to help them through a variety of thinking routines. This is an awesome resource when students hit a wall with a “closed” inquiry question (one that is too narrow and has one answer). It is equally useful when students aren’t sure how they can expand their research. These thinking routines will help them “open” questions and think from new vantage points and angles that may set them off down a path of new or expanded inquiry.
Tracy Ann Clark created this fun-to-use, and great resource for helping learners explore these thinking routines…because who doesn’t love a cootie catcher?! Find it HERE.
7. Anatomy of a Google Search- this PDF helps learners understand the how and why behind a search.
Download the PDF HERE.
8. Google Modifiers cheat sheet- this is a good one to explore with students and then hang on the wall as a reminder!
Download the PDF HERE.
Want to learn more about how we run our inquiry powered k-8 classrooms at Anastasis? Join us for our conference in February! 5Sigma Education Conference
I think Kidtopia for elementary students is a much better alternative to Kiddle. The same people also created Infotopia for middle and Infotrek for middle/high school. We recently did a project with 8th grade students on astronomy and challenged them to only use sites found via Infotrek. They loved the results when they compared them to a regular Google search!
This is a really useful list of resources! Thank you very much for sharing it.
As a middle school science teacher, I have my students realize that there is always the aspect of compare and/or contrast to the topic at hand. The wed site, Wolfram Alpha, looks to be a good start for information for further inquiry. I would agree with being able to see the comparisons or contrasts next to each other as a benefit.
Thank you for the information on how my students can safely search the internet. Being a second grade teacher, having my students search the internet makes me very nervous! In the past, I always have my students write “for kids” at the end of all their searches in Google. However, you always have one or two kids that forget to write “for kids” after their searches. I have heard of Kiddle before, but have not taken the time to explore how to use it. Thank you for sharing about Kiddle and other sights to have my students safely search the internet. I will definitely use them in my class!
Well this would work great for High School classes that don’t do research about crime, violence, and sex. I can see my students using this in my Spanish class.