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Welcome to my sixth academic blog,
This week I summarized the ISTE standards collectively as follows:
Educators take on leadership roles in their schools and collaborate with colleagues to increase achievement through technology; fostering innovative problem solving and product construction.
As part of my technological implementation assignment, I was tasked with researching different academic search engines that I can use in my pedagogical studies. I identified four academic search engines that I found are the most suitable for my career goals. The following include: Google Scholar, Archive.org, ERIC, and Newsela.
Google Scholar
Beginning with Google Scholar, this search engine markets itself as a simple way to search for scholarly literature ([Google Scholar about page], n.d.). What I love about Google Scholar is that you can search almost anything including scholarly articles, books, and abstracts. Most importantly, documents are ranked and Google Scholar keeps track of how many times the article has been cited in other research. I personally use Google Scholar for my academic research needs. Recently, I found a variety of academic research articles to support my research on the constructivist theory of learning for my Integrative Model of learning research paper and presentation. Google Scholar was a life saver because when I could not find relevant research and information using our UHCL libraries' research database, I was able to use Google Scholar to find the research that I needed. One Google Scholar feature that I have found extremely useful and convenient for me during the research phase, is the library feature. With the library feature in Google Scholar, I am able to save the articles that I need, organize them, and easily access them ([Google Scholar about page], n.d.). Most importantly, Google Scholar gives you a basic citation for the article that you can perfect as needed. Thus, Google Scholar will continue to be my top choice for academic research.
Internet Archive/ Archive.org
The next search engine that I find useful is Archive.org. According to the [Internet Archive homepage] (n.d.), Internet Archive offers users millions of web pages, books, audio recordings, videos, and images. Internet Archive's mission is to provide everyone with equitable access to information. Which means that teachers can use this website to provide students with learning resources they wouldn't otherwise have access to. My favorite feature of Internet Archive is its audio archive, which offers hundreds audio recordings or audiobooks that students and teachers can access to enhance and differentiate the learning process. For example, I searched "Texas History" in the archive search bar and a "David Crocket -Scout" audiobook popped up. This audiobook details the story of Famous Alamo hero, David Crocket from his early years to his tragic death in the Battle of the Alamo. I think this is an excellent way for students to learn about important historical figures in early Texas History; using free audiobooks. Audiobooks are an excellent way to differentiate the learning process for students, especially for students with dyslexia or other learning disabilities. The neat thing about Archive.org is that it allows you to embed the audiobooks in your website using an HTML code. Thus, teachers can facilitate the introduction and implementation of the resource for students, without them having to go to the actual website to access the recordings. For instance, I used One Note ClassNotebook in my classroom. Prior to this research I had never considered using audiobooks as part of the instructional process. Moving forward I will add the audiobook link into students' individual One Note Notebooks, for easier and more structured organized access to the audiobook learning materials found from Archive.org. I also found a another great audiobook about the Texas frontier. It is called "Six Years with the Texas Rangers." The audiobook gives a real account from a Texas Ranger who narrates his life and all his experiences out on the Texas frontier. This is an equally excellent resource because it exposes students to real accounts or primary sources that they can use to learn about the past. Primary source analysis is an important history standard that students need to engage with, and having access to them through audiobook format makes this process even more engaging. A funny story; my previous schools' mascot was the Texas Rangers. I think this would have been a great audiobook to teach my students about the origin of the Texas Rangers and why we chose it as a mascot. Thus, I have chosen Internet Archive for the diverse resources it offers such as articles and audio recordings that can be used for both research and instructional purposes. Most importantly I have chosen it because I am able to embed resources into my website or LMS platforms.
Check out the "David Crocket - Scout" Audiobook - Chapter 23 - The Mexicans Charge in the Battle of the Alamo
Check out "Six Years with the Texas Rangers" Audiobook Chapter 2 - The Texas Rangers
ERIC
Check out this cool widget available at https://eric.ed.gov/?widget
My next academic research platform of choice is ERIC. ERIC stands for Educational Resources Information Center. The greatest thing about ERIC is that it offers education related literature for researchers and educators a like (Tsai, 2023). According to Tsai (2023), the U.S Department of Education sponsors this research platform. Thus, ERIC is platform that teachers and researchers can trust. ERIC offers a variety of articles, reports, conference papers, and other resources about education. Most importantly it is free. I really like ERIC because it offers articles that are geared towards educators. For example, as part of my horizon reading manuscript, I wanted to learn more about ChatGPT in education. I wanted to find useful ways to integrate ChatGPT in my pedagogical studies. I wanted my search to be geared towards education. I chose to search up "ChatGPT"on ERIC without any emphasis on education, and I immediately received dozens of search results about ChatGPT specifically for education. Hence, I did not have to emphasize "ChatGPT for education" in the search bar. In other words, I did not have to scroll endlessly in order to find articles on ChatGPT regarding education. ERIC automatically pulled up all of their search results on ChatGPT regarding education, because education is the nature of ERIC. I realize now that ERIC would have been a great academic research platform that I could have used for my previous research paper. When I searched "Integrative Model" in the ERIC search bar, I received dozens of academic articles on the Integrative Model of Teaching. For my research paper however, I used Google Scholar, but I struggled finding research on the Integrative Model specifically. I had to narrow my search options to the constructivist learning theory, because the Integrative Model falls under this learning theory branch. I just couldn't find any relevant research on the Integrative Model specifically simply through Google Scholar. I now realize that I could have used ERIC to find more specific research on the Integrative Model because it falls under education. This would have saved me a lot of time! Thus, if you are a fellow educator or educational researcher, I recommend researching articles from ERIC first, and then using other search engines accordingly. I wish I knew about ERIC sooner! I will incorporate ERIC as my main research engine to research everything education.
Check out my podcast on the Integrative Model of Teaching
Newsela
Lastly, I chose Newsela, a child-friendly search engine and teacher site option. According to [Newsela About page] (n.d.), the founders designed this engaging platform to offer news or news articles that align with state learning standards, and they offer five different reading levels to accommodate learners. The news articles that Newslea offers are connected with the real world, thus they expose students to current events and encourages them to engage in reading and analysis. Newsela also offers quizzes and writing prompts to help students increase their analytical skills. ELA, Social Studies and Science teachers will find content specific readings or resources to support teaching standards ([Newsela About page], n.d.). Most importantly they offer a formative assessment option to help teachers assess student learning. I highly recommend Newslea. I personally used it in my classroom so that my students would engage with secondary sources or news articles. Newsela was particularly helpful during my lesson planning because I was able to search the different news articles that aligned with the standard I would be teaching. I wanted my students to be able to annotate and read sources to gain information. As a teacher, I wanted to give students opportunities to analyze content and come up with generalizations or conclusions about their learning. Thus, Newslea became a great option that I used to support not just students reading and writing skills, but also their metacognitive skills. Indeed, using the writing prompt option, I fostered my students' critical thinking skills by prompting students to analyze content and think beyond their own frame of reference. I would also use Newslea to differentiate the learning process for my students. For instance, I had a lot of emergent bilingual or ESL students in my classroom. Most of them were level 1 or 2 in reading and writing comprehension. With Newsela I was able to differentiate the reading level or difficulty level based on students' English proficiency levels. Thus, this allowed all my students to engage with content, without feeling like they could not equally participate in reading activities. Additionally, Newsela allowed me to assess student learning through the quizzes and the automatic grading feature. Newsela definitely cut down on the amount of time it took for me to both design instruction and grade assignments. Hence, I will continue to use Newslea in my instructional planning and to differentiate and accommodate the learning process for students.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this week I summarized the ISTE standards collectively as follows: Educators take on leadership roles in their schools and collaborate with colleagues to increase student achievement through technology; fostering innovative problem solving and product construction. This week I explored different academic search engines that I can incorporate in my pedagogy and in my future role as a reading and teacher specialist. I analyzed Google Scholar, Archive.org, ERIC, and Newsela. As a prospective teacher specialist, I will be tasked with supporting my colleagues with best teaching practices and ongoing professional development. These different search engines offer the perfect avenue to acquire scholarly peer reviewed articles and other resources that I can use to gain and distribute knowledge. I will most certainly use the audiobook feature offered by Archive.org to engage students digitally and help differentiate and accommodate the instructional process. Thus, these different search engines will help me acquire the information that I need in my leadership role to support reading and social studies teachers in the classroom and help increase student achievement through technology.
Sincerely,
Ana
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| Texas Ranger School Mascot |
Resources:
[Internet Archive Homepage]. (n.d.). Internet Archive. https://archive.org/
[Google Scholar About Page]. (n.d.). Google Scholar. https://scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/about.html
[Newsela About page].(n.d.). Newsela. https://newsela.com/about/company/
[ERIC Homepage search engine].(n.d.).ERIC. https://eric.ed.gov/?
Tsai, Sj. (2023, November 27). 28 best academic search engines that make your research easier. SCIJOURNAL. https://www.scijournal.org/articles/academic-search-engines
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