Even our youngest students can be engaged in researching topics of interest on the internet. The stigma of ‘digital natives’ rears its ugly head (once again!) as a massive disservice to our kids. Although our students might reign supreme on YouTube and Minecraft, it doesn’t mean they have the innate research skills that will have them breaking earth-shattering headlines by lunchtime. 

As with any new skill, students need to observe teachers modeling how to research. This might include:

• brainstorming questions around a topic
• listing key terms or search phrases that would filter to the correct information
• evaluating and vetting websites
• how to curate resources and collect notes

 With so many skills involved in researching, make sure to take your time and help students build skills. Unleashing a class onto 'the Googles' to scour for information could be ineffective, frustrating, and possibly even disastrous.

Over the years, I’ve collected a few little tips and tricks that might be helpful in this process.

• Use a curation tool for your students. The internet is full of information. And although we should teach our students how to evaluate and curate their own resources, it is highly beneficial for students to have a list of resources the teacher has vetted for them. A great tool for this is Wakelet. It creates a visual board of resources that is easy to navigate. Even a list of resources on a Google Doc will help your students get started. For an even better experience, model for your students how and why you chose a few of those resources.
• So, you want them to use a search engine. There are some ‘kid-safe’ search engines out there, but don’t trust them with your life. Always have a plan in place for students if they come across content that makes them feel uncomfortable or unsafe. ALWAYS. Be proactive, not reactive. Make sure parents are aware of this plan too. It will prove to be worth its weight in gold. Just trust me on this one.
• Consider the reading level of your students. There might be a huge amount of information out there on the topic, but does the material match your students’ reading levels? Using a free tool like Rewordify can help simplify the complexity of the text, but it’s not perfect and shouldn’t be used to completely solve the problem of unsuitable reading materials. Other tools such as Tween Tribune, Newsela, ReadWorks, and GWAEA’s Online Resources, such as BritannicaOnline, allow students and teachers to choose from a range of reading levels. 
• Listening comprehension is usually higher than reading comprehension. Mobile devices usually have a text-to-speech accessibility feature built-in (iPad or Android), but other devices might need a little boost. Chrome extensions like Announcify and Select and Speak let students listen to the text. Both these extensions have a less robot-like voice and have proven to work pretty well for me. Yet again, see GWAEA’s Online Resources, Unite for Literacy, or Wonderopolis for built-in text-to-speech features.
• Take away the clutter. Websites can be distracting and busy. Help students remove some of the visual noise by using Safari’s Reader View on the iPad or by installing the Chrome Extension Reader View or Mercury Reader. Both of these do a great job of cleaning up and isolating the text to help all readers focus on the task at hand.
• Ask your teacher librarian for help. The end. ​

Researching is a skill that students will circle back to time and time again throughout their life. It’s much like riding a bike. It brings a certain amount of freedom, but can also end in a skinned knee. It is not an innate skill. It needs to be modeled, taught, supported, and revisited many times during the year. But by building solid foundational skills, researching is one of the greatest skills you will ever give your students.


~Mindy Cairney

1. Concept maps are NOT graphic organizers. Instead, it is the process of organizing thoughts and key ideas.
2. Concept mapping is a scaffolded process facilitated by the teacher. Teachers help students identify the relationship between key terms by asking probing questions and providing language stems.
3. ​It is crucial to honor student voice and choice when concept mapping to support personal visualization of the connected concepts.

​~Gina Rogers
~Mindy Cairney

Although you might not find me on Twitter quite like you used to, I feel very strongly about how important it is to continue to share ideas with other educators, which led Jonathan and I down the road to podcasting. It allows us to share all of the great things Grant Wood AEA school districts are doing to provide the best learning environment for our students. Because of this experience, we’ve been able to meet and chat with so many amazing educators that also share new ideas with us, which we then pass onto you.
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Technology has truly changed the way we communicate with one another. And although there’s nothing that trumps a face-to-face chat, our conversations can expand around the world with the tap of a button.

We would like to challenge you to take this month to try something new. Perhaps connect with someone outside your inner circle or share something a little differently with the parents of your students. We would love to hear about it!

~Mindy Cairney
Digital Learning Consultant
​GWAEA

Communication is increasingly important in education. It’s one of those crucial life skills that students will use long after they have finished with school. Yet, communication isn’t a new idea in education. We’ve been teaching this for years, but as Jeff Utecht noted, technology has changed how we communicate, and it will continue to do so as it evolves. The tools, etiquette and means we use to communicate today are a lot different from those that we used even 10 years ago. In this blog post I am going to take a look at some ideas to help you explore the notion of communication in the classroom and what that looks like for today’s students.

The P21 framework suggests students need to be communicating to inform, instruct, motivate and persuade, and that they should this using oral, written and non-verbal mediums. So what does that look like in the age of technology that we live in? Here are some ideas for the kinds of mediums you could explore. It’s not an exhaustive list, but I think it includes some of the more popular communication channels that students are engaging in today. They include:

• Email or texting
• Blogging, journalling, and online writing
• Podcasting
• Video production, video conferencing, or vlogging
• Social Media
• Graphic design
• Multiplayer games

This inevitably raises the question, how can we help model and give students a safe environment to explore these kinds of experiences? Step one could be to practice with peers. When you are introducing one of these mediums to students, let them practice on each other before you go public on the web. Have a conversation about what is appropriate to be shared privately, versus what should be shared publicly, and if you need ideas for what that looks like, check out some of the modules from Common Sense Media’s Digital Citizenship Curriculum because if you haven't considered this before, communication has strong ties to digital citizenship.

There are lots of great edtech tools to support communication in these kinds of mediums. In fact, many of the best communication tools are actually creative tools, because when we create something, more often than not, it is to communicate a message, tell our story, or share our thinking in a new way. Blogging, podcasting, video production, and graphic design are all creative endeavours, but they are also almost exclusively about communicating an idea or a message.

So, if you find a great creative communication platform to use with students, (e.g. Flipgrid, Twitter, Anchor, Canva, YouTube, Adobe Spark, etc.), then by all means use it, but don’t get too attached. Anyone who has been a teacher for any length of time is well aware that tools come and go. In fact, the way we communicate with each other today has changed over the years precisely because tools have come and gone.

Instead, teach the skill of communication. Teach students the value of communicating effectively, clearly, concisely, accurately, and politely. Teach them how to be empathetic, to be culturally aware, and to communicate with a purpose. If you teach communication in this way, the tool you use is just the vehicle that helps students share their story. If you teach communication, and not the tools, your students will become esteemed global citizens who are better prepared to succeed in a technology infused global workplace.

Jonathan Wylie | Digital Learning Consultant | Grant Wood AEA | @jonathanwylie