Pre-searchJulia Leong

MSE MSD April 2014

Coming up with an essential question

• Is it a Googleable or non Googleable question. e.g. What elements make up water?

• Is there enough safe drinking water in the world?

Need to Know

• What do we need to know?

• In trying to find out what are the elements in water, does a student know what an element is?

Understand the question

• Use synonyms, look up words, and define the question.

• Students rewrite the question

Journal the pre-search

• It might include words, definitions, reflections, and ”Need To Know” questions, 

Defining the learning goal

• The pre-search journey is the goal, not the answer

Defining the answer

• all questions may not have a Googleable answer. Allow them to build knowledge

• the internet does not hold all answers.

• Compare/contrast with Diffen

Different ways to find answers

• data bases do they have access to, what might be in the library, are there are other search engines, are there non-traditional research sources such as interviews, museums, transcripts, the hidden internet, or other possibilities?

Wikipedia

• Reference desk

• Fix the wikipedia site

Wordle Key words

• pre-search strategy - placing an article on a topic into Wordle… perhaps from Wikipedia,

Answer Garden

• Answer Garden

Mind map

• https://www.text2mindmap.com

• http://www.instagrok.com

• fishbone

• http://rwtinteractives.ncte.org/view_interactive.aspx?id=127

Research Underground city• 1. Show students photos of different cities. 2.Develop

an essential question you are going to research

• 3. Wikipedia underground cities. Copy and paste description into wordle.net. How does that help you to think about your subject differently.

• 4. Look at the bottom of the wikipedia page. Compare/contrast 2 different categories of underground cities. diffen.com

• 5.Re-write your question