Narrowing the research focus

On the AASL Forum list, Patricia writes:

...there are many different components to the research process.

I am planning on breaking things down into tiny little bits for my students and first I need to teach my students how to narrow down their research topics - topics like global warming and water pollution, which yielded thousands of results in the databases we've used.

Does anyone have a lesson plan on how to narrow down a topic? Or ideas for teaching how to narrow down a topic?

As a school librarian, "narrowing the focus" was always my opportunity to focus on making the research releveant. And by relevant, I asked students how they could make the question they were try to answer topical/timely, personal, or local.

In my column "It's Personal," I wrote:

The lesson I learned as a librarian was that it’s possible and useful to blend a student’s personal interests with academic standards. Making a subject relevant because it is personal, local, or topical was critical if I wanted a learner who did more than just go through the motions.

When it came to helping my library-using students find a book or magazine to read, I had always “personalized” the effort. “Oh, that’s right, you like science fiction, don’t you? Here’s a new one that just came in. Read it and let me know what you think.”  

Personalizing the educational experience has a number of benefits:

• Hooking kids through personal interests increases the likelihood of them demonstrating
  other positive dispositions. Grit. Self-teaching. Curiosity. If what you are learning has
   meaning, you’re more likely to stick with it.
• School projects that have the greatest chance of success will be those that help students
  solve personal or personally interesting problems. Learning to do an effective Internet search
   just might be worth the time and effort if the result may be locating materials that are actually
  useful or interesting.
• Creativity is the by-product of finding solutions to personal problems. It was a person - an
   inventor, an author, a technology guru - solving personal problems in a unique way that results
  in new products.
• Children read more and at a higher level when the material they read is something of interest.
  Ever have a child who couldn’t sound out “cat” or “dog” in the basal reader, but could read
  “differential” or “transmission” just fine in Hot Rod magazine? 
• Teachers will need to provide the “why is this important” link in all their lessons.We all pay more
  attention when we believe what the speaker’s topic has value to us personally. As a parent, I too
  often heard the refrain, ‘Why do we have to know this stuff anyway?” from kids. And not having a
  better answer than “It’ll be on a test you need to pass to get into college” was discouraging.

I'm not sure there is a lesson plan that can be used with an entire class that will help students make a topic more relevant. I always found one-on-one conversations to be most effective. And after a few years of being asked to think "personal" about research, it became natural.

Short short stories

If we approach the written word primarily through search-and-seizure rather than sustained encounter-and-contemplation, we risk losing a critical element of what it means to be an educated, literate society. Naomi Baron, 2005

Each day, 365 tomorrows publishes a science fiction short story. And by short, I mean really short. One can read it in just a minute or two.

Is this the future of literature? Prose and haiku somehow blending to create literary snippets for those of us who are too pressed for time to read whole short stories, let alone novels? Is this yet another symptom of literacy's death spiral?

I will confess that I have rather liked some of the 365 tomorrows offerings. I'm not giving up George RR Martin's tomes of mischief and mayhem, but these short forms are fun.

Perhaps literacy doesn't have a dark future. Only a different one.

See also Libraries for a Postliterate Society

BFTP: 7 Steps to keeping your tech sanity

Janice Robertson left an interesting comment on the blog post about My TOC, the Table of Contents for The Classroom Teacher's Technology Suvivial Guide.  She wrote:

Somewhere in there, do you have a section that addresses how not to get overwhelmed with the flood of tools and information that is out there? I find that many of the new technology users are initially protected from inundation because they have little or no knowledge of the vastness of the possibilities and how those choices and info bits can eat up an entire lifetime, but then, once you open the gate for them... they can get so consumed in "learning" that they actually end up accomplishing nothing of action because they don't know where to start. I hope your book includes some solid advice on surviving the technology tsunami.

OK. Here are a few ideas...

If you are a classroom teacher who wants to take advantage of powerful technologies in both your classroom and for other professional tasks but still have time to talk to your own family, read a book or even get some sleep, consider the following strategies...

1. Start with the problem, not the tool. Rather than scan the flood of "new and recommended" programs, apps and websites for programs that look useful, start with two or three challenges you have in your work life. Do you have a unit that doesn't engage your students? Are you having a problem getting a project done with your curriculum team? Is it frustrating keeping files current among the multiple devices you use? What might help meet the objectives of your PLC? Scan for tools that help solve real problems.
2. Be selective about where you get your recommendations. Let's face it, there are folks who get excited about anything that is new, shiny, and beeps. For those who want to make trying out new technology resources their avocation and forgo any attempt at normalcy, that's great. But I would select two or three trusted sources of new programs. These sources might be a websites or blogs, your librarian or tech integration specialist, or a fellow teacher. But let somebody else do a pre-screening of the new stuff.
3. Try just one new tool at a time. Trying to learn too many programs can be as destructive to your professional life as ignoring technology completely. Pick one interesting resource and use it for a month. Then try another one. Nobody has to be the master of every technology available.
4. One in, one out. When I buy a new pair of shoes, I throw an old pair away. (This drives some people nuts.) When I start to read a new blog, I unsubscribe from an old blog. If you create an online webpage for your parents, stop doing the printed one. Figuring out what to stop doing is probably the hardest, but most important thing you need to do to stay sane.
5. Don't try to fix that which is not broken. If you are happy with your webbrowser, your online bookmarking site, your cloud photo storage space, your blogging software, your e-mail system, stay with them. Change for the sake of change is unproductive.
6. Weigh the time/benefit ratio. Evaluate the new resource as objectively as possible. Will taking two hours to learn this program well either save me more than two hours in time in the immediate future or will it help me reach students who could not be reached before? Let's face it, some programs are too complex, too time-intensive to learn to ever offer a decent payback. Evaluate.
7. Give back and become part of a community of learners. Be your school's guru on one helpful tool. Join a group of other technology learning educators either F2F or online. Make learning new technologies social and make friends. After all, misery does love company.

I also encourage you to read Jeff Utecht's Stages of PLN (Personal Learning Network) Adoption. Reach for the Balance end of the curve.

Your insanity may be temporary.

I'd love to hear your sanity keeping strategies. How do you, personally, survive a "technology tsunami" without dangerously turning your back on the wave?

Original post January 7, 2011