Tech Tip: Never Lose A Web Page Or PDF During Research Again (by Using Noodle Tools)

All of us have probably had the experience of having a web page disappear after we visited it. If this happens with a source you need for your research, it can cause an outright panic. Noodle Tools has a new feature that will prevent this problem Through a partnership with iCyte.com,  you can archive, highlight and annotate any web page or pdf file. That way, even if the original disappears, you have your own stored copy.

You will need a Noodle Tools account and a citation to work with if you want to use the iCyte tool. If you need help with the Noodle Tools basics, check with Mr. Bodwell or Mrs. Leahy for more information.

Using iCyte in you Noodle Tools account

1. Find the citation in your Noodle Tools project list that you want to use to create your archived and annotated page. Click the Archive & annotate page link.You may be required to your sign in using your Noodle Tools credentials again.

2. The first time you use this feature, you will have to add the iCyte button to your Favorites Bar.(If you don't know how to use your Favorites bar, check out our video on the subject). The iCyte Install Bookmarklet page will pop up on the screen . 

3. Drag the Cyte This button on to your Favorites bar. Then close the window using the blue CLOSE button.

4. If you want, highlight an important text passage on the page. 

5. Click the Cyte This button in your Favorites bar. A Create Cyte box will pop up on the page. Notice that the Title, Project and associated citation are all automatically added. You can also add notes to the page capture as well. Save the Cyte and then close the page.
















6. In your Noodle Tools account, you will see that the citation says View archived page.Click on the link and you will see a saved copy of the page.

7. The archived page will have the iCyte bar across the top of the page and the section you highlighted.





8. The toolbar on the right side of the bar allows you to hide the highlight, expand the toolbar (so you can see your added notes), or see the original page.

Tech Tip: Can I Use Wikipedia for My Research Paper? It's Complicated.

You will this statement many times in your high school career: Don't use Wikipedia for your research project! It's not reliable!

What they mean to say is…

What teachers and librarians usually mean is don't use Wikipedia as a cited source in your paper. Because it can be edited by anyone, there is a good chance it contains incorrect or biased information. It is probably okay to use as a starting point to get an overview of your topic, but don't stop there. For a more detailed explanation of why you shouldn't rely on or cite Wikipedia in your project, check The Top Reasons Students Cannot Cite or Rely on Wikipedia on the Finding Dulcinea website.

But Wikipedia  is still a great research tool…

Wikipedia, as well as other general encyclopedias from the LRC, should not be your only source in a paper. Unless your teacher tells you otherwise, use an encyclopedia only as a starting point for your research.

1. Get an overview of your topic. Use an encyclopedia article to get basic information about your research topic. Reading a short general article will allow you get the basic facts and generate a list of subtopics you will need to research. Wikipedia excels at topics that are too current to have made it into a library encyclopedia—up to date information about pop culture, technology current events, etc. A Wikipedia article for a national event might be created and totally up to date within the hour of it happening.

2. Look for keywords It is important to generate a list of words that you can use search terms in search engines, LRC databases or the indexes of books. As you skim the article for your topic, look for names, events, places and other topics related to your topic. These will help you expand your research, especially if you get stuck. More detailed information here.

3. Use the references and external links sections. Wikipedia and other encyclopedias articles are relatively short summaries of information form books, magazines, websites, etc. These articles are intended to be a survey or overview of information about the topic. If you are using Wikipedia or an LRC encyclopedia, make sure to check out to articles references section. This is the equivalent of the Works Cited lists or Bibliographies your teachers have probably had you create for your projects. Also check out the external links (in Wikipedia) or suggested sources (or similar category in other sources). Both areas point you to more detailed in-depth information about your topic. Plus, you can cite most of these sources in your paper).

 4. Look out for flagged articles. Since Wikipedia articles can be edited by pretty much anyone anywhere in the world, there are sometimes problems with articles: incorrect information, biased points of view, a lack of citations for information, etc.

Example of a Flagged Article Section:

Article editors try to flag these problems so that users are aware of possible problems. Books and LRC databases from publishing companies have experts write articles and have professional editors carefully check for errors or biases. If you see an article (or section of an article) with a flag, it is probably best to steer clear of the article.

Tech Tip: New LRC Databases for 2012-13

We are excited to announce a few new additions to our lineup of LRC databases for new the school year. Please take a look. If you have any questions, please ask one of our two librarians, Mr. Bodwell or Mrs. Leahy.

World and I School 

World and I started as a magazine in 1986 and later moved online as full fledged database of educational content. We new subscribe to their database of current and previous articles. There is a wide variety of cross curricular content on the site. The site also has a number of other features besides just the magazine content. A summary of the sections is below.

Articles: Search articles from current issue and archives of monthly magazine.

Curriculum Pages: Arts, ESL, Language Arts, Science, Social Studies, Spanish

Special Collections: In-depth coverage of topics (cultures, biographies, religions, debate topics, history, etc.

Other Features:

• Headlines in Review
• Teacher’s corner
• World Gallery (images)
• crossword puzzles
• country profiles.
• Spanish and ESL reading and comprehension exercises.
• National standards search aligned to articles with teacher’s guides.

Science in Context

This LRC database has a ton of information for science and technology projects. Projects that have to do with science related social issues would also find it helpful. Here is a summary of what you will find there.  

• 150+ comprehensive reference sets
• More than 22,000 topic overviews, 16,000 images and videos, 170+ detailed experiments. 8,100 biographies, 2 dictionaries.
• 1.5 million periodical articles (e.g. Science Weekly, Science News and The Science Teacher)
• National Science Education Standards links
• Project 2061 Benchmarks for Science Literacy links
• Customized links to state standards

Grolier Online 

Groliier Multimedia is  made up of three general encyclopedias:  Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia Americana and  La Nueva Enciclopedia Cumbre (Spanish Language).  The articles have associated Lexile scores and there are links to magazine and newspaper articles and selected websites. You will also find the following on the site:

•  online video and images
• clickable maps
• dictionaries
• pro/con articles
• today in history.
• links to world newspapers.

Tech Tip: Total NoodleTools Makeover Bonanza!

Dear NoodleTools:

You were already the most awesome of all research tools for citations, notecards and collaboration; I didn’t think you could get any better. Seriously, I couldn’t believe you could be even more epic. But you did it.

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For those not in the know, the NoodleTools folks did a major overhaul of their interface this summer. Here are the major changes. And bam! There are even video tutorials for all but a few of the changes linked below.

Source Check & Tutorial

The old interface required you to step through several screens when selecting a source. The new interface has a source check that will ask you to confirm your choice, but you can choose to hide it in the future.
There is also a Show Me tutorial. It shows you how to identify, evaluate and cite the source.



The tutorial:

• shows an example of the citation type
• provides a definition
• gives the characteristics of the source.
• gives hints about how to find more information using steps outside of the software.
• The evaluation tips are based on the specific types of sources.
• Future plans include allowing teachers to see which tutorials students have viewed and when.

Formatting Guide
An optional formatted citation example is in the top right corner of the citation. As you click in each field, the corresponding part of the example is highlighted.

Video Tutorial

Dynamic Citation Form
If you messed up a citation in the old interface, you had to start over. Now, if you want to change a citation from a book to a magazine article, you just change the drop down menu.

Video Tutorial

Worldcat Integration
If you are citing a book you can use an import function to get citation information from Worldcat.org. You can look up the book by title, ISBN or author. Use Worldcat or Amazon to verify the citation before you import it.

Video Tutorial

iCyte Integration
Noodletools now has a partnership with iCyte.. The service allows you to archive and annotate web pages and pdf files within you Noodletools account. You can highlight a specific part of the page and add an annotation. An archived version of the page will be available next to your citation. If you grab a web page or pdf file that is not in your list, Noodletools will create a placeholder citation that you can finish later.

Video Tutorial

Quick Cite
The Quick Cite feature allows you to copy and paste a preformatted citation from an LRC database into a Noodletools list. If you use this feature, you will able to change the source type, but the program will not check for errors. In general, it allows less flexibility, but it is quick.

Video Tutorial

Other Stuff
The layout of the notecards has changed a little as well. Basically, the Direct Quotation and Paraphrase or Summary fields are now side by side, making it easier to, you know, not plagiarize.

Although they don’t have an iPad or iPod app yet, the citation form will work on these interfaces. Changes to the notecard and tabletop area so that they will be compatible with the iPad should be coming soon.

Follett Destiny: Search by Lexile Score

Search the WEGO library catalog by Lexile score. Keep in mind that Lexile scores are just a guideline. Not every book has a lexile score, so try searching without a Lexile limit if you don't find what you want the first time.

Huge NoodleTools Upgrade

NoodleTools is getting a huge makeover this summer. Check out their video preview of the new features.