As I currently spend the majority of 3rd quarter guiding students through a research unit, my first thoughts regarding the course were, Couldn't this course have been four weeks earlier? There's so much that appears to be beneficial to my students! Yearly, I tweak and revamp the research unit in conjunction with colleagues and am looking forward to applying what I gain in this course next year during the research unit. Nonetheless, in looking through the course's syllabus, I am confident that this course is going to enhance all aspects of my teaching--lesson delivery, student investigation, enhancement of content, etc.
I am looking forward to working in depth with a software evaluation tool and creating a student-friendly one. The skill of discernment, as discussed in our course syllabus, is something I strive to help students develop. Currently, students apply RADCAB prior to using a website (or any information source). There are oodles of evaluation tools available online* such as those found at Thinkfinity--Website Evaluation Form (for students) and Evaluation Form (for teachers). Not only are evaluating information sources of utmost importance BUT the quality of the tools used are also important.
*Just for "fun" I ran a sample search in Bing--evaluating online resources (no quotes, no +); 6 million+ results were returned!
