Finding Good Information on the Internet For Students in grades 4-6

Why do Kids use the Internet? It’s easy It’s fast It’s has fresh new information It’s fun

So, What’s Wrong with That? Anybody can put anything on the internet so your information might be incorrect. Crazies are out there! You have to be safe. There are things you shouldn’t be seeing on the web.

What’s this all about? This presentation will show you –How to use the internet to find good information. –How to find magazine and encyclopedia sources on the internet. –How to find out if a website is a good source of information. –How to stay safe when you are using the internet.

Places to Look for Information using the Internet Let’s look for information on powwows. Start on the school webpage and go to the “Library and Research page.” First try the “Pine Point Library” link.“Library and Research page.”

This is what you’ll see. Click on the underlined “Pine Point School.” “Destiny Quest” will open up. That’s the name of our library catalog.

When you are looking for a book, use the “find” box at the top of the page. There are many ways to search for a book.

Title Searches The name of the book is called the “title.” If you know a title of a book, you can type it in the box next to the word “find” and you will find out where your book is in the library. This is What comes up when you type in the title I Spy Spooky Night. These numbers tell you where the book is in the library. More about that later! I can also see that the Library has one of these books but It’s checked out and a Cd game.

Finding Books by an Author If you want to know if we have any books by a certain author, type in the writer’s name in the “find” box. You don’t have to put in capitols, but you do have to spell the name correctly! How many books by George Ancona are in the Pine Point Library?

Finding Books by Subject or Keyword If you are looking for a book about something special, type it in the “find” box. OK! Do a search on the word “Powwow.” How many books came up? Don’t forget to look on the next two pages!

Narrowing your search Go to the box on the left side of the page and you cut down the number of books so that you have the one that’s best for you. Here are 4 ways: find authors, subjects, format or year the books were written.

Looking Closer at the Front Page : The box on the left says “Top Ten Books” This lists the ten books checked out most often at Pine Point.

If you click on the corner of the book, you get these “quick details.” If you click twice on the book, you will get a screen like the one below.

Call Numbers A Fiction book, which is a book that is a made- up story, has a call number made up of the kind of book it is and the first three letters of the author’s last name: E Mcc A Nonfiction book is a book filled with facts. They are on the shelf in 1,2,3 order. Their call numbers are real numbers with the authors letters below: Mcc

What does the first line of a call number tell you? It might tell you what form the book is in. BB = Big book format PB = Paper back AV = Audio Visual (usually a book and tape) DVD = on DVD VHS = Video Cassette CD = on CD It might tell you about the subject and where the book is on the shelf. E = Everybody book (Everyone in the library can read and enjoy this book) FIC = Fiction (made up story) REF = Reference (book to keep in library.) = Nonfiction (Book full of facts)

What does this call number tell you? E PET BB JAK DVD DEN REF 423 DON PEK CD DIS AV BAK E SEU 920 ROS SES OPP

Going to work! Ask the librarian to show you where all those kinds of materials are. Divide the class into two groups. Have each team find one of everything on the last page and bring them up to the librarian. Both teams are winners! Now you know how to find books in the library!

Now that you know how to find a book using the computer, lets look to see how you can find other kinds of information on the internet. If you go back to the Library and Research page there are two sites to help kids in grades 4-6 find good information: Kid’s Infobits and Ask For Kids

If you want to see articles from magazines, reference books and newspapers, go to Kid’s infobits. This is the pag that will come up.

Let’s do a search about tigers. This is the first thing that comes up, so we click VIEW so we can look at the 90 items.

This is the first page that you will see. It shows you articles from reference books. Click on other tabs for magazines, newspapers, charts or pictures. Check things you want to save.

We saved two articles and a picture in our “Backpack.” Now we can print out these things or them.

Finding internet articles Some of the information on the internet doesn’t come from books or magazines. Sometimes people design a website just to give you information. There are lots of indexes on the internet, but the best one for you to use right now is Ask for Kids. Here’s what that webpage looks like.

Tiger articles If you click on those underlined links OR click on the “Go” button, you will go right to another webpage that is sponsored by good sources that will give you more information.

Staying safe on the internet You all know the basic rules of how to stay safe on the internet. Don’t give out your name or address to strangers is the first step. Here are two games to play to help you stay safe on the internet. Play them with your class or on your own! Privacy Playground Cybersense and Nonsense Have fun and be safe on the internet!