Blog Entry 5: Perlego and its AI Researcher

 (So here I am a day late writing my next blog in my personal challenge to write every day.  It isn't that I didn't write yesterday, it's just that it wasn't appropriate for this blog!

 Yes, I am still excited about Perlego and I have spent time every day since I discovered it, exploring its possibilities.  When you start poking around, the first thing you are likely to come across is the search bar.  You can use it in a traditional manner, looking for author, title, ISBN, etc. but more exciting still, is the AI Researcher.

I experimented with a research question and with key words and both were effective.  Below is a sample of the research question results: To what extent did the bombing of Hiroshima lead to the Japanese surrender in World War Two?

Keyword Search

The book results vary but that isn't surprising since the keyword search wasn't as focused as the research question search.

(I may update this blog tomorrow!)

Down Various Rabbit Holes

 I didn't write yesterday or Friday, not because I didn't have anything to discuss but because I was sucked down several rabbit holes and I still haven't really emerged.  The first was that of Perlego, which I hadn't heard of until Wednesday evening when a student emailed to ask if I could find a copy of a book called, The Oslo Accords 1993–2013: A Critical Assessment by Peter Bauck.  Well, no I couldn't, to my frustration, despite checking all my usual suspects.  Then, I alighted upon a reference to it online on a website called Perlego and down I went.  

I don't often get this excited about websites, especially ones which offer access to ebooks.  Truth be told, I don't enjoy reading online.  I do recognise all the positives of ebooks and of providing access to them for my students.  Though as luck would have it,  Perlego turned out to be far more than I could ever have expected with over a million academic non-fiction titles, appropriate for the upper secondary and the university level reader.  However, it didn't stop there.  It wasn't just the books but it was also the tools offered for interaction with those books.  (I'll list them and then discuss each later.)

1. An AI Researcher, which doesn't offer an answer to your question but suggests books from the collection which will help to answer it, and provides key excerpts from each suggestion.
2. A workspace for each of your topics of research 
3. A number of tools to assist the user in accessing the books
4. A notebook function
5. A way of setting up an assignment and sharing it with collaborators (or students) through the workspace.  Not necessarily meant for teachers but perfect for them!

There are likely to be tools and functions I haven't discovered yet but I will keep exploring and using Perlego for my own research and to find possible books for my EE and IA students.  

In my next blog post, I will expand on each of the 5 point above.  

Post 3: My Grade 7 (Year 8) Science Class

I wasn't thinking about using my class today as a topic for my writing exercise but the class went so well that I changed my mind.  The grade 7s have been working on a unit about the periodic table and were divided into pair groupings to complete a research project on one particular element.  Below is the information from their task sheet. (This is not included in my word count!)

Title: The Elemental Quest

Introduction:

In this project research we will embark on an exciting journey into the heart of chemistry and

its profound impact on our world. In this project, we will look into the essential building blocks

of matter: the elements of the periodic table. But we're not just exploring their scientific

significance; we're delving deeper into the catastrophic consequences that could ensue if

these elements were to vanish from our existence.

Each of your groups will embark on a research quest, assigned to investigate the importance

of a specific element from the periodic table. You'll uncover its indispensable role in various

aspects of our lives, from industry to medicine, agriculture to technology. But here's the twist:

you'll also examine the potential devastation that would unfold if this element were to

suddenly disappear from our planet.

Imagine a world without oxygen, carbon, or even something as seemingly inconspicuous as

iodine. The repercussions would be far-reaching and severe, impacting everything from the

air we breathe to the food we eat, the devices we use, and the medicines that keep us

healthy.

Through this project, you'll not only deepen your understanding of chemistry but also

cultivate a sense of responsibility towards preserving these fundamental elements. You'll

discern why it's imperative to safeguard them for future generations and advocate for their

conservation.

Get ready to unlock the secrets of the periodic table and discover the power it holds over our

past, present, and future. 

Welcome to the Elemental Quest!

Your research product could take any of the following forms:

● A story (biography or autobiography) about the element

● A children’s book about the Element

● Powerpoint presentation about the element(12-15 slides)

● The element webpage or Movie

● A poem or song about the element

● An element case file or Poster

● Collage/picture book with captions or scrapbook of element

● Interview video (Student/Scientist, Journalist/Researcher, Parent/Child, etc., )

My role in this was to take the students through the process of setting up their Works Cited List (WCL) and to introduce the research guide and the print books available from the library.  

 As I demonstrated in my account, one person in each pair group set up a WCL using Noodletools and then shared it with their teacher, their partner, and me.  Next, I introduced the libguide for the project , which acted as a jumping off point for their research.  The guide contains links to various tools such as the library database and noodletools; slide presentations on using noodletools, in-text referencing and the referencing of images according to MLA.  There is also a tab for databases, three in all.  I went through each one briefly reminding the class how to use them.  Finally there is a tab for web links.  (All of this is available by clicking on the link above.)

I am returning to the class next week to assist students, mainly with the referencing.

(I am not entirely happy with this description so I will probably edit it!)

 As I said in my previous post, I was involved in a writing project a number of years ago.  Today I decided to find those blog entries and read some of them.  One of them is my jumping off point for today's post:  https://kitandcaboodal.blogspot.com/2015/03/post-6-round-2-of-28daysofwriting.html.

Bear in mind that the post was written over 9 years ago, when you read what I have to say today.  I came up with a number of suggestions to improve the research stills of our students and reading over them, I realise that we have made little progress.  

First of all, I recognised that we need to work with primary students to improve their skills (and those of their teachers) so that they are prepared when they move up to secondary.  I recognise that I have partially succeeded in achieving this goal even though I may not feel that I have progressed far with it.  The grade 5s (year 6 in the UK system), spend part of their year preparing a topic for their exhibition in early May, and I work with them.  

This year the students accomplished the following:

1. Learned how a browser and a search engine work in order to better understand how to phrase our keyword searches.

2. Learned how to use some of the google operators, such as: the site operator [site:]; the range operator [air flights 1950..2020]; how to find definitions using [define:]; and how to search for particular file types [filetype:pdf]

3. Became familiar with keywords which would help them find statistical information about their topic

We also did some work on how to verify that a website/source was reliable and how to find images, charts, and graphs.

Having written this, I don't feel that we've done too badly!

(301 words)

7 Draft Entries and Nothing to Show for Them!

 The last 7 draft entries in my blog haven't been finished.  Realising this, reminded me of a writing project I got involved in about 6 or 7 years ago.  The idea was to write 200+ words a day, every day.  I can't remember how long we planned to do this but I managed it for a month at least.  I have several blogs so the results of this 200+ challenge must be somewhere.  However, reading them isn't the point of this entry, which I plan on finishing!  It is to set a similar challenge to anyone who is interested.  I do know that the more I write, the more I write, if you follow that.  Not only do I start to write longer pieces but they get better.  (Thank goodness, my inner voice is saying!).   

Here is what I suggest.  Commit to write 150+ words on your life as a librarian and post it on a blog, the link to which you can share in this Facebook group.  Commit to it for at least 4 days out of 7, more if you can.  Read the blogs of others and perhaps have your blog entry be a response to someone else's from time to time.

Let's start a conversation!

(208 words! Now that wasn't hard!)

A Rose by any other name…would still be a library. Or would it?

Groan!  Another article about another area of the world, this time my home base of Canada, where libraries are being reimagined and pushed into a corner; and the librarians quietly confined to obscurity.  In this article, the library has become the ‘Curiosity Space’.  I don’t know whether to vomit or…well, what?  

https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/2022/12/31/its-not-a-school-library-its-a-curiosity-space

Were the school libraries I have overseen, curated, loved and nurtured over the years not full of curious children and young adults, learning about the world around and within?  I shout emphatically, ‘yes, they were’!  Did these libraries not evolve over the years to meet the needs of their users?  Again, I shout, “Yes, they did!”

Do I sound frustrated?  

I think that is an emphatic "Yes," shouted to the indifferent universe!

Why My Students Use Wikipedia

 Wikipedia has become the bugbear of teachers at many schools when it comes to student use of the internet for research.  When I started at my present school in 2009, it was obvious that my students were unlikely to give up using Wikipedia simply because we wanted them to.  The solution, I decided, was to convince them that they should not reference it and that it should only be used as a jumping off point in their research.  On our libguides, I made sure that students always received the following advice:

School Policy on Wikipedia:  Read for background but do not cite!

Rule No. 1:  Use Wikipedia as a starting point for your research, but don't cite it unless you can exhaustively demonstrate that it is the only authoritative source on a particular issue.

Unfortunately, a few students decided that the policy meant that they could use the information from Wikipedia but that they didn’t need to reference it.  Thus we added rule 2 and 3:

Rule No. 2:  Re: Rule No. 1:  That doesn't mean that you should use the information from Wikipedia anyway and just not cite it.  It means that you should find other research sources.  Encyclopedias are only meant as starting points!  For example, you could find the bibliography in the Wikipedia article and look at the sources that the author of the article used.  You could also look to see if there is a list of links.  Check those out as well.

Rule No. 3:  If you are unsure, ask your teacher or librarian!

Over the years I have become a more sophisticated user of Wikipedia.  Furthermore, I have carried out my own research into Wikipedia and its use in academic research.  I can’t say in what order any of this happened.  However, I have recently come across a number of university libguides which include information and videos on the use of Wikipedia for research; and I have used them with my senior students.

Below is an example of a video from the University of New Brunswick in Canada

 

I have also taken on board some of my own observations to improve how I carry out research.  Initially, I read an article for background and then checked out the references and the links.  Later, I realised that the articles often gave me search terms I could use in furthering my search for information sources.  Finally, it wasn’t till I discovered Mike Canfield and SIFT, and later the Civil Online Reasoning course from Stanford that I realised Wikipedia’s value in fact checking sources.  

And now for the ‘more’. We tell our students not to use Wikipedia and yet many teachers seem happy to accept websites which might be judged as equally or more dubious. From a recent history assignment, I found the following:

1. https://www.history.co.uk/ :  a website originating in the United States and created by the Arts and Entertainment Network

2. https://www.biography.com/ :  also from the Arts and Entertainment Network

3. https://www.ducksters.com/ :  Little detail is given on the authors of the information on this website.  In their defence they do give a works cited list for some of the articles.  However, in the geography section the information source for Taiwan is over 10 years old. 

There are many websites, which student researchers come across which fall into the same category as those above. I have started to include a list of such websites on our libguides (see example below). I am hoping that teachers will also include them on the task sheets they prepare for any research assignment.