Pathfinders: Blogstyle

April 19, 2006 in About blogging, About learning, Teaching Strategies

A pathfinder is a guide for researchers. Pathfinders have been used in libraries for years–probably since the 70s–to save researchers time, to guide them to the good stuff, and to help them avoid frustrating dead ends. At Springfield we’ve been experimenting with pathfinders as student projects to demonstrate their skills and energy in researching and their abilities to discern and describe quality information sources.

While I was introducing the pathfinder project to our seniors last month, I realized that some of them had rather rusty html skills. (They cycle through Web design in 9th grade and, unless they take electives, they can avoid it for the rest of high school.) It suddenly occurred to me that our students could just as easily blog their pathfinders!

I am sharing the very first group of student blog pathfinders. I believe that this format works pretty well and has wonderful promise for students as well as librarians and teachers.

The little issues: 

  • I am not sure whether we should use categories for formats or subheadings.  It’s probably best decided by students case by case.
  • I am not sure how to make the first page stay the first page. We tricked the software by listing our about pages as our front pages. 
  • And I wonder if I can get these second semester seniors to do the little edits they’d need to do to make these truly wonderful! 
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3 Replies

  1.   Donna DesRoches

    April 20, 2006 at 6:01 pm

    Joyce,

    I really like the blog format for your student pathfinders but even more so I was impressed by the way the students connected with their sources. Their annotations reveal an understanding of the type of information provided by each format and the value and limitations of each. The template that you have created for student pathfinders requires the application of critical thinking and evaluation skills and they were very apparent in the work of these students.

  2.   Kathy Schrock

    April 23, 2006 at 1:56 am

    I usually date the first post with some date way in the future…that way it stays the “newest” post and shows up first on the page. That is where I put the overview of the site.

    Great idea using the blog for pathfinders. could also use a wiki and allow others to add resources…just a thought.

  3.   Administrator

    April 23, 2006 at 2:24 pm

    Thanks, Kath! That’s a great idea about dating. As for the wiki thing, I thought about that. The kids jumped on the idea of a blog because they were happily familiar with that animal! They also loved the prettiness factor of the background choices. Sometimes you go with the flow.