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INFOhio Announces New One-Stop Research Site
GO! INFOhio Highlights
GO! INFOhio In Depth
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INFOhio Announces New One-Stop Research Site

INFOhio is proud to announce our latest online service: GO! INFOhio: Ask! Act! Achieve!, a site designed to help students just learning research skills manage the process step by step. Take a minute to read more information, or jump right in and browse to learn more about this one-stop research tool for yourself. We hope you find it helpful!

GO! INFOhio Highlights
  • URL: http://go.infohio.org 
  • GO! INFOhio breaks the research process down into three major phases: Asking questions, Acting by finding sources and taking notes, and Achieving a final product.
  • Each phase is broken down further with key research questions that link to INFOhio resources, forms, and trustworthy websites to help with that step. 
  • All resources in GO! INFOhio are free to Ohio students. 
  • The site includes a comprehensive Teacher's Guide that gives in-depth information on the websites, forms, and databases used.
  • While the site is designed for 6th-10th grade, it works for any student who can read and who need structure to stay focused during a long-term research process.
GO! INFOhio In Depth

GO! INFOhio (go.infohio.org), INFOhio's latest online service, brings together INFOhio resources with the best sites on the web to help students work through a research project step by step.

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GO! INFOhio: Ask! Act! Achieve! Home Page

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Big research projects can be daunting," said Jennifer Schwelik, INFOhio Consultant, who led the team that developed the site, "especially for middle school students who are just learning the skills they need to work through a long-term project.

 

"When they are at school, their teachers and librarians can help them," she continued. "But what happens to them when they are home working by themselves and the project deadline is looming?"

 

While INFOhio staff members were exploring ideas to address that question, a second question presented itself: How can we increase database usage?

 

"Although the INFOhio databases are heavily used, we're always looking for ways to encourage students to use them more," said INFOhio Executive Director Terri Fredericka. "Too often we hear from our librarians in the field that students go to Google and stop there. For rigorous, academic research-the kind students will be required to do in college and on the job-they need to have experience using a database to collect evidence to support their research question."

 

The answer to both questions is GO! INFOhio: Ask! Act! Achieve! 

 

Faced with a large research project, students often become overwhelmed and procrastinate. To counteract that tendency, the team of six consultants who developed GO! INFOhio decided to organize the site into three smaller sections: ASK!, ACT!, and ACHIEVE!

  • Ask! takes students through the first phase of research-choosing a topic and asking good questions.
  • Act! takes students through the second phase of research-finding reliable resources, deciding which ones meet the need the best, and taking notes.  
  • Achieve! takes students through the final phases of presenting the project, either as a paper or a presentation.

Each section features links to a variety of INFOhio databases and products as well as websites with mind mapping tools, note taking strategies, and presentation ideas to make a student's work really shine. Students also

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Each page links to key resources to help students manage that phase of research.
find tips on citing sources and other information to help them develop good digital citizenship.

 

In addition, the site features interactive content, such as avatars that encourage students during each step of the process. 

 

"Students are so used to video games and YouTube and Facebook, we knew we couldn't just provide them with a dry list of links," Schwelik said. "We wanted to create a colorful, inviting site to guide them through every stage of research." 

 

hannahLukeJosh

Meet Hannah, Luke, and Josh, the avatars who 

encourage students throughout the GO! INFOhio site.

 

There is also a Teacher's Guide with in-depth information on the websites, forms, and INFOhio resources used.

 

Funded by a grant from the Ohio Department of Education, GO! INFOhio went live on February 13, 2012, to coincide with the Ohio Educational Technology Conference. While the site is targeted to middle and early high school students, it is open to all Ohio students. All materials -both INFOhio databases and web sites-are available for free, although some of them require students to create a username and password to track their progress.