Note Start

We predominately looked at Note Star today. Since students will be writing an expository piece that requires research, Note Star will be a great tool in helping students organize the information they collect into topics and ideas for their paper. In addition, they can easily keep track of their works cited information. Teachers can check their progress and see their notes. The one kind of drawback we did discuss is how they will learn to take the information they found and cited and turn it into analysis for their papers - NOT copying and pasting it or merely summarizing all of the research in their paper without adding meaning to it. We talked about how this tool would work best for organizing their research and have it compacted and together when they are ready to analyze it and place it strategically throughout the paragraphs to back up their thesis. We will come together at later meetings and show each other student progress, what's missing, and what we can change to utilize the tool better.