8th+Grade+Research+Project-My+Family+History

= __**8th Grade Research Project**__ = toc

During this project you will be working on researching and creating an eBook on based on your family history.

This will be an independent task at school, however we will share ideas in lessons and you will work with family members to collect the resources and information for your tasks.

The Tick List
Here is the Tick List for the project.


 * __Your jobs will be to:__ **

Some things to focus on:
 * 1.** Talk to members of your family about their family history.
 * Names of people and locations and important dates ie: birth, deaths, events, geographical movement
 * Relationships/family ties ie: sisters/brothers, aunts/uncles, parents, grandparents etc...
 * Areas of special interest


 * 2.** Select a person or a small group of people to focus your work on.
 * Caution! ** It is easy to get carried away here. It is better in this case to focus on less and do more with your choice of person, than to focus on too much and do a very superficial job of it.
 * Collect as many items or pieces of information about this person as you can. Take notes and take photographs of important or interesting artefacts.

**3**. Use your research and web evaluation skills to identify sources of information online that you can use to further investigate this person as well as enrich the information you already have.


 * What information will you need to write knowledgeably and accurately about this person?
 * What visual, geographical and historical details might you include that are related to the artefacts you have collected.

**4.** Create a list in Diigo for your work and bookmark your findings to the list. Share the link to your list with your teacher.
 * Important! ** Make sure you have the **Diigo Toolbar** installed on your preferred browser for the next steps.
 * Take careful notes as you book mark each resource as to its importance and how it relates to your topic. Record key facts from the resource that you will want to come back to later by highlighting and adding a sticky note to each one using the Diigo toolbar.

**5.** Consider the layout for your ebook and creating your ebook using iBooks Author.
 * Create the necessary chapters and/or sections with the necessary pages (you can always add more or remove some as you go.).
 * Think about layout! What would look good on each page? Photos, relevant widgets, text, maps etc...
 * What artefacts might you include in your ebook? Images of people, places, documents, others

= **Lesson 1: Gathering Ideas** = **Starter:** Using Today's Meet or a Socrative Quick Question, we will collaborate to add ideas for questions to ask family members and topics for discussion with them.

**Next Steps:**
 * Create a Google Document and share your teacher in as an editor.
 * Insert a table with two columns and at least 6 rows.
 * Add headings as follows

__** Interview Table **__
 * Question or topic of discussion || Source (Who you are talking to) || Date and Time Frame of Discussion || Important Findings (Information and Annotated Photos) ||
 * 1) Create a folder in your Google Drive for the project.
 * 2) Name it appropriately.
 * 3) Share it with your teacher.
 * 4) Add all the information you gather for homework as well as your interview table to this folder.
 * 1) Add all the information you gather for homework as well as your interview table to this folder.

**Homework**
During the week before the next lesson, hold the necessary discussions with family members and fill in the table. Please remember that you can also hold these discussions online through hangouts, Facetime and other online conferencing applications. If you would like to use an online application for this, speak to your teacher who will recommend some options for you.

= Lesson 2: Planning Your Investigation =


 * Starter: Pair and Share**


 * Open your Google Document and share your findings with each other.
 * Give each other advice on what your next steps may be in either finding more information or enriching what you already have.
 * Record these suggestions below your table.


 * Main Lesson**


 * Log into your Diigo account.
 * Install the Diigo Bookmarking Tool or Diglet for the browser you are using.
 * Evaluate the sites you encounter find and try to find examples of sites that are reliable.
 * Create a Diigo List and bookmark these sites to the list.
 * Remember to ask yourself the following. Copy the following table into your Google Doc and use it to fill in your findings for one of the sites you have found. You will be expected to report back at the end of the lesson.
 * __** Add the link to your Diigo List below your Interview Table. **__

What makes the author and expert on this subject? Can you find out more about this author? || **Bias:** What language and information does the the author use to convince you about this information? || What is the publisher's reputation. Do they publish anything else? || **Evidence:** Has any evidence been provided by the author? How does this match up with any evidence you have found elsewhere? || Is the information recent? When was it last updated? || **Links** Who links to this page. What does that tell you about the information on this web page?
 * **Author:**
 * **Publisher:**
 * **Date:**

(Remember you can use the AltaVista link:[URL] command to investigate this.) || Is the information on the website accurate? Are their errors in the writing? Does the information fit with what you already know? || **Links To:** What does the website link to? Do the links work? What do these links tell you about the website? ||
 * **Accuracy:**

=Lesson 3 **Smart Search Tools** = Here is a link to the Smart Search Tools we have used in the past.

Now try out some of these different Smart Search Tools to find information for the project, remember to evaluate your sources, using the strategies from the first lesson to help you find the best information for your project.

** Secondary Sources **
You will also use reliable secondary sources to learn more about the events, geography etc of the person you are focussing on. These too should be bookmarked and annotated in your list.

=Homework=

More Primary Research.
You will need to create an audio recording of yourself interviewing a family member. Write three new questions to use in this interview. These can be based on some of the information you have already found or focus on a completely new line of investigation.

__ Create the recording and up Google Drive folder for the project. __

= Lessons 4 Bookmarking and Note Taking =

__**Part 1**__ __**Part 2**__
 * Review the online resources you have found so far.
 * Spend 15 minutes searching for more and evaluating them.
 * Add reliable sites to your list.
 * Identify important pieces of information in these sources.
 * Highlight key terms, and phrases only, using the Diigo Highlighter.
 * Add sticky notes as you go with your interpretation of the information and ideas based on what you have found so far. You can make these private or personal.

__** Part 3 **__
 * Use the Diigo Toolbar to capture important information you come across. If you need a brief review of how to do this, Click Here!
 * Take careful notes as you book mark each resource as to its importance and how it relates to your topic. Record key facts from the resource that you will want to come back to later by highlighting and adding a sticky note to each one using the Diigo toolbar.

*** During these lessons you will apply your search skills with boolean operators and utilise a variety of search tools. Your research findings will be annotated, contain your notes and be shared with your teacher as part of the list you created.

= **Lessons 5-8 Creating the eBook** = The next step is to use your research to create the iBook. You will be using iBooks Author to do so. Please click here to access the next set of lessons.

= Lesson 7: Getting Feedback on your eBook = __** Step 1 **__ During this step in the process you will be linked up with a school outside of El Salvador. As a class we will brainstorm important questions that we would like others to address concerning our ebooks.

__** Pair and Share (5 minutes) **__ Look at your eBook Tick List again. You have peer assessed it, now look at it again critically. What questions might you ask others about your book?

Discuss your ideas for potential questions //(Things to consider in your discussion: Multimedia and widgets, structure, interactivity, depth of topic, interest level, readability, presentation and format.)//

We will be using a Socrative Quick Question for this first activity. Please log into your Socrative Classroom to input your ideas.

We will now choose 5 questions from the brainstorm to include in our Google Form.

You will create a Google Form which will be embedded next to your ebook and sent to our partner school along with an introductory video from us to them and the links to your ebooks. Please create it within in your Google Classroom Folder. Select Create Form. The settings should be set as follows:

Give the Form a Title.

Please ensure that two of the questions involve a scale and one an open answer.

__**Post the link to your form to our Google Classroom.**__

__**Step 2**__ Working with Feedback Today we are going to analyse and use the feedback offered by our partner school to reflect on and further improve our ebooks. A copy of the feedback has been placed in your Google Classroom Folder.


 * Read through the feedback on the projects. Decide which comments apply best to your particular ebook. Decide on whether or not to make any changes and export it again in both ePub and PDF formats.

We will now anyalise the date you collected in your form spreadsheets.