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PROJECT II: TAKENOTE! FOR ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHIES

In teams students used the writing program TakeNote! to create annotated bibliographies for the First Year Seminar. This project needs improvement. Primarily, I need to integrate the bibliographies into another project so that they do not stand alone. This can (and will) be done next year. The technology worked well though, and I will continue to use it. Project description This project was much smaller. The idea was to get my First Year Seminar to use the writing program TakeNote! to do an annotated bibliography. Again the same teams were given the assignment to prepare an annotated bibliography on their region (the same region they explored in the simulation assignment). They were to create it on the TakeNote! software, and to turn it into me either in my dropbox, or on a disk - but not on paper. Essential help on this project came from my mentor, Alex Bloom, who introduced me to TakeNote! and guided me though it, and to Marcia Grimes who helped students learn to use library resources and to write annotations. Goals The goals were the obvious one of helping my students learn to use our library resources. To be able to annotate a source and in the process provide some evaluation of it. And lastly, to get them familiar with the TakeNote! program which could be very useful for them in the future as the do research projects, and bibliographies. Assessment My feeling is that this one didn't work so well. Since the bibliography was not directly used to write a paper it was a somewhat sterile exercise. They did it, but without relish. As for the technology I found that some used TakeNote! to create the references page that they needed to attach to the papers they regularly handed in. This was a use I had not anticipated, but it really is easy to create a bibliography with the program and some students saw it right away. I will use this program again next year, but now see a way to improve the annotated bibliography assignment. The numerical averages on the TakeNote! questions (1 - 3) were 2.42, or 71.6 (a C-). I'm sure this reflected to some extent the assignment as much as the program. As before the comments were generally not as negative, but some were. Here are a few: "I really will use these programs in the future (especially TakeNote!)....already have." "I don't think the TakeNote will be very useful to me. However, if I ever need to do another computer presentation PowerPoint and EXCEL will definitely be helpful." "...takenote seemed tedious because we didn't do a Report using the sources we found."   Dissemination I have no great ideas on this one. Alex did a marvelous presentation of the program for faculty earlier in the semester. I'd be happy to mentor anyone who wants help learning the program, but beyond that I'm a a bit at a loss.   The following is a copy of the evaluation form I had my FYS students fill out   First Year Seminar Fall, 1997 International Economic Issues G. Weil   Technology Evaluation Survey   Circle the number that most closely matches your evaluation where: 1 = I agree strongly 5 = I disagree strongly   1. I'm glad that I learned to use the software program TakeNote!   1 2 3 4 5   2. I will use Take Note! in the future when I have to write a research project.   1 2 3 4 5   3. I will use Take Note! in the future when I have to add bibliographies to my papers.   1 2 3 4 5   4. The Interfutures simulation helped me to understand the way different economic variables are related to each other.   1 2 3 4 5   5. The Interfutures simulation made me think about how changes in a parameter could affect variables not directly related to that parameter.   1 2 3 4 5   6. I learned something about spreadsheets from using Excel.   1 2 3 4 5   7. After this introduction to Excel I will try to use a spreadsheet in the future when the need arises.   1 2 3 4 5   8. I feel like I learned how to use the presentation program PowerPoint.   1 2 3 4 5   9. In the future when I have to give oral Reports I will use PowerPoint to enhance that presentation.   1 2 3 4 5   10. I use e-mail to communicate with faculty members.   1 2 3 4 5   11. Write your own comments on: (a) if/how technology helped you learn about our subject (b) if you feel you will use some of the computing technology we worked with this semester in the future.

Last updated on 12/5/00;
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