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Teacher's Guide: Action Zone Games in this Kit
This guide provides instructions and ideas for using the Action Zone activities that are bundled in this Ethical Use Kit. The Sorting Hat Challenge requires searchers to dig for information within a site to find its author. Four new MicroModule Companions test skills in finding information about Copyright, Citation and Plagiarism (2 sets). In addition to serving as tutorial resources, each one may be used to assess the extent to which students are able to demonstrate skills in secondary searching and citing resources properly.
This timed challenge combines primary search techniques and some deft secondary searching to find the author of the resource. The resource itself is rather interesting: a personality test that claims to place individuals into one of the five Sims personalities. It's fun to complete and compare results with others. By reading information on the site it becomes apparent that someone is collecting the results as part of a research study. Wouldn't you like to know who that is?
While the name of the person responsible is not posted on the site, it is possible to track down the author using some secondary searching techniques. This timed search is unusual in that it starts at a web page, not a search engine. A search engine may be used to verify the author's name, but that's not the way to find our mystery person.
Techniques for uncovering an author include: scanning the web page, clicking links on the page for more information, truncating the URL and searching outside the site. The best place to start is almost always on the page, then the root site after that. In this case, the only link on the test page leads to the consent form. A list of names is included on that form. None of these turns out to be the author of the Sorting Hat Test. Verifying that a name found is also the author of the Sorting Hat test requires using a search engine. More about that later.
Looking for the owner (publisher) of the site using Whois.net returns the name Christopher Soto. To search the Whois database, use the URL as the query: personalitylab.org.
We recommend searching for information about Christopher Soto. There are several people online with identical names. Therefore, it is helpful to include some keywords associated with the site. Lacking sufficient information often renders an external search ineffective.
Using the Search Challenge in class: With most search challenges it is recommended that students try them as individuals. This particular challenge is difficult without knowledge and practice using what we are calling secondary searching techniques. Therefore, this challenge could be posed as a group problem, testing and demonstrating various possibilities for finding the author as described above.
On the topic of ethical use, three Micromodules are particulary helpful: Citation, Copyright and Plagiarism. To enhance the effectiveness of these self-guided learning modules, four new interactive MicroModule Companions are now available.
Companions may be used as a self-guided tutorial, allowing students to test their understanding of MicroModule content and demonstrate their skills. If time is limited, the examples in a Companion may be used as a classroom demonstration, but student involvement should still be encouraged.
Copyright Companion -- basic level exercises:
Citation Companion -- basic to intermediate level exercises:
Plagiarism Companion 1 -- three sets of contrasting plagiarized references with and without proper references :
Plagiarism Companion 2 -- three more sets of contrasting plagiarized references with and without proper references :
Plagiarism Companion 3 -- three science-themed sets of contrasting plagiarized references with and without proper references :