Screenshots and Videos: Learning through the process!

 I am now well and truly inside the Exploration Stage (Kuhlthau, 2007) as I become orientated and try to become informed about my particular topic for my ILA.  I feel like I am learning a lot of new information by reading and delving into the research, but at the same time, it is becoming increasingly difficult to form a focus for the topic. Locating information is the easy part but relating the information to what I know, what I am learning and what I need is the hard part. I feel like I am going round in circles at the moment, so hopefully after knuckling down on the databases and narrowing down some specific articles and websites, I will be able to move onto the next stage in Kuhlthau's Information Search Process: Formulation, and some clarity will emerge! For now I will begin with the searching and exploring in the databases. Today's search will  concentrate on A+ Education.




A+ Education Database

This is a video of my first search using A+ using 'Jing' to capture it.
I then uploaded the embed code to my blog.....how very technological of me!!




As you can see, I'm only beginning to get the feel for the database searching, and how to use the QUT textfinder as well.
As I continued my search within this database, I begin to feel a little disheartened. The search terms that I put in are not coming up with much. Here are some of the terms and phrases I used in the data base today:

Inquiry based learning AND Guided Inquiry AND middle years OR upper primary students AND science
= 120 hits
Inquiry based learning AND Guided Inquiry AND middle years OR upper primary students AND science AND information literacy = 5 hits and more in the screen captures below :

I am a little 'confused by all the incompatibilites and inconsistencies' I am experiencing. (Kuhlthau et al, 2007) within this database.
This was my first ever attempt at using a Library database, having only used Google and Google Scholar before. I haven't begun to search using Google yet, for my context, as I wanted to try out the other databases...Mandy makes it look so easy! I have done some basic searches with no Boolean operators or parameters for broad topics such as information literacy, inquiry based learning and Guided Inquiry using Google and will go back now and try to narrow my searches using the And, Not and Ors. Maybe even using some of the exact same phrasing as the search above, and compare.

If an information literate person has the ability to identify and select the needed information from an overabundant supply of information (Savolainen, 2007), then I feel a little encouraged. Some of the articles found using A+  look likely contenders for investigating further. Some of the sources were not consistent with what I thought my search was asking for...so although a little discouraged...I am determined to narrow the search, to make it easier to select the needed information. I think I should have begun with the familiar......my old friend Google! We'll see......



Kuhlthau, Carol C. ; Maniotes, Leslie K. & Caspari, Ann K. (2007). Chapter 2: The Theory and Research Basis for Guided Inquiry in Kuhlthau, Carol C. ; Maniotes, Leslie K. & Caspari, Ann K, Guided inquiry : learning in the 21st century, Westport, Conn: Libraries Unlimited, pp.13-28

Savolainen, R. (2007). Filtering and withdrawing: strategies for coping with information overload in everyday. Journal of Information Science 2007 33: 611 originally published online 31 May 2007.