Tools to Support Investigating & Processing
Google Keep
Google Keep is a note taking app and to do list manager. It's also built into Docs, Slides and Drawings. An extension can be added to Chrome to easily save webpages and images to Keep.
The App
The Google Keep app is available in the App Launcher on Chromebooks, or by accessing keep.google.com in a web browser.
Students can use Keep to record thoughts and ideas, keep track of their research, create a to-do list to manage their time effectively, draw sketches and diagrams, keep track of their success criteria, and much more. Notes can also be shared with a peer or teacher.
For students with personal devices, there's also an Android and iOS app.
The Chrome Extension
The Google Keep Chrome extension is available in the Web Store. Once added to Chrome, it can be used to save websites and images to Keep. Students can efficiently add notes and labels right within the browser window, or open the note in Keep for more functionality.
Keep Notepad in Docs, Slides and Drawings
The Keep Notepad function in Google Docs, Google Slides and Google Drawings makes student Notes available on the right-side of documents, presentation or drawing. It's a great way for students to refer to or add Notes as they work.
Read & Write
Read & Write is an Advanced Technology extension available to all DDSB students. It's necessary for some, but beneficial for all. The Collect Highlights tool can be a powerful research tool.
Using the highlight tools in Read & Write allows students to highlight any website with four different colours. These highlight can then be pulled into a Google Doc using the Collect Highlights option. Student can opt to have highlights collected and grouped together based on colour, or the position in which the highlights appeared in the original article.
Once in Google Docs, students can use several different options for annotating and adding to those notes, including typing additional ideas, or using the Comment tools.
The Doc created by the Collect Highlights tool also offers a link back to the original source. This is great for keeping track of sources!
EasyBib Add-on for Google Docs
The EasyBib Add-on can make it easy for students to keep track of their sources throughout the inquiry process.
The EasyBib add-on in Google Docs is an efficient way for students to build a bibliography for books, journal articles and websites right within a Google Doc.
Explore Tool in Docs, Sheets and Slides
Dig deeper into research with ease!
The Explore Tool in Docs, Sheets and Slides is an effective tool for expanding research. It opens on the right-side of a Doc, Sheet or Slide and will offer suggestions based on the work that students are doing.
The Explore Tool is also a really efficient way for students to add images to a Doc or Slide. The image search only searches for images labelled for reuse and will include a link to the original source.
In Docs, the Explore Tool will offer suggestions for related research and includes a footnote option for any website students access through the Explore Tool in Docs. Of course, it's important that students understand the importance of credible sources, because it's still a Google search of the topic.
Read more about the Explore tool on the Google Docs Blog.