Friday, November 2, 2012

Research Journal--Digging into the database

I'm doing some searching and I want to keep track of where I'm searching, with what search terms, and how useful the results are.
Nov. 2 in Academic Search Premier, I used
1:1 AND students AND information literacy
and searched in the abstract field.
No results. :-(

"students" and "information literacy" both popped up in the search terms list. Now I have to figure out what to say to limit it to K-12 and 1:1 devices in the classroom.

Next search, same procedure:
public schools AND devices AND instruction
No fields specified
216 results
Narrowed by date (2000-2012) and asked for full text
Knocked it down to 146 results
Narrowed to academic journals because I feel like it's a lot easier to find non-academic resources so I want to make sure I'm finding enough academic resources first.
This knocked it down to 50 articles. I can quickly browse the titles of 50 articles and open any that seem relevant.
Out of these 50 articles, I chose two research studies and one commentary from Education Week.
Peng, H. & Chou, C. (2007). Mobile computing as a cognitive tool for middle schools: Connecting curriculum and technology. International Journal of Instructional Media, 34(3), 301-310

Schneider, J. (2011, October 5). Tech for all? Understanding our mania for education technology. Education Week, 24.

Palak, D., Walls, R., & Wells, J. (2006). Integration of instructional technology: A device to deliver instruction or a tool to foster learning. Journal of Instructional Media, 33(4), 355-365.

Next search, same procedure:
information literacy AND devices AND instruction
32 results
Out of these articles, I got a few results:

Geck, C. (2006). The generation Z connection: Teaching information literacy to the newest net generation. Teacher Librarian, 33(3), 19-23.

Yelland, N. (2006). Changing worlds and new curricula in the knowledge area. Educational Media International, 43(2), 121-131.

Next, to Google Scholar.

UPDATE, 4 DAYS AFTER THE PAPER WAS DUE:

Finding the research for this project was really challenging. It turned out that there were only two studies that had been done on the actual topic of how one-to-one laptop programs have impacted information literacy. I found lots of information about one-to-one laptop programs in the course of my research in the King Library databases, but I didn't come across those two studies. I was focused on including "one to one" or "1:1" in my search terms and maybe I didn't find the articles about those two studies because two of the articles (out of 3) had the words "laptop" and "literacy" in them but not 1:1. One of the articles was in a journal that was not in the King Library databases. This was published in 2012 in a journal called International Journal of E Learning and Learning Objects. It seems like it's mostly about distance learning. I found that article by using Google scholar.

The other two articles were both about the same study, which seemed a little odd. They were very similar and had almost identical beginnings, but then highlighted different things in the same study. One was published in 2007, the other in 2008. In fact, I didn't even realize the 2008 article existed until I got to the 2012 article and saw multiple articles cited by the same guy. I was actually surprised that Warschauer published two similar articles about the same study in two different journals--one is called Pedagogies: An International Journal and the other is The Teachers College Record. I supposed maybe they got published this way to reach a wider variety of audiences.

Ultimately, I ended up with 18 sources which was a lot to pull together into a literature review. More on that in my next research journal entry!

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