Help for the Research-Challenged

Are your students victims of information glut when they begin their research? KCTools (www.ala.org/ ICONN/kctools.html), a new Web site from the American Association of School Librarians (AASL), may help them. KCTools is a new feature of AASL's KidsConnect, the help and referral service for K–12 students. The site's aim is to help kids understand how to tackle research projects using the Internet, and to expand their way of thinking about, searching for, and using information. "What's special about it is that it really boils the research process down into simple questions for kids of any age who are new to research," explains codeveloper Colleen Zanger. KCTools reduces the research process to four first-person steps: "I wonder," "I find," "I evaluate," and "I share." And each stage of inquiry encourages students to think about using the Net. By clicking on the "I find" icon, for example, kids can learn about the usefulness of search engines, complete with a link to the librarian-developed, kid-friendly KidsClick! Web directory.

Like the popular "Big Six" (www.big6.com), KCTools gives teachers and students a broad look at the steps of the process of doing research. KCTools focuses on using the Internet for research, and Zanger says that it "offers students questions to keep in mind, Web sites for support, and encouragement to continue to ask questions."