LibGuides: Collaborative Aspects

So many of us now use LibGuides and love the ease, consistency, and clarity of them. But are we really using them to their potential as collaborative information sources? Most of the ones I have seen are being used as information dissemination portals, using the LibGuide as a platform for links to databases, books, and even videos. So much better than our paper or web pathfinders of earlier decades, but they are still a one-sided educational tool.

Are we really using LibGuides to their greatest "2.0" capabilities? Easy to use boxes can be added that allow for not only user ratings of links, but interactive polls, feedback boxes, and, most interesting and least used (as far as I can tell) user link submissions.

Some libraries use these boxes, but how can we get kids to participate?

Our 7th graders research the people and cultures of Middle Eastern countries in order to write a first person creative piece. Over the past few years we have built a Google Custom Search Engine for this project (I wrote about it before), and put it on the LibGuide.

I ask the students to participate in this endeavor by submitting links to the LibGuide for their friends to use. This has been relatively successful, and by that I mean maybe eight kids have submitted links this year so far. I might ask the teachers to make submitting links mandatory next year, to help us build a good database in the Google Custom Search Engine, but also to show the kids that we want to collaborate, that they often find great sites to use for research, and that their research is worth sharing.

When the students submit links, they are asked for their name and email as well as the title of the link and the url. I tell kids to only put their first name (privacy), and that the email address doesn't get posted. Then I receive an email telling me I can preview the link before I either reject or post it. This is helpful, so kids take it seriously and really only post worthy sites. It also lets me look at the sites they are finding so I can potentially help them if I see they are somewhere they might not really want to be. After I post the link, at a later date, I add the link to our custom search engine, to be used by others in later years. 















On other LibGuides, we ask the kids how they like the LibGuide, or which database is most useful via polls, but the voting is minimal.

 

I poked around a bit in LibGuides and I found that Juliet Kerico, librarian at Southern Illinois University's LoveJoy Library, has had some success with this type of collaboration with students.

Home - Biology - LibGuides at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville via kwout

Have you had any interesting collaboration experiences with students using these features? If so, how did you entice students to vote and participate?

Google Custom Search

Do any of you use Google Custom Search to make Internet searching more manageable for students? Essentially, you can make a mini-search engine, powered by Google, but only finding results you pre-approve. I put one together last year for my 7th grade students, and the teachers loved it. I think the students appreciated it also. Now I am updating it for this year's research. I go back and forth about Google Custom Search though. It is taking away the need to evaluate websites, therefore lessening the student's experience with this important skill.

Google Custom Search Engine - Site search and more via kwout

I can see using it to teach evaluation and searching - the results are controlled, and the search screen looks very much like Google's. Or if younger students are researching sensitive topics and you want want to allow Internet research but want to make sure the students stay clear of inappropriate sites, this might be a good solution.
In my case, we are using it to make the Internet smaller, in a way. And to keep the kids from wasting time on the blogs that aren't meant to be used for research. The students are investigating what it is like to live in certain Middle Eastern countries, and then they are writing historical fiction from the perspective of an Israeli soldier, or an Iraqi teenager, etc. They aren't experienced enough to know or understand all the bias they would encounter on the web, so we made a selection of sites available to them, but they may carefully go out on a regular search engine if they want to. This way it isn't seen as restrictive, but rather as a guided experience.
Do you use Google Custom Search? Would you?