In this version of the tutorial, you will use mainly written instructions and screenshots to progress through the practice.
Workshop objectives:
After completing this workshop, you will be able to:
1. Identify educational issues related to citing sources in classroom research
2. Activate your account in NoodleTools.
3. Create citations.
4. Manage Citations: Share, export, merge.
5. Create and organize notes in NoodleTools.
6. Create the beginnings of a formatted paper in NoodleTools.
See complete course outline and objectives here.
To prepare for this workshop, please read these instructions:
It is recommended that you use two browsers for this activity:
Open a web browser (Safari, Firefox, Chrome, Explorer, etc.)
Open a second, separate browser window (not a tab), of the same or a different browser product.
Practice switching between the two browsers by using the command ALT and TAB. Hold down ALT, and hit TAB repeatedly to toggle between the browsers.
It is recommended that you use one browser to always keep the instructions open, and the other browser to work on NoodleTools.
If you are inside the school, you will be able to access most of the databases automatically.
To see the detail in the screen shots, sress and hold the ctrl key while pressing the + key to zoom into your screen. The - key zooms back out.
If you are outside the school, you will need your school username and password to sign into some of the databases. In addition, depending on the date you complete this workshop, you may need a special username/password to view databases. This information will be provided in the tutorial.
Begin the workshop below, using the written instructions and screenshot version.
1. Introduction: Discussing Citations
This short video is included in both versions of the tutorial. Please watch the video before moving on with the written instructions.
What problems have YOU noticed when students need to cite their sources? Please answer this question in this survey, so you can see what other teachers have said.
2. Activate your account in NoodleTools
For users who signed on to NoodleTools during or after the 2018-19 year
2. Activate your own personal account through your @amityschools.org Google account.
Note: If you are new to the district, or did not sign on to NoodleTools in 2018-19 follow different instructions.
- If you have signed on to NoodleTools during or after the 2018-19 year:
- Sign in Google Drive first and find the NoodleTool app logo under the
- or log on to NoodleTools using your @amityschools.org Google sign-on.
Re-enter your Amity Google account email, and your Google password.
If the screen below appears it means you are new to the district, or did not sign on to NoodleTools in 2018-19, and should follow different instructions.
You should be on the screen below.
Under “My Profile” make sure your first and last names are complete.
3. Create citations
3.a. Create a project, assign project properties, share.
3.a.1. Click on “New Project”.
3.a.2. Enter a “Project Title”.
3.a.3. Choose MLA style (for this practice), and click the “Advanced” citation level for full functionality. Click “Submit”.
3.a.4. Write a “Research Question” (think of something related to the topic of student enjoyment of school).
3.a.5. Write a “Thesis” statement. We will be researching information related to the topic “student enjoyment of school”.
3.a.6. In “Sharing and Collaboration”, review the options (click the question mark) and choose one you like.
3.a.7. In “Sharing and Collaboration”, under Sharing, you will share your project with a teacher’s Project Inbox . Click Share with a Project Inbox, and fill in the name of Musco’s dropbox: “NoodleTools PD”. Click “Done”. (Note: This will only work when the name exactly matches the dropbox the teacher has previously created.)
3.a.8. In “Sharing and Collaboration”, under “Student Collaboration” you will share your project with another student, as though you were a student sharing with a peer. Click “+Add Students”, and enter the student’s personal ID, which is the user name (“Student 1”). This is a hypothetical student previously created for this practice. Click “Done”.
3.a.9.Click “Projects” to view your project list.
There are 3 components to a project: Sources, NoteCards, and Paper. First, we will create citations for the Works Cited.
3.b. Create manual citations.
Create a manual citation for a journal article from a database. This is good practice, because articles found on the open web often do not include formatted citations.
3.b.1. Click on the name of your project to open it.
3.b.2. Click on the “Sources” tab. You are now ready to cite a source.
3.b.3. We are going to cite the journal article “How Can We Enhance Enjoyment of Secondary School? The Student View” from the database ERIC, by the EBSCO company.
3.b.4. In NoodleTools, Click on “Create a New Citation”.
3.b.5. Answer the question “Where is it?”. Since this article is found in ERIC, choose “Database”. Note that the choice here refers to WHERE the source was found, not what KIND of source it is.
3.b.6. The next screen offers a list of possible sources. Choose “Journal”, because it is a journal article.
3.b.7. View the article “How Can We Enhance Enjoyment of Secondary School? The Student View”.
If asked for an Amity log-in, use your SCHOOL password and username.
If asked for an EBSCO login, use “amity” and “amity”.
This is the article that will appear.
3.b.8. Start filling in as much information as you can, copying from the article, and adjusting the text as needed. Notice the pop-up hints.
Even though MLA does not REQUIRE the URL, include it anyway.
Include the DOI, since it can be useful later.
Click “Submit”.
3.b.10. Compare your finished citation to the citation below. Notice that URLs are not needed in MLA, but can be included. (note, as of 8/6/2016 this is MLA version 8).
Gorard, Stephen, and Beng Huat See. "How Can We Enhance Enjoyment of Secondary
School? The Student View." British Educational Research Journal, vol. 37,
no. 4, 2011, pp. 671-90. ERIC, search.ebscohost.com/
login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ933108&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
Accessed 6 Aug. 2016.
3.c. Create copy-paste citations.
Create a COPY AND PASTE citation for a journal article from a database.
3.c.1. Go to the same article again: “How Can We Enhance Enjoyment of Secondary School? The Student View”.
3.c.2. Click on “Cite” in the right sidebar.
3.c.3. Scroll down to the MLA citation. Copy the citation.
3.c.3. Return to NoodleTools, and repeat the steps to make a new citation.
Click on “Create a New Citation”.
Answer the question “Where is it?”. Choose “Database”.
Choose “Journal”
3.c.4. This time, got to “Quick Cite”, and click “Copy & Paste Citation”. Paste in the citation you copied from the EBSCO database.
3.c.4. Compare your two citations. If they are different, it is usually because you either did not include all the citation information, OR because the citation you copied from the database was imperfect. Remember that databases are not always capable of interpreting information correctly, especially unusual author formats.
In this example, you will notice that the ready-make citation has a minor capitalization error. Can you find it?
Gorard, Stephen, and Beng Huat See. "How Can We Enhance Enjoyment Of Secondary School? The Student View." British Educational Research Journal 37.4 (2011): 671-690. ERIC. Web. 12 July 2016.
3.d. Create citations of non-database sources: Books.
Create a MANUAL citation for a print book.
3.d.1. View the PDF of the book “Handbook of Social Influences in School Contexts”:
3.d.2. Return to NoodleTools, and repeat the steps to make a new citation.
Click on “Create a New Citation”.
Answer the question “Where is it?”. Choose “Print or in-hand”. We will pretend we have the print version.
Choose “Book”.
3.d.3. Fill in all the relevant information. Notice the following:
We will NOT fill in the “Chapter and Section” information, because here we are citing the whole book.
“Add another contributor” allows more than one personal credit.
Note the specific “Role” (author? Editor? Contributor?)
Note the spaces for information related to multi-volume or series books, though they don’t apply here.
Click “Submit”.
3.d.4. Compare your finished citation to the citation below. Are there any differences?
Wentzel, Kathryn R., and Geetha B. Ramani, editors. Handbook of Social
Influences in School Contexts: Social-Emotional, Motivation, and Cognitive
Outcomes. New York, Routledge, 2016
3.e. Create citations of non-database sources: Web pages.
Create a MANUAL citation for a op-ed article from an online newspaper, originally in print. Consider whether this is a faithful reproduction of the print article.
3.e.1. View the article “More Than Half of Students 'Engaged' in School, Says Poll”.
3.e.2. Return to NoodleTools, and repeat the steps to make a new citation.
Click on “Create a New Citation”.
Answer the question “Where is it?”.
At this point, consider your next choices carefully. Consider any hints you can find in the web page when you make that choice.
3.e.3. Fill in all the relevant information. Notice the following:
Not all the information can be found on a single page.
Click “Submit”.
3.e.4. Compare your finished citation to the citation below. Are there any differences?
You made have made some different choices, but the style here reflects the choice to cite this as a WEB PAGE in a web site, NOT as a magazine article, since some things, like the title, differ from the print version, and there is a statement that the online article includes revisions and updates.
A note was also added in the citation about the relationship with the print article, which is optional.
Blad, Evie. "More Than Half of Students 'Engaged' in School, Says Poll."
Education Week, edited by Kevin Bushweller, Editorial Projects in
Education, 9 Aug. 2014, www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/04/09/
28gallup.h33.html. Accessed 6 Aug. 2016. Published in Print: April 16,
2014, as Poll: Majority of Students 'Engaged'
Manage Citations
4. Manage Citations: Organize, Share, export, mergeNoodleTools allows you a number of options to manage your citations, but we are going to look at just a few:
4.a. Organize citations
4.a.1. Click on the “Sources” tab, and look at the options under the “Sort” dropdown on the upper right.
4.b. Share citations
4.b.1. The “Email” button allows you to send your citations.
4.b.2. If you really want to work together with someone else, and be able to view or edit each others’ citations, you need to share the project. To do this, go back to the project “Dashboard” tab on top, and add a Student Collaborator, or share with a teacher’s Project Inbox (see step 3.a.).
4.c. Export or print citations.
4.c.1. Click on “Print/Export” in the upper right, and look at the options under the dropdown menu.
4.c.2. Follow one of the options and practice saving your citation in your chosen format.
4.d. Change format style of a bibliography.
4.d.1. If you realize that you should have used a different style, like APA or Chicago, you have to change the Project settings.
4.d.2. Click on the “Projects” tab on the top of the page.
4.d.3. Click on the “Options” menu to the right of the project. Choose the style change you want.
4.e. Manage, merge multiple projects.
4.e.1. You can merge two or more different projects.
4.e.2. Click on the “Projects” tab on the top of the page.
4.e.3. Quickly create a dummy “New Project” to use an example.
4.e.4. Select the multiple projects you want to merge.
4.e.5. Click on the “Merge” tab in the submenu.
4.e.6. Take careful note of the merging options so you don’t lose any information.
Click “Submit”.
Create Notes
NoodleTools is great for creating, organizing, and sharing notes in any subject.
Students can:
- Create electronic notecards with quotations, paraphrases, or the own analysis.
- Link these cards to a text or multimedia source.
- Create groups of notecards under a shared category.
- Add topic “tags” to notecards to search by common elements.
- Share their notecards (or citations, and even draft or final papers) to a teacher dropbox.
Teachers can:
- View all student work live.
- Give feedback on student work, and require revision and response.
5. Create and organize notes in NoodleTools
5.a. Create a new note.
5.a.1. On the “Projects” page, click on your practice project to get to the “Dashboard” tab. Once there, click on the “Notecards” tab.,
5.a.2. Click “+New” to create a new note.
5.a.3. Write a “Title” that represents the basic idea of your note.
5.a.4. Choose one of your source citations from the dropdown menu.
5.a.5. Cut and paste a “Direct quotation”, a “paraphrase or summary”, or an original “My idea”.
5.a.6. Hint: students should take the time to create a well-written note NOW, that could get slotted right in your paper.
5.a.7. Be sure to add a “Tag” which should represent the specific topic or theme of the note. Be specific, because you will use tags to group similar notes together. Save tags will accumulate in the “My tags” box to be re-used.
Tags with more than one word should be in quotes.
5.a.8. Click “Save and Close”.
5.a.9. Create a second note in the same way for the same article, or another article. You need two notes for the next step. You may find that one note obscures the other on the desktop; just drag it off.
5.b. Group notes together by common topics/themes.
5.b.1. Drag one note on top of the other, and release it to create a “Pile” (terrible name).
5.b.2. Name your “Pile” . A “Pile” name can be a category/theme/topic that both notes address. We are pretending that the two notes deal with the same specific topic.
5.b.3. Click OK.
5.b.3. Create two more new notes, and make a new “Pile”.
5.c. Convert notes to outlines.
Outlines in NoodleTools work a little differently from EasyBib. You have to first create the outline with the “Add+” button.
5.c.1. Click the “Add+” button to create a few headings. You can change the name of topics by double-clicking, and rearrange the hierarchy by dragging and dropping.
5.c.2. Now DRAG one of your piles, or loose notes, right on top of any outline heading on the right until the heading is highlighted, and DROP it there. It will now appear as a note in that heading of the outline. You can rearrange the notes in the outline by dragging and dropping.
5.d. Export or print notes.
5.d.1. On the Notecard desktop, click “Print” to export your saved notes.
5.d.2. Notice the export options. Choose one, and practice downloading exported notes. Note that choosing Google requires signing into your Google account.
6. Create the beginnings of a formatted paper in NoodleTools
6.a. In reality, the “Paper” option does not do any automated formatting. It is simply a direct link to a Google Doc that is created from NoodleTools.
One suggestion is to build a paper by copying and pasting Notecards into the document created by the "Paper" command, as they are exported to Google Docs. Once all notes are compiled, and students begin writing, they can start to add citations and footnotes, if needed.
Assessment and Feedback:
In order to complete this workshop, you need to complete two short assessment/feedback assignments.
