(Please note the link to a Free Demo download on the right hand side of the linked page)
Orwell is an episodic indie game that puts players in the role of an analyst working for a fictional surveillance state in the wake of a bomb explosion in a public square. Players are tasked with scouring news sites, social networking sites, message boards, blogs, text chats, and the like for clues as to the identity of the bomber and possible motivations for the bombing. Potentially relevant information is highlighted, but it is up to the player to decide whether each piece of information is worthy of inclusion in a report to be passed up the chain of command. The items selected create the narrative that law enforcement will act upon, but the player has no say as to what actions are taken beyond selecting what to include in the accumulated data. The story unfolds through the narrative that player-selected data constructs and the actions that result. Mistakes can result in the detention or prosecution of innocents. This forces the player to exercise research and critical thinking skills, particularly evaluating data as relevant or irrelevant, reading between the lines, and maintaining awareness of how each piece of information contributes to an overall narrative. Embedded in all of this is a clever critique of the surveillance apparatus and how it relates to our conceptions of freedom, safety, and privacy-a critique, I would argue, worthy of the game's name.
I selected Orwell for this critical thinking post because it is essentially a gamified exercise in research, or, put another way, research with training-wheels. All of the pieces of data that the user can include are presented in context, and players must evaluate how a clue relates to both its context and to the investigation as a whole in order to make useful selections. That kind of consideration is essentially what we are doing as we research material for inclusion in an academic paper, and so I believe the game doe
Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites. Google Scholar helps you find relevant work across the world of scholarly research.
Instagrok is a great tool to use with students who are learning how to conduct online research. Students and teachers can access this application on any device. Teachers can create free student accounts and their own dashboard to assign tasks, provide search guidelines, and monitor student progress. To access all of the dashboard features, there is a relatively affordable yearly subscription. Through customized searches, students are able to read and assess information, take notes, create concept maps, and cite sources. Instagrok can also help students to collaborate on group projects and develop critical reading skills while collecting information for papers and assignments.
I Keep Safe tracks global trends and issues as a professional non-profit organization. It was established in 2005 by policy leaders, educators, law enforcement, technology experts, public health experts and advocates. The research collects and generates positive resources for all who teach youths how to use new media devices and platforms which promotes safety and good health. Content from iKeepSafe maybe used by teachers or any advocate to communicate and promote digital citizenship and media literacy into local programs. Globally, iKeepSafe helps all countries implement digital citizen and lessons by informing public officials, community members and law enforcement to engage upon the universal codes of conduct.
The Library of Congress is the nation's oldest federal cultural institution, and it serves as the research arm of Congress. It is also the largest library in the world, with more than 162 million items. The collections include books, sound recordings, motion pictures, photographs, maps, and manuscripts.
Scrible is a free annotation tool available to users across many platforms, with a fully integrated Google Chrome extension. Simply highlighting information on a current events article about emails, and cross-referencing the ISTE infographic on Digital Citizens, students can come to their own conclusions about the do's and don'ts of being a responsible digital citizen.
Make remote design work Online brainstorming, synthesis and collaboration. Here, I am using the platform in order to have students critically engage in an information/media literacy lesson aimed at evaluating the credibility/validity of independent and group research.
In the classroom and at home, students use Popplet for learning. Used as a mind-map, Popplet helps students think and learn visually. Students can capture facts, thoughts, and images and learn to create relationships between them.
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