Elementary Students - Citing Sources

The Keep Calm-O-Matic

Standard 3 of ISTE Technology Standards for Students focuses on research and information fluency. The expectation: Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate and use information. Our state standards for information and technology skills expect learners as young as 5 to "recognize the importance of respect for the work of others." By 5th grade, the expectation is for the student to "understand ethical behavior (e.g., copyright, not plagiarizing, netiquette) when using resources." The expectation isn't that the students will cite in APA or MLA style. Thank goodness!

So what's an elementary teacher to do when faced with helping young learners from K - 5 cite sources when writing non-fiction texts, reports, presentations, and even producing video content. We do what we do best, we teach.

Beginning with kindergarten, we teach that everyone's work belongs to that person and we shouldn't use it without permission and we should tell how we found the work. Begin with something as simple as having students ask permission of others before taking photos with those iPads. Maybe even have a paper the student must have signed by their buddy before snapping that pose. When using Internet resources, keep it simple by allowing them to copy and paste links at the end of their work. Model for students when you are writing in front of them or even when you are finding resources and sharing with them, include where you got the information.

Fortunately, in our district there are tools to help us during this teaching journey. For example, Discovery Education provides appropriate citation for any item the student uses, all they need to know is where the citation is located and how to copy and paste.

We are are Google Apps for Education district, so utilize the research feature in Google Docs that will help automatically cite...complete with footnotes.

And don't forget to use resources available to us for free such as an easy site to use to help students come up with a copy and paste citation - Easybib.com.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention all the awesome, free lessons for grades 3 - 5 available on this topic from Common Sense Media. Common Sense Media is a great partner to enhance digital citizenship for all ages.

Do you have other thoughts or ideas of how to help teachers with this topic? Please share!