The Most Popular Posts of the School Year

Some of you are already on school vacation, (I have 13 days left..) so I wanted to share with you the top posts from the blog from September 2011-May 2012.  They are in order of popularity.

39 Sites for Using iPad in the Classroom

Why Not Use Political Cartoons in Your Teaching? Here are 15 Places to Find Them

Do Your Students Know How to Cite a Tweet?

60 Sites for Digital Storytelling Tools and Information

10 Resources for Book Report Templates

All About QR Codes for Your Classroom: Here are 44 Sites to BYOD (Bring Your Own Device)

Teaching the Gifted and Talented: 33 Websites Where You Can Find Good Resources

School Newspaper Advisers: 17 Websites for Student Photographers

The most popular page was Teacher-Librarians.

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Do Your Students Know How to Cite a Tweet?

A student recently asked me if they could cite a tweet in their research paper. Sure, I said, and led them to the BibMe site. Much to my surprise, none of the websites for MLA citation explained how to cite a tweet. Even EasyBib, which boasts over 59 options for citations, did not list tweet. Yes, it's like quoting someone, but "tweeting" is synonymous with Twitter, and so one needs to somehow mention that in the bibliography. The correct way to cite a tweet is as follows:

THIS IS THE ORIGINAL TWEET:
Huffington Post (real name)  @HuffingtonPost  (user name )
Graphic photo from hospital reveals horrific results of bullying  huff.to/Jq4RCR

The first thing you list is the author's real name, followed by the username in parentheses. If there is no real name, just use the user name. Next, add the full text of the tweet, (make sure you put quotation marks) followed by the date and time of the tweet, including the time zone. The last thing you add is the word Tweet.

HERE'S HOW THE CITED TWEET WOULD LOOK:
Huffington Post (@HuffingtonPost) "Graphic photo from hospital reveals horrific results of bullying  huff.to/Jq4RCR" 25 April 2012, 2:57 p.m. EST. Tweet.

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For Research: 13 Types of Citation Generators

A few days ago, my niece asked me for information about how to format a bibliography. I couldn't help but tell her the story of how "when I was in high school" we had to follow a formula which the teacher provided on a handout. Each book, newspaper article, magazine article done by hand and then typed on the typewriter for my research paper. "You are so fortunate, today.." I told my niece. There are free programs on the Internet which will practically do all the work for you, including putting your bibliography in a Microsoft Word document. So I sent her a small list of my favorite programs, and then expanded the list here. I've starred my personal favorites.

BIBMe*

Bibomatic- for books only; enter the ISBN number of a book for the citation

Citation Fox for APA

Citation Fox for MLA

Cite This For Me

CiteBite- link directly to specific quotes on web pages

CiteFast- covers MLA, APA, Chicago and newspaper, magazine, web site, journal, book

EasyBib*- also now has an iPhone app where you can scan the ISBN number on a book

GoBiblio- free bibliography and citation generator

KnightCite- enter the information in the blank fields and your citation is generated; covers MLA, APA, Chicago

NoodleBib Express- free version of Noodle Tools

OttoBib- for books only; enter the ISBN number of a book for the citation

Son of Citation Machine- for APA, MLA, Chicago, Turabian formats

Zotero*- keep all your research in one spot

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