(CC) Photo by eren {sea+prairie}

A colleague in one of my Google+ circles asked for some general advice on developing technology related staff development sessions. Well, I am certainly no expert on staff development or adult education. My college degrees were in working with students, just like most of yours probably are. Pausing to reflect, I realized that after a decade of experience leading technology staff development sessions perhaps I have actually gathered a few choice nuts. I’ve taken a moment to attempt to gather a few of my learned tendencies and considerations.

I’ll begin by saying that we in the LPS Computing Services Training department often hear about folks in our schools who have been tasked with leading technology staff development in buildings. If this is something you WANT to do and feel competent doing, and feel is consistent with your role in the building we would love to support you however we can. On the other hand, this is what we are here for! If you feel uncomfortable with what you are being asked to do, feel free to push back on your building leadership and ask them to contact Kristi Peters and/or Tim Hahn. If a technology topic is important enough to a building’s professional development that the office can guarantee 10 or more people will be in attendance we would LOVE to come out to your building and lead the session ourselves. In many ways, this is actually our preferred methodology.

With that being said, I’ll continue on with a brain-dump of the wisest things I can think of at the moment…

Constraints

Ideally I try to treat staff development on technology focused topics no different than any other topic. Pedagogically, the methods would be consistent. Good teaching strategies don’t change with the content you are covering.

In reality, we often face significant constraints. Our sessions are generally limited to a couple of hours or less, there is no opportunity to create a structure for support of learning via practice and reflection, there is no followup post-session and ultimately there are no tangible expectations placed upon the recipients short of being “present and accounted for.” This essentially cuts 3/4 of the legs out from under the instructional table and makes using what we know about sound educational practices less useful.

Our sessions often remind me of walking down the beach and seeing a stranger getting into a kayak with the intent of crossing the Pacific Ocean and having them shout in your direction as you pass by “Hey buddy, before I shove off, tell me what I need to know about water.” Where do you begin, or end?

In this scenario where we have no prior relationship with the attendees, no data on their existing knowledge of the topic, no time for a cycle of instruction / practice / reflection, no expectations of the participants applying what they have learned, what we are really trying to do is figure out how to use our limited time together most effectively. Our objective becomes getting our information to be more memorable and packaged in a way to independently support users in an “on-demand” format as they need it in the future.

Address Human Needs

Experience as an elementary school teacher helps to inform much of my staff development work. Like children learning a new subject, staff members rarely come to a session with any scaffolding – prior knowledge of the topic we are covering. Since we tend to forget positive experiences more easily than negative ones, if staff come to my session with anything, it is likely to be emotional baggage about a previous experience that did not go well. You’ll need to be conscious of their emotional needs and address what you can.

Some trainers bring food to sessions for this reason. I like to eat as much as the next guy, but I prefer to begin sessions with a video clip – a “thinking device.” These are nice for a lot of instructional reasons, but in this scenario their real value to me is that they can serve as a redirect. Whatever baggage the participants arrive with gets set down for a moment as they watch the video. When the clip ends, I ask a question about the clip, forcing them to shift mental gears for a moment, putting more distance between the current moment and the moment they arrived in the room. This helps to cleanse the palate, and sets a better scene for beginning the session.

If I jumped right in and started showing where to click, I’m afraid that I would lose many people. Instead, I try to frame what we are about to do in a larger context, provide a connection to something they already know to be true. Perhaps the thinking device I’ve shown provides a good segue for this.

Nervous people don’t clearly hear or understand what they are being told. If they don’t hear or understand, they will certainly not remember it. With that in mind, before I even begin preparing the contents of the session I try to put together a valuable set of supports that staff can return to after the session (or others may find useful if they didn’t even attend.) These might be web pages, PDFs, videos, or a combination of all of these. Before we touch the computers I show these to the participants and attempt to convey that Computing Services is available to support them. This is an attempt on my part to offer a safety net for them and reduce anxiety. Before they begin they now know that there is a lifeline they can access if they need it in the future. We also know that we only really keep a person’s full attention for 20 minutes or so, and if they are going to remember one thing, I would hope it is that they have supports in place.

There is Never Enough Time

I attempt to take the topic and render it down to the very essence of what they have to know to leave the session and continue using the tool or concept. In a good situation, I’ll get to cover 25% of what they MIGHT need to know, but hopefully it is a functional & foundational 25%. Try to imagine a fire drill eliminating half of your time together. Will they still understand enough to begin independently tomorrow?

Any time that can be spent hands-on and using a tool while an experienced user is in the room to address questions is time well spent. If you have 2 hours with the participants and feel like you can cover 70% of the topic in that time frame, you will actually be better off covering only 40% of the topic and offering more time for participants to engage the tool or discuss the concept with peers.

Every 10-15 minutes you need to create an opportunity for reflection, even if it is only for 60 seconds. Offering a guided question is very useful, but it does not need to be Nobel laureate quality. Simply asking them to reflect for a moment with an elbow partner is a useful enough conversation starter in many cases.

When time is not abundant, the situation may call for a different approach all together. Perhaps you’ve got 20 minutes or less with a group of teachers. You’ll need to take more of an “executive briefing” strategy. A) Begin by recognizing that time is limited, B) Deliver either a short overview of the topic or a sales pitch for the tool, with no opportunity for interaction, C) Introduce support materials, D) Entertain questions from the participants in the time remaining. In these cases you are less of an educator and more of a journalist or salesman, but your educational background will help inform what you do and use your time wisely.

Everything is Hard

One thing I have learned from experience is to go out of my way to never call what we are covering “simple” or “easy” or create an implication that they should be able to do this without struggling in any way. That puts them in a no win situation. Either it really is easy, and they feel no sense of accomplishment because I said it SHOULD be easy, or they are struggling and feel ashamed because I’ve implied that they should not be.

Another thing to remember is that when working with adults, you have no positional authority over them. You will do your best to prepare and deliver the information. The hardest part is getting these peers of yours to care about what you are bringing to their attention. People do not act upon new information unless they are emotionally invested. (Being required to act to keep their job is a form of emotional investment. We don’t have that authority.)

My Pantheon of Professional Resources

“Teaching That Sticks” is an LPS staff development session I offer on occasion that is largely based upon the book ‘Made to Stick’ by Chip & Dan Heath. That book has been more influential on my trainings than almost anything else I have encountered. It is an easy read, chock-full of strategies to try, and I highly recommend it.

The facilitation skills modeled in “Adaptive Schools” trainings would also be a tremendously good use of your time if you ever have the opportunity to participate. If not, any facilitation related trainings or texts go a long way when working primarily with other adults.

The books ‘Presentation Zen’ by Garr Reynolds or one of Nancy Duarte’s books on presenting ‘slide:ology: the Art & Science of Creating Great Presentations‘ or ‘Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences‘ would be excellent reads if you are wanting to improve your content delivery.

If you find yourself in a situation where you develop a longer term relationship with a teacher or a group of teachers, you really shift from the role of “Trainer” to the role of “Coach.” The best resource for this working environment might be the text ‘Instructional Coaching: A Partnership Approach to Improving Instruction’ by Jim Knight.

In LPS we maintain a subscription to a number of e-book titles in the Gale Virtual Reference Library. Many of these focus on modern instructional models that take advantage of brain research, multisensory learning, visual learning and using technology with classroom instruction. These would be useful for instructing people of any age. Talk to your local media specialist if you need assistance accessing these texts.

Your Turn to Share

There you have a few of the “nuts” I have gathered over the years. Now it is your turn! I’m also interested in hearing the thoughts of others. I’d love to learn something from you as well!

“My, dzieci sieci”

by Piotr Czerski,
translated by Marta Szreder,
remixed/downsampled to verse by Chris Pultz

–

We grew up with the Internet
and on the Internet.

We do not ‘surf’.

The internet is not
a ‘virtual space’, not
external to reality, but
part of it.

We do not use the Internet,
we live on the Internet
and along it.

The Web is not a technology
which we had to learn and
which we managed to get a grip of.

The Web is a process,
happening continuously and
continuously transforming
before our eyes;
with us and
through us.

Technologies appear
then dissolve in the peripheries,
websites are built,
bloom and
pass away, but
the Web continues,
because we are the Web

Brought up on the Web
we think differently.

When we want to know something
we know that we’ll find the information
in a lot of places,
we know how to get to those places,
we know how to assess credibility.

We have learned to accept
that instead of one answer
we find many different ones.

We select,
we filter,
we remember,
and we are ready to swap
the learned information
for newer, better information,
when that comes along.

To us, the Web is a sort of
shared external memory.

We do not have to remember
unnecessary details:
dates,
sums,
formulas,
clauses,
street names,
detailed definitions.

It is enough for us
to have an abstract,
the essence needed to process
and relate information
to other information.

Should we need details,
we can have them
within seconds.

We do not have to be experts,
because we know where to find experts
in what we ourselves are not.

When we create,
we usually just
give it back
for circulation.
We are willing to pay, but
our money has stopped being
paper notes. It is a
string of numbers
on the screen.

We show appreciation and
want to reward artists.

It is not our fault that
business has ceased to make sense in
traditional form.

It is not our fault that
instead of accepting the challenge and
trying to reach us with
something more than we can get for free
they defend obsolete ways.

We are willing to pay, but we
expect to receive added value.

Payment is a symbolic act of exchange
that is supposed to benefit both parties.

Our view of social structure
is different from yours:
society is a network,
not a hierarchy.

We will start a dialogue with anyone,
professor or pop star.

The success of the interaction
depends solely on whether
the content of our message
will be regarded as
important
and worthy of reply.

“Generations” exist only on paper.

We were not born of a reality, but rather
a metamorphosis of the reality itself.

Reality never provided us with a single
tangible, meaningful, unforgettable
event with which to forever distinguish us
from the previous generations.
We keep looking for it.

Our groundbreaking change
came unnoticed.
Along with cable TV,
mobile phones, and, most of all,
Internet access.

We have learned that change is possible:
that every uncomfortable system
can be replaced and
is replaced
by a new one more efficient,
better suited to our needs,
giving more opportunities.

We grew up with the Internet
and on the Internet.

We do not ‘surf’.

We do not use the Internet,
we live on the Internet
and along it.

–

Colophon

Thanks to the following individuals who brought the original text to my sight:

• Maud Newton
• Alexis Madrigal in The Atlantic
• Dale Holt

License

(CC) Uznanie autorstwa-Na tych samych warunkach 3.0 Unported:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Contact the author: piotr[at]czerski.art.pl

I know that I come nowhere close to sharing all the tools that that I saw for the first time. How about you? Please add any sites that you have learned about recently, whether you were at EdCamp or not!

“Today I have some simple tips…”

“This workshop will cover 5 simple strategies for…”

“Don’t worry! Today’s staff development is covering some pretty simple stuff.”

“It’s so simple you won’t even believe it.”

We start staff developments this way, we say it at the beginning of lessons in classrooms, we type it in workshop descriptions. Simple – Simple – Simple!

When I look up “simple” in the dictionary it is described with adjectives like “basic,” “uncomplicated,” “fundamental,” “straightforward.” When working with technology, these adjectives rarely apply. No two systems are truly identical, and no two users are ever the same. When we describe something as “simple” we are either being dishonest, or disregarding the levels of skill people are walking in the door with. No matter why we say it, we are shooting ourselves in the foot.

I think I understand a number of reasons we might say it, but generally we are attempting to set the bar lower in order to de-stress an audience. No harm done, you might think. Think again! By claiming that what we are about to do is “simple” we are sending a message. That message will be decoded differently by people around the room, and as far as I can tell none of the implications are good.

Caging any topic or skill as “simple” is a lose/lose/lose proposition:

1. The people in your audience with low tech skills just had a pang of fear flash down their spine. These skills might NOT be simple to them. In that case, they feel even worse about their abilities than they already did.
   “This is supposed to be SIMPLE? I have no idea how he is doing this!”
   If they are able to accomplish the task/skills, they may feel like “So what. This was just simple stuff, apparently.” They have been robbed of a feeling of success and empowerment.
2. The people in your audience with relatively normal tech abilities will be able to follow along and complete the tasks/skills as you work through them, but will also not feel a sense of accomplishment because
   “This was easy, but it sounds like I should have already known how to do this.”
   Again, any emotional reaction short of success is a missed opportunity when you are working to change a mindset or culture.
3. The people in your audience who feel confident in their abilities just tuned you out because they feel like they already know the simple stuff, even if they don’t or this is new content altogether. Worse yet, they might distract others in the room through their overt “Look at me, I don’t need to pay attention” behaviors.
   “Whatever, buddy. This is a waste of my time.”

With this in mind, how can we respect the various skill levels, and attempt to engage all learners? Here are a few variations on a theme I might try out at the start of my next workshop:

• “Today we are going to do some things that may be new to some of you, while others may do this every day. If you have experience, please help me by keeping your eyes open for neighbors who may need a hand here or there, and we will learn as a community.”
• “Some people would call the skills we are covering today “EASY”. Not me. Nothing is easy the first time you do it. Hopefully by the time we leave today everyone in the room will think of the things we are doing today as EASY, but it is OK if you don’t feel that way right now.”
• “When you hear someone describe all of the things a tool can do, or watch someone like me who is experienced with this tool, you may feel overwhelmed. This is normal. We’ll start by watching, then tackle this one step at a time. Others may see me demonstrate these skills and remember how you felt the first time you tried it on your own. Once you have walked through this a time or two it will feel much less intimidating. Before this session ends, maybe we will have time to share some “pro tips” from people who have done this before. Most importantly, know that we have a number of resources that will support you once you leave here today. Some are online, some are on the phone, some may be sitting in the chair beside you.”

What are some other ways to lower the stress in the room without calling something “simple?” I’d love to hear your ideas!

Seriously though, here is a great list of computer based timers that might be useful for your on-screen needs. If you have a projector in your room it is even better, because the students can see the time ticking down and prepare themselves to move on to the next activity.

Macintosh Software

• The best software timer I know of is called ApiMac Timer, and is already installed on every Teacher laptop in LPS. YAY! Look in your Applications folder!
• Mac OS X Widget: 3-2-1

Windows Software

• XNote Stopwatch

Web Based Timers

• Online Stopwatch has dozens of types of on-screen timers
  • LARGE stopwatch
  • Countdown
  • Clock Timer
• Class Timer
• Time.me

“Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.” -B. F. Skinner

The standardized assessments we often use to judge the success or failure of students & schools is based largely upon the ability of students to mechanically regurgitate facts. Most teachers would argue that knowledge and facts are two different things.

“New knowledge” does not necessarily mean bringing brand new information into the world (although it could!) The new knowledge we speak of refers to ideas and understandings that are new to the student. The powerful part of the phrase comes earlier though, as we say “Creation” or “Construction” of the new knowledge.

Our lives are an ocean of raw information that exists in the form of facts, figures, rules, information, images, ideas of others, and other stimuli. Some of what we encounter fits with what we already understand. Some does not. In these cases we have to evaluate whether this new information is valuable to us or not. We know that real learning happens within this process of thinking critically about information and constructing our own understanding.

How can we foster this process of creating new knowledge? By starting with the ideas of the students, instead of starting with facts as they are generally understood outside of our classroom. (Like in the textbooks or on the internet.)

We can begin by asking the big, worldly questions that spark interest or discussion amongst students, instead of beginning by presenting information that is already evaluated (by the world) and presented as fact. “Why is grass green instead of blue?” “Why don’t more people choose to live in rural Nebraska?” “If you started a bank, why should people use yours instead of another one?”

At that point we step out of the way and allow students to put their own ideas and thoughts out there, then we guide them through the process of investigating their own ideas. Are they accurate? Are they supportable with facts? Do they have any data? Has anyone else had a similar idea? Where can they do further research?

We never really “own” knowledge until we know something well enough to debate its’ merits or teach it to another person. If there has not been a significant use of technology up to this point in your project, this is where the technology could step in. Using presentation tools, movie making software, animations, drawings, writing, video cameras, or any other technologies available in your building, ask students to explain their ideas and findings to an audience.

Creation of new knowledge does not have to take the form of a project, and student use of technology is not a necessity. You can start a lesson with a video clip and ask leading questions. You can use a magazine article, a piece of music, an old saying, any sort of thinking device that piques the curiosity of students. The act of beginning a lesson with a question instead of a statement causes cognitive dissonance – a gap in knowledge. As human beings, your students will be compelled to tune-in and pay closer attention until they figure out the answer. It is the critical thinking process of getting there that holds the power. This can be accomplished in the span of a single class period in many cases.

One way to evaluate whether students have gained new knowledge is to pre-test. A formative assessment before they begin can help you with informed instruction methods during their new learning while offering a baseline of information to compare against with post-lesson assessment.

The assessment of new learning can also come from the products created by the authentic assignments you asked them to complete. The task you have as an evaluator is not to be distracted by the products themselves. You are looking for documentation of learning, not technology use. Specifically, you want them to include the data that they decided was not useful, and why.

Another crazy idea might be to ASK your students. At the end of the lesson, ask them to write down what was covered in class today that they already knew, and what they feel like they understand now. It sounds simple enough, but students love the opportunity to tell you what they already knew, and that makes it easier to tack on what they (perhaps begrudgingly) learned today.

It got me thinking about 4th grade Nebraska History units, and people around the state who are proud of their heritage, and people who are passionate about photography, and the ever growing number of geo-taggers and the amazing web based tools that we have at our disposal in 2010. How can we focus all of these things into a single, incredibly informative and highly entertaining package?

Wouldn’t it be cool if there was a website that had elements of the following all combined in one spot:

• A database that correlated Nebraska photos with geo-data
• A beautiful (minimalistic) web interface that allowed you to view the photos by map view, or list view by county or region
• A web interface that allows people to contribute (moderated) 1st person narratives or content
• A mobile interface that allowed you to easily view the contents and/or contribute new data while in the field (+ iPhone/Android apps)

A person would not have to start completely from scratch, many ingredients/resources/models are already out there.

• National Register of Historic Places: Nebraska
• Nebraska Historical Marker Texts
  • Nebraska Historical Marker Info/Database
  • Nebraska Historical Markers – A Waymarking.com Category
  • Flickr Discussion: Nebraska Historical Markers
• Nebraska State Historical Society Photograph Collections
  • Nebraska Memories Collection
  • Flickr: Nebraska History Group
  • The Commons on Flickr: Nebraska
  • Prairie Settlement
• Nebraska State Historical Society Research Links
  • Buffalo County Historical Markers – RootsWeb
  • Adams County Historical Buildings and Sites
  • Etc., Etc…
• Nebraska 4-H Geocaching
• Connect Nebraska
• Gilded Age Plains City
• Roundus
• API
  • Google Maps API
  • Flickr API

“I reject your reality and insert my own!” -Adam Savage

For the exact same reasons that we need to introduce opportunities for creative expression and use an inquiry model we also need to go out of our way to create situations in which divergent thinking is rewarded and valued. Situations in which there are many right answers are few and far between in our traditional educational system.

Divergent thinking can arise in many ways. For example “brainstorming,” the process of generating as many different possibilities as possible, without giving any one idea a great amount of focus, is a divergent thinking exercise. After spending as much time as is needed to brainstorm a set of ideas, we often review them and place them back into categories, a convergent activity.

Divergent thinking also ties into metaphorical learning, in which there are no right or wrong answers and students are left to prove their ideas by supporting them with their knowledge of the subject. This divergent, or metaphorical knowledge often comes about when students are asked their opinions on a topic. This type of processing promotes real learning in a way that mechanical regurgitation of facts does not.

Evelyn S. Zent, an instructor at the University of Washington, suggests the following types of activities for stimulating divergent thinking in a classroom; brainstorming,journaling, freewriting, mind (or concept) mapping. Luckily, there are technologies that make each of these methods much easier or more engaging.

• Brainstorming can happen on websites like WallWisher or via google forms.
• Journaling can happen (either publically or privately) in a blogging tool.
• Freewriting can happen with word processing applications on your desktop, or in Google Docs.
• Concept mapping software exists in desktop tools like Inspiration or Kidspiration as well as websites like bubbl.us.

Beyond these situations, we can promote divergent thinking by asking divergent questions. These are questions in which students are asked to predict, hypothesize, infer, or reconstruct. These often include phrases like:

• If… then: “If the South had won the Civil War, what would be different about Nebraska today?”
• Imagine/Suppose: “Can you imagine a world without animals? How would it be different?”
• Predictions/Guesses: “What would President Lincoln say about the immigration issues we’ve discussed if he were alive today?”

These sort of questions are well suited to being answered creatively through video responses, musical compositions, parodies, reenactment in alternative settings, script writing, poetry, etc.

The evaluation of any creative endeavor by students should be focused upon the learning on display, not on the use of the tools or the quality of the final products. (Unless the core subject is the use technology.) If the student has not synthesized the information and presented new ideas, the prettiest pictures or fanciest slideshows, or most inspiring movie soundtracks should not convince you that learning took place.

“Creativity is the permission to be original all day, every day.” – Peter Reynolds

“If you are not prepared to be wrong, you will never create something original.” – Sir Ken Robinson

Sir Ken Robinson is one of a growing chorus of experts who help us to see that the education process in America stigmatizes wrong answers so much that we rob our students of the opportunity to be genuinely creative. Yet we know that creativity is the highest level of intellectual behavior (see updated Bloom’s Taxonomy of Cognitive Objectives). Any opportunity that we as teachers can present students to honor their innate willingness to put new ideas out for consideration should be embraced.

There is a rich palette of technological tools available to students in schools today for creating the types of products we have never experienced before. Drawing and painting software, presentation tools, video cameras, audio recorders, sound editing tools, word processors, these are all opportunities for a student to express their learning in a differentiated ways.

When focused on creativity, you might benefit from NOT discussing what kind of product students will make, instead focusing on what they intend to communicate to their audience. Once that is established, discuss possible modes of delivery. Bernajean Porter is a thought leader in this area, and you can find more information on this type of instructional process at her site  http://www.digitales.us/evaluating/index.php .

Porter also focuses on the evaluating of projects that rely upon creative thinking. She suggests that we do not get distracted by the quality of the product. Instead, we should assess the rigor of learning on display within the product. You want to look for examples of original thought, fluency, elaboration, brainstorming, modification, imagery, associative thinking, attribute listing, metaphorical thinking, forced relationships, formulation, design, and development.

“The most important persuasion tool you have in your entire arsenal is integrity.” -Zig Ziglar

The Internet makes access to information as easy and common as breathing. As adults, and Educators, we have a strong sense of intellectual property, and the ethics of what is appropriate use and inappropriate use of the information we collect. Students do not possess this understanding innately. We must model and instruct our students in these areas.

Certainly this topic includes the issues around plagiarism and proper citation, but it also encompasses copyright and evaluation of resources for bias and appropriateness.

While we as Educators work under a veil of “fair use” protection in our face-to-face interactions with students, it is imperative that we model and instruct students on copyright related issues. This includes imparting of the understanding that the person who creates something new (writing, photographs, music, art, etc.) is the owner of that intellectual property and can decide how others are allowed to use it.

In our current “digital age” where access to student access to powerful tools is prevalent, this is a two way street where students are both the consumers of products created by others, and increasingly the producers of new objects covered by copyright in their own right. When the idea of copyright as it applies to work THEY create is first presented to students, this abstract concept of intellectual property and Copyright becomes much more concrete and able to be internalized. An understanding of Creative Commons (http://creativecommons.org/about/what-is-cc) is valuable, and an appropriate avenue for opening this dialogue with students.

Once there is a general understanding that the words of others are “owned” by others, a discussion on plagiarism is made real for them. Even then, when copy/paste is so quick and easy, students often do not feel that taking someone else’s words is “theft” or “fraud.” It is our role as educators to assist them in this understanding (http://www.plagiarism.org/plag_article_what_is_plagiarism.html)

To ensure that plagiarism is a non-issue in your room you can actively cultivate a climate where the skill of locating and evaluating relevant information and attributing it properly is valued. Another appropriate idea is to design assignments that make plagiarism less possible. For other tips on combating plagiarism you might find this link interesting (http://virtualsalt.com/antiplag.htm).

The ethical use of information begins with evaluation of the source materials. A significant amount of this process is covered under the subject of “media literacy.” Determining the credibility of information on the internet is one of a larger set of modern medial literacies. If you are interested in learning more you might appreciate the work of Howard Rhiengold (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/rheingold/detail?entry_id=42805).

Kathy Schrock maintains a good list of links and worksheets for the classroom teacher dealing with issues of critical evaluation (http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schrockguide/eval.html) though you will find many other examples of these services online.(http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/web-credibility/assessing-credibility-online-sources.shtml)

Evaluation of the skills of students in the area of ethical use of information is generally behavioral. Did they plagiarize on their report? Did they properly cite the photographer who took the image they used in their presentation? Did they evaluate the primary sources they found online using any form of critical tools?