By Graeme Boyd, LCS MS/HS Librarian
LCS recently announced a subscription to Noodletools which is a student research companion for citing sources and organising projects and notes, specifically tailored for Middle and High School students. Unlike the vast citation tools and reference machines already available on the internet, Noodletools offers no advertising or data tracing and is designed for and with students in mind (it was designed by Librarians who had been working in international schools for years and saw a need in the market for such a professional product). Due to popular demand, LCS set up a month trial of Noodletools in September 2021 for all faculty to use. The back office results showed high usage, particularly amongst Social Science students. Therefore it was decided to purchase an official subscription, starting in October 2021, for one academic year.
Essentially, Noodletools offer students a platform to independently manage their own ‘working bibliography’ for any project, paper, research question, thesis or assignment they are working on. Within this platform are ‘Projects’ and ‘Notecards’ which students can add for any reference appropriate to their thinking or in collaboration with their teacher. Thus, they can then effectively manage the information flow and synthesis of many projects at once under their own account. Instead of only offering a way to cite the standard book, article or website, Noodletools also explores different digital mediums more relevant and current to today’s information climate, especially those with strong social media presence including tweets, posts, video content, wikis and message boards from particular forums. Furthemore, Noodletools encourages the student to reference non-formal sources like verbal interviews, email exchanges, letters, lectures, speeches and readings.
Another crucial feature for our Lincoln Community School students is that Noodletools has an automatic extract link for citations with our subscribed and popular research database EBSCOhost allowing students ease of access and familiarity between both platforms.
As LCS continues to invest in the future of our students’ education by offering the latest in technological software and peer pedagogical support, we believe allowing students to explore, inquire and make mistakes whilst navigating the online digital landscape is pivotal to turning them into confident, lifelong learners. Noodletools is a small, but important, stepping stone for this process.
For all enquiries using Noodletools please contact Mr. Boyd. gboyd@lincoln.edu.gh
Check out Noodle Tools here: https://www.noodletools.com/