Jennifer Charteris: e-Fellow, Ultralab South, 2005

"The log and project timeline features look wonderful"

"Why didn't we have this at the beginning of the year - we could have used it in our own research!"

“Powerful because it’s an all-in-one set of tools to use in an integrated way. Whether the research is large or small in scope, all resources can be managed within the project structure. The bibliography is much easier to write as you simply enter the data in the fields for the style and source type you are using. As you prepare findings, citations are added at the push of a button. You can use it for your own tertiary studies, your students use it in a parallel way, for their research work. The programme has visual planning tools and manages images accompanying written text.

The software teaches students key elements of research, by guiding them through the use of the tools. Plagiarism falls away due to the programme tracking and logging electronic searches and downloads. You can set up instructions, specific resources, structures and timelines students are to follow from the outset of their research. A great way to manage information in today’s information society and to teach students how along the way.”

Ruth Thomas (English Teacher) Lytton High School, Gisborne

"It makes life easier for our kids to manage their work and find their way back to online material without any effort."

NZ Teacher

To the Parents of Upper School Students:

One primary focus of the media program at AHA is teaching students the research and information-problem solving skills that will be an important part of their success in college and adult life, both professionally and personally. Thus, we are pleased and excited to inform you that beginning this semester, we will be introducing a new computer program, PowerResearcher, which will provide both our students and our teachers with a highly useful tool, not only for teaching and learning information-problem solving skills, but also for making the research process easier to understand and to manage.

On the student side of things, PowerResearcher’s immediate usefulness can be seen in the way that it allows your student to complete all the parts of the research process through the framework of one program. From planning a topic, to searching for web resources, to taking notes, to writing the actual project, all research activity takes place within PowerResearcher, so all of your student’s work is saved in one file. No more notes in three different notebooks, or on index cards that get lost, and no more worrying about different parts on an assignment on different disks. The program has a number of other helpful features for students, including an automatic log of websites visited, which will help put an end to “where did I find that” panic. The program even allows the student to save a copy of a web page, so they can continue work without Internet access.

PowerResearcher is a terrific tool for teachers, too. By setting a research assignment in PowerResearcher, our teachers will be able to more clearly show the students the structure of the research process through the assignment. Teachers will also be able to include all the assignment information in the students’ individual assignment files. Deadlines, requirements, and any other information will be easily accessible every time your student sits down to work. Perhaps most importantly, the program allows teachers to more closely and effectively observe and assess the student’s research process - can they construct an efficient search phrase? Are they using the right kinds of resources? Do they take effective notes, or are they overwhelming themselves with information? While your student is learning about Ancient Greece or genetics, we will be using PowerResearcher’s features to make sure they’re also learning the fundamental skills they’ll need someday when they are asked to investigate the cost benefit of a new process, or to analyze a marketing client’s history – or even simply to work out the plan for a family vacation.

We will be introducing PowerResearcher to the students and teaching them to use it over the next few weeks. By that time, the program will be available to the students on all of the computers in the Upper School classrooms, the Research Room, the Media Center, and the Technology Lab. In the meanwhile, if you’d like to learn more about the program yourself, you can visit the company’s website at www.powerresearcher.com.

As you’ll see on the website, an individual copy of the program costs $79.99. Through AHA’s agreement with PowerResearcher, AHA’s families will be able to purchase home use copies of the program for only $10 each. Although a home copy is not absolutely necessary – for example, a student could type notes from a print resource into Word, then import the document into PowerResearcher – it would be easier for your student to work on research projects at home if they have access to the program there, especially as teachers may require all web research to be done through PowerResearcher. If you are interested in purchasing a home use copy, please complete the form at the end of this letter and return it to school with your payment by next Wed., Feb. 2nd. Once we submit the order to PowerResearcher, we will be able to provide you with your copies within a matter of a few days.

Integrating PowerResearcher into our practices and our students’ lives will certainly take a little time, but we will be here to assist the students in any way necessary as we learn to use this new software. The end result will be well worth it – not only better information-problem solving skills, but also fewer headaches while students are trying to organize and complete their assignments! If you have any questions about how we will be integrating and using PowerResearcher with the Upper School students, please feel free to contact me, either by calling me at the school or by emailing me at lmacarthur@ahacademy.com.

Thank you

Laura MacArthur (Media Specialist)