Pros: It's like a one-stop shop for research and writing, from gathering sources to organizing research and outlining a workable draft.
Cons: The automatically compiled bibliography could potentially encourage student passivity rather than inquiry into why citation is important.
Bottom Line: This smart, intuitive system supports students in every step of the writing process.
To make the most of Citelighter, use it as an all-in-one writing and research tool. In doing this, you'll be able to break down writing tasks into manageable pieces so students aren't overwhelmed. You can also help students outline their ideas, view your rubric ahead of time, and observe their progress along the way. Access to Encyclopedia Britannica is included with the program, but keep in mind that you can also upload any text or like you'd like students to view. Teacher tools include ready-made standards-based writing scaffolds, formative assessment tools with "cognitive prints" of student work (essentially a visual assessment of each student's use of sources, citations, and time), a grading platform, writing analytics, and a plagiarism-checking tool. Also, for help with problematic grammar or spelling, you can consider having students use a tool like Grammarly in conjunction with the platform.
In the teacher dashboard, metrics allow the site to aggregate scores so teachers can see where individual students, and the whole class, are doing well and where they need work. Teachers are also able to see student engagement, how many pieces of text they captured, how much they organized, and how much students commented on each other's work.
Editor's Note: Citelighter is no longer available.
Citelighter is an engaging online platform designed to support students and teachers as they tackle the intricacies of the writing process. Students simply sign up and download the Citelighter toolbar or work on the Citelighter website (or Chrome app). Students can work on Citelighter's platform to research topics and construct their own written work or use the Citelighter toolbar to search and cite from the open Web. On the platform, students follow a series of scaffolded steps predetermined by their teacher; they'll explore leveled articles and various multimedia content (videos and images) before they begin writing a paper. As students find useful excerpts, capturing and organizing is as simple as highlighting, clicking, and dragging. Citations are automatically saved and referenced in a bibliography.
Further, students can include accompanying notes for any excerpt they select. At any time, students can click View and see their list of excerpts, notes, and citations. They can also reorder their excerpts as they read or place them in the outline for their assignment. Also, at any time students can view a rubric to get a better understanding of how the assignment will be assessed. If students need assistance, Citelighter offers video tutorials and a thorough FAQ, and they have the option chat with their teacher within the platform.
Citelighter touts itself as a "21st Century Critical Thinking Platform," capable of breaking down complicated writing tasks into manageable parts, and rightfully so. By gathering research, whether in Citelighter's Web-based platform or by using the downloadable toolbar, it's easier for students to assess the value of their collected excerpts and organize them in a way that makes the most sense. It's great that teachers get the option to provide outlines for students' writing assignments. Students then sift through articles, while the tool automatically compiles bibliographic references and tracks students' progress while also discouraging plagiarism. Of note is the fact that students are required to look at and verify bibliographic information before adding an excerpt into a draft.
Overall, in using Citelighter, students should feel a satisfying balance of support and autonomy. That said, the video tutorials -- and even chats with teachers -- likely won't be enough to help some struggling readers in locating and selecting credible sources.
Learning Rating
Community Rating
A great learning tool
I think this website is a great teaching tool. It helps students understand how how to evaluate and reference pieces of information and apply it properly. It helps students apply critical thinking skills and the website overall is very informative and interactive. It's a great way to keep students engaged.
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