Product Overview of NoodleTools
NoodleTools is an award-winning online research management platform designed to facilitate critical thinking and authentic research for students across various grade levels, from 4-12 and beyond. Here’s a comprehensive overview of what NoodleTools does and its key features:
What is NoodleTools?
NoodleTools is a web-based application that assists students in all aspects of research project management. It is tailored to help students evaluate information, build accurate citations, take notes, outline topics, and prepare for writing, all while promoting original work and ethical research practices.
Key Features
Citing Sources
NoodleTools enables students to generate accurate citations in MLA, APA, and Chicago/Turabian styles. Users can import citation information using ISBN numbers or DOIs, or leverage database integrations to produce citations from article metadata. The platform also provides extensive help for each citation element, checks for mistakes in punctuation and abbreviations, and generates parenthetical references.
Taking Notes and Organizing
The platform features an intuitive, visual “tabletop” where students can manipulate, tag, and pile notecards. This tool helps students make connections, develop original ideas, and articulate arguments. Notecards can be linked to citations to ensure proper attribution and can include author’s words, images, graphs, and original formatting. The built-in editor allows for annotation of notes, enhancing comprehension, analysis, and reflection.
Outlining Topics
Students can connect their notecards to topics in their outline, helping them prepare for writing. This feature ensures that research is well-organized and aligned with the writing process.
Collaborating with Peers
NoodleTools supports real-time collaboration, allowing students to work simultaneously from different locations and view each other’s changes as they occur. This feature is particularly useful for group projects.
Sharing with Instructors
The platform allows students to share their projects, including source citations, notecards, outlines, and file attachments, with their teachers. Instructors can provide feedback directly within the platform, monitor students’ progress in real-time, and view statistics about source use.
Additional Functionality
- Resource Analysis and Evaluation: NoodleTools guides students through the process of evaluating and analyzing source material, teaching them to make informed decisions about the credibility and relevance of sources.
- Expert Help: The platform offers fast, personal responses to individual citation questions and provides expert advice at the point of need.
- Privacy and Accessibility: Designed with online student privacy in mind, NoodleTools ensures that student work is secure and accessible from any computer without the need for software installation.
Educational Support
NoodleTools offers three differentiated levels of support to cater to individual students across various grades and abilities. It also allows Library Media Specialists and teachers to provide feedback, monitor group work contributions, and assess student progress through statistical graphs analyzing the quantity, variety, and currency of sources.
In summary, NoodleTools is a comprehensive research management tool that empowers students to engage deeply in research, produce original work, and develop critical thinking skills, all while ensuring accurate citations and organized research processes.