Tips for Finding and Using Content

By the OPEN Team

Any communication, however skillfully crafted, depends for its success on the quality of its "content," on the quality of the ideas and information it contains. To ensure thoroughness and accuracy and to provide the audience with a greater depth of understanding, a writer must select just the right information. This selection process requires a critical look at the available information.

The electronic revolution has opened up new channels in our search for content. The amount of information available may be larger, and its format different, but the required critical skills are no different from those we have used traditionally when evaluating the contents of a book, a paper, or an article from a magazine or newspaper. And these same critical skills are equally important when assessing the many tools available to guide us to and through the information resources on the Internet.

Each writer must ultimately decide what tools to use and what information to include, but, fortunately, there is help available as we do so. For example, annotated resources for finding and citing electronically transmitted information are located in the Content Tips page of the Innovation Engine Competition's home page. We at OPEN hope these tips will be of assistance as you sift through the desert of resource links in search of those grains of useful information. Follow this, link for a sampler.

HTML Programming Tips

An important goal of the clearinghouse is developing, evaluating, and posting quality Internet-based resources for teachers. As part of that effort, we offer this brief tour of design and Programming Tips. The resources described here can be found under HTML Tips on the Innovation Engine Competition's home page. We encourage you to take advantage of them. The tips will support your efforts as you plan and develop classroom projects for display during the month of March, making that final push to completion a little easier.