I recently learned that the popular bibliography creation tool EasyBib offers a student writing guide. The writing guide is well written and easy to navigate. The guide walks students through each step of the research and writing process from locating credible websites to formatting and constructing an APA or MLA bibliography. Many teacher-librarians will be happy to see that the research section of EasyBib’s student writing guide is not limited to Google search. The research section includes a list of databases and explanation as to why database research can be better than a Google/ Bing/ Yahoo search.
I also just realized this week that EasyBib has a Google Apps Marketplace application. This app allows you to add EasyBib services to your Google Apps for Education domain (you do have to be a domain manager to add it). The video below has a short overview of the EasyBib Google Apps application.
Applications for Education
EasyBib’s student writing guide is one of the better ones that I’ve seen, but it still won’t replace actual instruction by a teacher or teacher-librarian. You should also note that a couple of the guide’s screen images need updating as they include a couple of Google search options like Wonder Wheel that are no longer available.
Adding EasyBib to your Google Apps for Education domain could be helpful to students when they’re constructing bibliographies. With EasyBib adding to your Google Apps for Education domain your students will be able to access EasyBib and save their work using the same log-in credentials that they use for all other Google Apps for Education services like Google Docs.