The Beginning

 This is a beginning even though I have been writing this blog since 2006.  I have decided to change the blog’s name as the one I gave it no longer applies and because I want to get back to writing on a regular basis and may find a different direction.  Simple as that!  Why Kit and Caboodle?  I saw it used as the name of a clothing company in the RHS magazine The Garden and thought that it fit perfectly what I wanted to write about…the whole kit and caboodle!  

And so to start, which often seems to be difficult for me to do unless I have an impetus or a good kick in the pants.  I seem to be poised on the brink of change and rather than letting myself go with the flow and not have a destination in mind, I want to think through what I am going to do when the next year is over and I move from working at the school I have been at for the last 23 year.  I will also be going from living with Naomi and her family to them moving into their own home and me living on my own for the first time since before I got married.  I don’t know which I find more challenging (or is that terrifying)…living alone or not having a large salary to count on each month!

  

What to call this post?

This has been the most difficult 6 months of my life.  I am sure that in the year of Covid, many people will be saying that.  Before February, I think that I would have said that 2014 had been the most difficult, the year my husband lay dying in St. Peter's hospital.  I'm still not sure how I managed to cope with that.  However, this year is a different 'difficult' because it has been challenging on so many fronts.  

First there was and still is the pandemic, which led to the lock down in the UK in late March, and which still lingers and threatens to be reimposed as cases start to climb again.  If it had just been that, it would have been challenging enough.  However, I also had my mother, who suffers from vascular dementia, to look after at her flat in Thetford, a small town in Norfolk, where I only knew two other people besides my mother.  

Two Hard Days

The last two days have been very difficult.  My mother had a prolonged period of forgetting that I was her daughter, that the flat we were living in was her home and that she was Beryl Heather Merrick.  At one point she left the flat and wandering around Thetford with me following at a discrete distance.  In the end she stopped in a car park and told me that she would accept my offer to go home to my house for the time being.  In the end I asked her friend Keith to come over to see if we could remind her of who she was and where she was.  It worked to an extent but all through today she continued to act as if she were just a guest in her own home.  

One of the things I did learn this afternoon, when her friends Keith and Margo came over for tea was that this disassociation with who she is has been going on for more than a year.  Somehow I missed it and unfortunately, Keith who spent most time with her, never mentioned it.  If I had known I might have acted differently and she might be in a care home by now.  Ah well, no point dwelling on the past.  

I suppose that the important part of tough days is making sure that you learn from them.  Every day of this journey with my mother reinforces my conviction not to let this happen to my family.  I will go into care when the time is right with no complaints or arguments against.  I will start planning now for the next 10 to 20 years.  I will enjoy my present life for as long as I can but also look forward to the future with optimism.  In the meanwhile, I need a few jokes and funny stories to give me a laugh or two each day.

Still Trying to Find My Way Around Dementia

My mother and I have had a difficult 5 weeks.  I have been frustrated beyond belief and very stressed.  I haven't been as nice as I could have to her.  I've been angry with her.  When I'm not angry, she asks me why I am being nice.  That's a telling comment and one I am not proud of.  My oldest daughter tells me I should go with the flow but sometimes that is so difficult.  However I am beginning to learn how to do that in my own way. 

Today, GB waned to iron.  First I let her hunt for the iron and when she couldn't find it, I did.  I didn't offer to help initially because she wants to prove that she can do things herself.  I held my breath and hoped she didn't find the wall socket.  She didn't but she did come to collect water to put in the iron.  I had better remember to pour that out.  Then I suggested she get the ironing board.  In the end she gave it all up and moved on to putting new shoe laces in her trainers.  I learned from this.  Let her try to do things but don't offer help, keep an eye on her to make sure she doesn't injure herself, and let her feel some sense of accomplishment.  It amazed me that she wasn't frustrated by the difficulties she encountered.  She just moved on or went to sleep for a while.

So much damage

One of the things I have learned from being with my mother at this time, is that dementia harms more than just the person who has it.  And oh, how it damages them!  My mother's dementia probably started as long time ago as 10 or 15 years; and so much of what we have taken for granted about her for all this time was probably the result of the dementia unrecognised.  I can remember saying to people that my mother seemed to have lost a lot of her filters and put it down to growing older and being less willing to be tolerant.  She used racist language that I would never have heard from her when she was younger.  Moreover, she became far more critical of both family and friends, and people she encountered in the street.  If she felt someone was over weight, she said something about it and sometimes, she was quite cruel.  It seemed that those thoughts she would once have kept to herself, were now to be spoken aloud.

I have heard that a number of her grand children have been quite upset by her words and actions.  I don't think the she will ever have the opportunity to mend these relationships.  It is even possible that she forgets who they are as she has forgotten me.  However, perhaps one day they will come to understand that it was all part of the dementia and that she would be devastated if she realised what she had done.

Again it's been a long time

The title says it all and I won't add to that.  I have picked this blog up again because it seems to do me a lot of good writing here in times of stress.  I started it originally as a way of communicating with friends and family when I was diagnosed with cancer in 2006.  Now I think I will be using it to help me cope with living with my mother, who has dementia, during the  Covid-19 lockdown.

It has been very difficult.  I think that is one of the biggest understatements I have ever made.  I have even lost track of how long I have been here. I arrived in Thetford just days prior to the lockdown in late March when my mother's part-time carer had to self-isolate due to illness in the family.  I am still here and likely to be so for at least another 3 weeks.

25 things I want people to know about me...revisited

I haven't thought about this since 2009 but it is interesting to revisit it and see if I can possibly come up with 25 things that anyone other than me (and perhaps my family once I am dead and gone) would be interested in knowing.

My first in the 2009 blog was that I love New York, though not as much as Paris.  I am not sure if that is still true but I do like New York or at least the New York I remember from the last time I was there.  Then there is the question of the 100,000 words.  Still no book but creeping towards it.

So here goes:

1. I love New York but not as much as Paris and perhaps I love London more than either of them but that could have to do with familiarity.

2.  I haven't bothered counting how many words I have written since 2009 but still no book.  I do think that I am edging towards one though.  Interesting to see if I get anywhere with it by this time next year.

(This is the point when I wonder what anyone would be interested in knowing!  I have far more than 25 friends on Facebook now but how many are good enough friends that they would want to know more than the superficial.)

3.  If Beale Street Could Talk is one of my favorite books (as I have recently said on Facebook) and I can't help but wonder why I haven't reread it since the late 70s.

4. I wrote my master's thesis on a text written in Anglo Norman French (French spoken in Britain after the Norman Conquest).  As I didn't go on for a PhD, I don't suppose that it was specifically useful in the rest of my life but the skills I gained from doing it certainly were.

5.  I am a Star Trek fan and am loving Star Trek Discovery.  I have been a sci-fi fan since I was about 10 when I was given an adult library card and discovered the science fiction section along with Heinlein, Asimov, Larry Niven and so many more.

6. Though I do like being in New York, Paris and London, my favorite place in the world at the present time is Gladstone's Library in Flintshire.  I would give anything to spend a month there, or even a full week.

7. I have become both more and less tolerant as the years have progressed.  Funny how that happens.

8. I have few regrets but one of them (and it still haunts me...how silly) relates to an event when I was 16.  One morning, I grew impatient with waiting for my ride to school and took a ride with someone else.  No mobiles in those days to tell them what had happened.

9. I still have dreams about not having finished high school when I was admitted early to university.  Yes, I don't have a high school diploma and really why should that matter at my age.

(When I have a problem coming up with 10, 25 would be impossible.)

10.  I don't dream in French anymore.  Hopefully next month's visit to Paris will help with that!

It's been a while

Yes, it certainly has been a while.  Not that I haven't been writing but nothing systematic and in one place.  I've written academic pieces relating to education; I've written about the work I've done or planned on doing for my classes and I have written in a diary.  It's all over the place.  I am considering making this blog private since I'm not sure if I want others reading it any more.  I am also considering trying to turn the blog into a editable document and then deleting the blog from the internet.  We shall see.  I find it easier to type my journals than to hand write them, though I do have a written journal in a book entitled Alexandre Dumas, just in case anyone ever decides to look for it among my possessions when I shuffle off. 

I am looking at how I want to improve my life at the moment.  I need to work harder or more consistently at sorting out my medical needs - my diabetes, my aches in my knee and the big toe of my right foot and my right upper arm.  I swam today and that was a mistake for my arm.  Back stroke is not good when you have tendinitis...if that is in fact what it is.  I am trying to carry my bike only with my left arm and I have switched my bed around so that I sleep on my left side instead of my right.  Time will tell if that helps.  What didn't help, was falling off my bike just before Christmas.  At least my left leg is better now.  Hopefully my arm will be soon as well.  I sound as if I am falling apart, don't I.

I also want to work on my diet.  I had tried to eat only within a 12 to 10 hour period.  That fell by the way fairly quickly because of eating with the family.  I am going to have to plan better now.  I also would like to improve my quality of sleep.  It is obviously so important and in order to maintain my quality of life and my ability to continue teaching and writing, I need to ensure that I sleep well.  I haven't been because of my arm, the cats and the need to go to the bathroom more than anyone should need to.  I have booted the cats out at night, changed my bed around and have found that I don't wake as often, if at all, and thus don't need to go to the bathroom.  Now I just need to stop my screen time 90 minutes before bed and try and read from 8:00 till 9:30 each evening, or work on my Latin.

Finally, I am going to write every day.  Let's see what happens!

Never Did Finish the Second Round of 28daysofwriting

And no, I never did!  However, I am about to start my trip across the states and I will easily be writing most days.  There may be time between blogs but that will only be because I am on the road and where there is no wifi.

I have talked about the itinerary before but here it is again!  I fly to Toronto and spend two nights, I then take a train to Windsor, cross the border to Detroit, and take Amtrak to Ann Arbor where I am going to stay with a former colleague for a few days.  After that, it's back on the train to Chicago and then down to Kansas City.  I'm there for 3 days and then off again on Amtrak to Reno, Nevada.  I'll be there for nearly 2 weeks and then I do the final leg on Amtrak to San Francisco before flying back to Canada.

Along the way, I'll visit friends and former colleagues, read books set in the cities and towns I'm visiting, listen to my music and study a bit of Latin.  I am really looking forward to this!

Back Again!

(I hadn't meant to take this much of a break from writing during the better part of April.  It just seemed to happen that way.  First I was in Taipei, then I was coping with jet lag (which didn't make me sleepy tired by destroyed my cognitive abilities), and finally we arrive at this week! )

So, #28daysofwriting round 2 post 16!  My, my March has gone on a long time!

I hadn't meant to talk about Taipei in my #28daysofwriting posts but my slow debrief (if that is the right word) after my visit, has led me to some observations.  One in particular jumps out at me since we are in the lead up to a general election.  In 2012, the voter turn out in Taiwan was over 76%.  For presidential election in 2000, it was 82%.  In the UK, it was 65%.  In 2001, it was 59%.

I've been pondering what conclusions to draw from this.  I did notice that Taiwan's voter turnout has generally been on the increase, especially since the death of Chiang Kai-shek.  The voter turnout in western countries such as the UK, the United States, Canada and France, have gone from high turn out in the 50s and 60s to ever increasing lows.

When I was in Taipei, a lady I met talked about life under the nationalist Chinese and Chiang Kai-shek and compared it to the North Korea of today.  Since people have been able to vote freely and had options other than the one party, they have taken to democracy whole heartedly!  Do we need a few years of a dictatorship to shake off our lethargy and indifference, (and I do talk here of the west as a whole and not the UK in particular), and make us realise the value and importance of our democratic freedoms.

Oh dear, I do sound as if I am beating a drum here.  I don't mean to.  Furthermore, I do understand how this could have happened.  Slowly the major parties have been merging and at one point during the labour government under Tony Blair, Labour seemed more conservative than the conservatives.

Scotland seemed this fall to have rediscovered enthusiasm for the democratic process and I do envy them the excitement that seems to have been generated.

Post 15 part 2 of #28daysofwriting: Taiwan and First Impressions!

I did wonder at one point if I would ever take off from Heathrow and then later, whether or not I would ever get off the plane.  Having said that, I did take off and I did land, first at Bangkok, and then finally at Taiwan, oh so many hours later.  I had decided before leaving that I would have a device-less flight and instead read a book or do some writing.  Well, that plan fell apart before we ever got off the ground and after a two hour delay, all I wanted to do was sleep once I got on board.  I packed 3 books in my backpack...well I was on a 17 hour flight!  I will take a lesson from this and not take so many books when I go to North America.  Why didn't you take a mobile device, I hear you say.  Well, as I said, I wanted to go without my I-pad and truth be told, I much prefer physical books!  I learned another lesson from this flight as well.  The next time I fly a long distance, I am going to spend the money for a more comfortable seat.

Enough of the flight!  Despite the delay in London, we arrived only an hour or so late in Taiwan. As we drove from the airport to Taipei, I couldn't help comparing the city with many I have seen in the US, except of course, for the Chinese-English signs.    There were wide highways and sweeping overpasses.  The traffic sped along and then emptied into the wide treed, city boulevards. At intersections, the stoplights counted down, often as much as 90 seconds, giving pedestrians plenty of time to cross. Western shops lined the streets, many of them high end designer labels, interspersed with local ones and on every corner, or so it seemed, a 7 Eleven. I was later to discover that 7 Elevens are so much more in Taiwan than their counter parts in the US but that for a later post.

And then my taxi started to climb, up through the ever narrowing streets.  I had no idea till this point that Taipei is surrounded by mountains and that my daughter lived part way up one of them.  The taxi took a sharp turn, dipped down a narrow road and crossing a bridge, we arrived at the entrance to the complex of appartment buildings where I was to stay.  Even though it was dark, the street lights revealed a mass of white bricked buildings with red tiled rooves and over hangs.  It wasn't beautiful but it was impressive. And standing outside one of them was Emma.

Farewell 28daysofwriting!

I have not been very good in my second round of 28daysofwriting at keeping up with things.  Now that I am on the Easter half term break and heading off to Taipei, there is even less likelihood that I will.  However, when I come back I will have plenty of tales to tell of my travels!  Best wishes to all for a good and restful break.

Post 15 Round 2 of #28daysofwriting: Note taking and summarising: The Continuing Saga!

I don't know if this post really counts in 28 days of writing since I have been working on it for days, it seems.  Certainly I will have spent more than 28 minutes on it once I have finished!

Note taking and summarising: The Continuing Saga!

Having come to the conclusion that we must somehow (somewhere, sometime) start to teach summary skills, the obvious place to start would be in the English classroom.  However, we would also have opportunities to hone these skills in various other curriculum areas where students are required to read non-fiction texts and take notes for research.  At my school, I would suggest that humanities and science would be ideal subject areas in which to start.  Students do a lot of research projects in both these subjects.  The trick now is to come up with activities which teachers will not find too time consuming (i.e. which take time away from their subject matter)  and which appear beneficial, in a timely fashion.  If it takes a school year before students are showing progress, I think that would discourage teachers.

The first article I looked at is a pdf entitled, Summarizing Strategies, and is well work downloading. In 24 pages, it offers background information, strategies, teaching activities and a good bibliography. I haven't 'digested' it all yet but will and hope to comment further at a later date.

On the first page, the article mentions a site for teachers of history (any humanities subject really) to assist them in helping students with reading comprehension in such a content and reading heavy subject.  The information appears to be secondary school related though I am sure that some of it could be adapted.  I will definitely be suggesting this site to my humanities department.  Again, a further analysis of the site will come at a later date.

And finally (for today anyway), though written in 1988, Teaching Students to Summarize offers a good explanation of summary skills, the importance of developing these skills, how they develop, what teachers can do, and the importance of starting early.

The more I read, the more I am convinced that summary skills are overlooked in the curriculum of my school and that they are vitally important to help students understand the texts they are reading and take notes from them.

Post 14 of Round 2 of #28daysofwriting: Magazines, journals and newspapers

I have spent part of this evening exploring the International Literacy Association's website to which I now have access to as part of my membership.  I have been changing priorities in my periodical collections and am starting to spend less of my budget on recreational reading and more on professional magazines and journals for teachers.  I used to have an avid readership of my magazines and newspapers but I am finding that students are less and less inclined to read them.  I got rid of a few this year and I will do the same when subscriptions run out over the next few months.  It saddens me but even the teachers aren't reading magazines such as National Geographic, New Scientist, the Economist and even Wired and Focus.  All this is to say, that I decided to buy a membership in the ILA and have access for teachers to their journals on reading and reading research.  What better place for me to look for articles on summarising and précis writing, a topic I have been boring you with over the last few posts!

I have just started to research the back issues of the journal Reading Teacher and hope to find some useful articles but there it will have to remain for tonight since I have become far too tired to carry on with reading the articles once I have found them.  They do require that you are alert!  I shall keep yu posted on my reading in future blogs.  Good Night!

Post 13 (Notice I'm behind!) of Round 2 of #28daysofwriting Importance of summarising skills

So sick, so a holiday must be coming soon!  Here's hoping I get over this cold before it starts!  I really don't want to spend my holiday in Taipei sick.

Red Nose Day events followed by my cold have slowed me down considerably.  I've reverted to doing admin work, in particular getting caught up on cataloguing and processing books.  I've just placed a large order which should start to come in next week so I will have a lot to catalogue after the break.  I also have 18 books to read for the Battle of the Books.  I may try and take a few of those with me to Taiwan.

Back to Exploring the Question of Note Taking and Research

It is so frustrating when something is blindingly obvious but you keep missing it.  Thank heavens, I finally realised that the problem of students not taking notes when they researched was not because they lacked a format but because they probably didn't know how to summarise or précis.  I'm not sure when it was last week that I realised this but I'm so glad that I did.

As far as I can see at this point, there is nowhere in our curriculum where we teach students how to summarise.  I'm not even sure how you go about teaching it though I could hazard a guess.  Luckily, the Internet is there with all sorts of resources to explore on the subject.

My first stop was Reading Rockets .  Below is taken directly from the site and explains the reason for teaching summarizing:

Why use summarizing?

• It helps students learn to determine essential ideas and consolidate important details that support them.
• It enables students to focus on key words and phrases of an assigned text that are worth noting and remembering.
• It teaches students how to take a large selection of text and reduce it to the main points for more concise understanding.

Next there is a simple lesson plan that could be used in subject area:

How to use summarizing

1. Begin by reading OR have students listen to the text selection.
2. Ask students the following framework questions:
   1. What are the main ideas?
   2. What are the crucial details necessary for supporting the ideas?
   3. What information is irrelevant or unnecessary?
3. Have them use key words or phrases to identify the main points from the text.

Though step one suggest that the teacher read or have the students listen to a text selection, I wonder if you could simply have the students read it themselves.  I wonder what the advantage is to reading it to them.

There are several good handouts which could be used as they are or edited for use with students.  I will ponder this question of teacher reading the passage versus students reading to themselves and return to this another day.

Post 12 Round 2 Reading my way across the states!

Red Nose behind me, I have been overtaken by the lurgi again!  This really is unfair since I was hoping to have a relaxing and enjoyable weekend.  Instead, I am trapped by aches and pains in my bed.  At the moment I want to lie down but I've been in bed for 12 hours and ache so much I can't so here I am writing.  What will come of this writing lark, I have no idea!

I shall return to my summer trip rather than writing about education.  It takes far less thought.  This is a warning then, if you only want to read about educational matters, move on to another blog!

I have finally booked nearly all the sections of my train trip across the states.  I have the train booked from Detroit to Reno, via Ann Arbor, Chicago, Kansas City and Reno and the air flight from the UK to Canada return and a flight from San Francisco back to Toronto.  Now it's just the little bits and I will do those shortly because I can see myself just forgetting about them otherwise.

Being a librarian, I have decided to read books which are set in the areas I am passing through, books which have a strong sense of place.  I mentioned this on Facebook and have already had some suggestions.  I must admit that I'm not sure which states I will be travelling through so I suppose I had better get that sorted out first.  I imagine that this will be one of those few occasions where I will be reading on a mobile device since I don't want to take too much luggage!  I really haven't enjoyed the experience of reading on a Kindle or my i-Pad but who knows, it may grow on me.

One of my favorite writers about books is Nancy Pearl, and I've had a look at her book Book Lust on the Go.  Unfortunately for this trip, she hasn't written much about places I am visiting in the US. YALSA puts out something on YA books taking place in various states but I would rather avoid young adult books for my summer reading.

So, I will start with something set in Detroit, either one of Loren Estleman's mysteries or The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides.  This was his debut novel and apparently, his second Middlesex, won the Pulitzer Prize.  Perhaps that's the one I should start with!  There is also a book called The Art Student's War, which comes highly recommended.  We shall see!

Post 11 Round 2 of #28daysofwriting: A bit more multitaking

This was the first day of our Red Nose Day activities.  We had a baking competition and I was surprised at the number of cakes, cup cakes and cookies, which came in.  The judging was based on the theme Make Em Laugh and not on how they taste.  Good thing really since one grade 2's entry had quite obviously had the burnt bits taken off  the outside but still smelt of burnt cake as we took off the wrapper.  A little investigation suggests that we will have a hard time getting a knife through it tomorrow when the cakes are sold off in our bake sale.

Today was really multi tasking nightmare part two but I think I was in a better state to cope with it. When I arrived in the library, I realised that I hadn't set the tables up yet for the competition and did that.  As school started the baked goodies started to flow in to the library, along with the tutor group that meets there and various students from various grades trying to print before classes.  I photographed each cake/cookies and the entry form, reorganised my library budget for next year, submitted it to my line manager, received late entries to the competition, fended off grade 8 boys who wanted to eat the cakes, taught a grade 8 science class, judged the competition, did a book order, sold Red Noses to lower school students and their parents, covered the cakes for the night and went home!

I took this photograph of my desk just before I left:

Post 10 Round 2: The night off!

On my way home tonight I was planning what I was going to write about tonight.  I was going to continue discussing note taking.  However, two things happened between then and now.  The pain killers I was taking after an hour long visit to the dentist began to wear off, and I received an email from the hospital saying that yet again, they were unable to share with me the report that has been written about the treatment of my husband leading up to his death 5 months ago.  In fact it was exactly 5 months yesterday.  So what with the physical pain and the emotional pain, note taking seems a little inconsequential.  :)

Instead I think I'll just wallow in self pity. Well, no, not really!  But I will take this as my second 'get out of jail free' card and take the night off writing!

Post 9 Round 2 of #28daysofwriting: Note Taking part 2 (or is that 3)

Note Taking, part 2

Yesterday I started to re-examine our teaching of note taking in middle and high school.  I looked at the tool on Noodletools and then later I worked on developing a template on Google Docs.  I copied some of the aspects of the Noodletools note cards and so here is an example below.  It seems to me that you would be able to use Google Docs for note taking but I don't see the advantage over Noodletools.  With Noodletools, students are able to link their notes to the source.  They are also able to create an outline of their essay (or project) using the notecards.

What would be the advantage of using google docs?  Students seem predisposed to use Google docs and so if we gave them a template with the necessary elements for assisting in their note taking, they might be more likely to use it than Noodletools.

I'm struggling to find another reason why google docs might work better!

Can anyone offer other suggestions?

Title of Note: Arsenic

Source:http://www.dartmouth.edu/~toxmetal/arsenic/index.html

Direct Quote from Internet:

Exposure to arsenic in drinking water represents a significant health problem for people around the world. In 1997, the World Health Organization recommended that arsenic in drinking water be recognized as a major public health issue that should be addressed on an emergency basis. For humans, exposure to arsenic has been linked to increased risk of lung disease, heart disease, diabetes, cancer and reproductive disorders. However, most studies linking arsenic with human disease have involved people exposed to very high levels - in the workplace, for example, or in parts of Taiwan, Pakistan and other areas of the world where levels of arsenic in drinking water are unusually elevated. In Bangladesh and India, an estimated 200 million people have been exposed to well water tainted by arsenic from natural sources deep within the ground.

Paraphrase/Summary:

Notes to Self:

Post 8 Round 2 of ¢28daysofwriting: More on Note Taking

More on Note Taking

I thought I would try to tackle online note taking first.

We have a subscription to Noodletools and they have an excellent online note taking tool.  I have tried to encourage teachers to use it with their students to little effect.  Not sure why but I think that perhaps it's just another thing and they can't cope with something else.  Then again there could be some innate problem with the set up of the note cards so I decided to take a closer look.

And here it is:

The top section of the note cards, allows the user to name or give a title to the card.  The source is automatically added by Noodletools and the user can add the URL so that the source can be easily located again (if the source is from the Internet). There is also the facility for tagging.  

There are two boxes for text.  In the left hand box, entitled Direct Quote, the user can copy and paste the text that they want to use.  Various editing tools allow the user to change the text.  For example, you could highlight all the important points in the passage in one colour.  In another, you could highlight words you were unsure of so that you could check them in an online dictionary at a later date.  

The box on the right is for the user to paraphrase the direct quote.  As I often say to students, this is one way to ensure that they are accused of plagiarising someone else's words.  Of course that doesn't mean that they don't have to cite it as well!  

The final box is for the user to add any notes.  For example, you could add questions thrown up by the passage you have just summarised, or you might list information you still needed to find on the subject you are researching.

I think that it's a good tool for teaching students the skill of paraphrasing or summarising but as I said, it hasn't caught on at our school yet!  I wonder if there is just too much work to do in this note taking tool.  This is what students should be doing but as we know, people like to take the easiest route.

Tonight as an experiment I'm going to see if I can come up with a template on google docs which might do the same thing.