Resources+Pathfinder

=This pathfinder lists some useful websites as well as other resources you will find helpful for Tastes of the World 's activities and assessments, especially your Major Assignment (see Projects). Now that you are in year 10, you are expected to spend time locating quality resources rather than merely 'googling' keywords (although this is an OK place to start...).=

INFORMATION LITERACY AND RESEARCH SKILLS
As you work through this unit and your major assignment, you will be doing quite a bit of research - but what does that involve? Check out The State Library of Victoria's Ergo website where you will find a link to research skills in addition to study skills and essay writing skills. SLV's research skills are based on Carol Kuhlthau's Information Search Process. The pdf. document below describes 6 steps you can undertake to help you map out your research process. Other similar processes are the Big6 developed by Mike Eisenberg and the PLUS model by James Herring. Check out which one works best for you...



Over the course of your research you will find many resources, most of which will be of little value to you. How will you know which ones are going to help you and which ones are just there to try and sell you something? The websites included on our wiki have undergone an assessment as to their merit, and it is expected that you will also put the websites you find 'to the test', especially if you are going to recommend them to everyone else in this unit.


 * So, how can you evaluate a website?** Well, below is a basic version called the 5W's, developed by the awesome librarian Kathy Schrock (2009). Keep these questions in mind as you trawl the web for information...

THE FIVE W’S OF WEB SITE EVALUATION
Who wrote the pages and are they an expert? Is a biography of the author included? How can I find out more about the author?
 * WHO**

What does the author say is the purpose of the site? What else might the author have in mind for the site? What makes the site easy to use? What information is included and does this information differ from other sites?
 * WHAT**

When was the site created? When was the site last updated?
 * WHEN**

Where does the information come from? Where can I look to find out more about the sponsor of the site?
 * WHERE**

Why is this information useful for my purpose? Why should I use this information? Why is this page better than another?
 * WHY**

Then, when you have created a shortlist of sites put them under the microscope using Kathy's evaluation form. They can be filled in electronically as you evaluate, or you print them (do you really need to??) and fill in. Keep these as records of your research.



If they are useful to you, it is likely they will be useful to someone else. Bookmark and tag them in your Diigo account so you can access your favourites from any computer, anywhere. Lastly, add them to this pathfinder under the appropriate heading, or make a new heading. Don't forget to annotate them - which means tell us what they are about, what is good and what is not so good about them!

RECOMMENDED SEARCH ENGINES
While it would be great to recommend using a search engine other than Google (such as Dogpile ), it is extremely difficult to go past that search engine's advanced search for images and video. Did you even know it had an advanced search? The bottom line is, there are a number of great search engines available to you and they will all return different results to a particular keyword or phrase. Find the one that's best for you. Here's a list of the top 10 search engines for 2011 according to About.com.

GENERAL WORLD INFORMATION
National Geographic Education You will mainly use this site for fun mapping activities. Of particular interest is the interactive map - the lights at night will give you a great view of population density. Published by National Geographic, the site is very reliable and covers the lesser known parts of the world.

__Jacaranda Atlas__ It is likely that you are very familiar with the Jacaranda 'brand'. The publisher is a well-known educational resource provider, particularly in the SOSE key learning area. These atlases are chock-a-block with information about the world, and includes much more than your regular physical and political maps. Further, the 7th edition is supported online by myWorld Atlas at Jacaranda Plus, although this has to be purchased by your school.

CIA World Factbook While you can't login to the CIA's secret files, there is still so much the World Factbook can tell you. There's maps - the home page opens with one of the world divided into the continents (actually it goes further, defining the subcontinents) - and when you choose a region, the next page uses a very convenient hover over feature to name the country. Having chosen your country of interest, you can expand and collapse sections such as geography. While there is little discussion of culture, history and politics will give you solid background material.

Wikipedia One of the best features of particular countries' pages on Wikipedia are the images - flags, maps, photos. Most also have a section on food but you also need to research the geography, culture, and history of your country to discover the why and how of the population's culinary habits. Wikipedia is a great place to start - the information comes from a wide range of sources (possibly decreasing bias and misinformation although some would argue the opposite) and is usually cited - using footnotes, the references of which can be found at the bottom of the page.

__The Complete Idiot's Guide to World Religions__ by Brandon Toropov and Luke Buckles (2011). As geography and climate dictates what ingredients are available to populations, the religions dictates what, when and how they consume food. It is likely that the country you investigate has number of faiths followed by the people. Simple, colourful and coverage of a wide selection of religions, this print text is supported by online resources as well. (Clue: you will find books on religion in the 200s).

FOOD INFORMATION
Cooksinfo This website has a plethora of information about food, including an encyclopaedia. It is easily to navigate with tabs across the top for the different sections as well as down the right hand side for topics within those sections. A great help to some of you will be the Cuisines tab, which lists up to 30 different country's cuisines in addition to those of different periods. There are North American tones (language, seasons, holidays) and advertising forms part of the pages but is easily ignored - although you might not wish to. When using the search box for the recipes of a specific country, say Italian, which yields zero results from Cooksinfo, Google conveniently offers you a selection of alternative sites.

Food Words Although small ads will pop up when you enter the term you are wanting defined, Food Words is a very helpful site if you are researching recipes and are unsure of some of the instructions or ingredients. Many basic terms (whisk for example) are not defined, so you may prefer to search alphabetically. There is also a fun word quiz to take - test yourself!

__Encyclopaedia of Herbs, Spices and Flavourings__ by Elisabeth Lambert Orliz (1992). Great photographs to help you identify the herbs, spices and other flavourings used in cooking, as well as over 150 recipes.The author also 'wrote' a series in the 1970s for Time Life called 'Tastes of the World' therefore has a long history with international cuisines. You will find this resource on the library shelves in the 641.3 section along with many other foodie type texts.

__Food Safari Series 1 - 3__ (SBS Television show) Over 33 episodes, each one to a different place and cuisine (except France is visited twice), Maeve O'Meara takes viewers on a safari around the world. As the blurb states, 'Maeve and her friends make the exotic familiar by guiding you through key ingredients and easy recipes...' The range of places visited is excellent, both continents (North America) and countries (Mauritius for example) as well as religious (Jewish). If you can't get the DVDs (even if you can) a visit to the Food Safari website is well worth it, as key ingredients and cooking utensils (see your major assignment) are covered.

__Multicultural Food 1 and 2__ Available for viewing through ClickView on the school's intranet, these two programs are short and to the point. The countries covered are limited and represent only two continents (Asia and Europe) but are likely choices (in my experience) for your Major Assignment. There is a third option - __The world on your plate, mate!__ - which investigates a further 5 countries (two already from Multicultural Food 1) and adds two more continents (North America and Africa). All three involve demonstrations of preparing, cooking and serving dishes from specific countries.

RECIPES, COOKING METHODS AND TECHNIQUES
Taste With over 22 000 recipes there is surely a recipe you'll like! While the 'About Us' isn't particularly informative, the publisher (News Magazines) are well-known, including daily newspapers and glossy magazines. One of the best things about this site is the Cuisines tabs which sorts recipes by country as well as ingredient (eg. chicken) and method (eg. baking). There is also a Taste TV tab which in turn has a cuisines section (as well as ingredients and recipes).

Best Recipes While Taste has a good range of cuisines, Best Recipes has 'collections' - only a few relating to specific countries. However, this site has comprehensive info on equipment and ingredients (Articles), a well-established Community and some interesting Tools such as a Recipe Book you could use to gather your country's recipes. best of all, there's a Conversion function one click away.

YouTube Far better than TeacherTube in terms of searching and keywords, YouTube has squillions of 'How to...' video posts on food preparation. Just pop in what you are wanting to know, for example, How to peel garlic in 10 seconds, and bam! there you are.