Week 10: Completing the Challenge

It's great that we have so much access to so many databases. I had used quite a few of these before and the past few weeks we have been going crazy with research so our students have been hitting many of these. They know how to access from home as well. I think my biggest discovery was the variety of databases offered within World Cat. I had not used those before and they proved to be helpful. I also enjoyed the ancestry databases.

I will continue to promote the databases with both staff and students. I offer presentations throughout the year and have all the links on my website as well. I also do activities with students at the beginning of the year (sort of a search & hunt activity) using the databases.

Ancestry Library, Heritage Quest and Sanborn Maps

Wow!  I could get lost in time in some of these databases and I did for a while! I have used the ancestry ones before. I had better luck with the Ancestry Library than Heritage Quest with my surname and spent quite a bit of time looking up relatives and ancestors from Germany. Then I couldn't find anything on Heritage Quest but when I switched to my mother's maiden name I found quite a bit again, so now I will have to continue with that when I have more time!

With the Sanborn maps I looked up a few places in Sioux Falls and Madison. Because I'm not from South Dakota and have only live here a short while I'm not real familiar yet with the state. It was still fun to explore the past.

I just noticed the photos and maps link an AncestryLibrary so I hunted again for pictures and downloaded two that I have to ask my dad about to see what connection there is. Very cool, but I must now return to other tasks!

Lesson 8: Learning Express

I have used Learning Express, but it has been quite a while. I checked out some of the different subject areas such as Algebra and Reading Comprehension. Also checked out the citizenship tests and did quite well on the government ones. Looked at some of the Ebooks on vocabulary. There's quite a bit on here. Our students use Learning Express for different kinds of test and subject help so I know it gets used here!

Lesson 6: World Cat and More

I have used World Cat before mostly for cataloging and Ill. I am currently working with juniors and seniors on research projects so I typed in a few authors in both World Cat and OAIster and was able to find books, journal articles, etc. Of course, not all were full text but it does give us some much needed additional options. I will definitely keep this in mind when doing any research.

Lesson 7 ArchiveGrid and CAMIO

I thought ArchiveGrid was interesting--I am not sure how I will use it yet, but it is definitely worth looking at. The Sitting Bull information was pretty basic but I looked at other results for Sioux Indians, Sioux Uprising. I think there are some possibilities for history classes. I did some family research and although I did not find a lot, it might be worth it to look at it more and even contact a couple of libraries. We are currently doing a "People of the Past" project with 6th graders and I did find some worthwhile information for a few projects.

CAMIO was pretty cool. I had never tried this before and I plan on sharing this with art teachers and other teachers as well. I tried different features such as the favorites, slide shows, and create web pages. I hope our teachers will make use of this!

Net Library

I've used Net Library a little more this year with classes. I found a couple of titles that I can show our history teacher on the Lakota Sioux. It's very easy to navigate through the books. I will be showing this next week to several English classes who are doing some research. Again, for me it's a matter of remembering to point it out to students. I did spend some time looking at Fitness books and found quite a few that would be helpful.

I do have a question about the audiobooks and media center. Is this something that we have access to? I noticed the instructions on how to install but I was not able to find the eaudiobook page in order to do that.

Otherwise, I do like Net Library and will plan on using that more frequently for myself and with research with classes.

Gale Virtual Ref. Library

I mostly started using this product just this year with classes. I had used it previously but always seemed to forget about it with classes. Now that I have been seeing more of upper level classes in English I have begun using it more. For example we had a research project with specific authors and their works and I found that we could find most of the authors using this product. We are fortunate in that we also have access to Gale Literature Resource Center which has been very useful with English classes and Global Resource Center which is great with issues and current events. I find the Gale products very easy to use; they all have the read aloud feature and with Global Issues you can set up RSS feeds which I like for certain newspapers.

For this assignment I looked up several authors that I know will be coming up in classes and was able to find them as well as some of their works and topics and themes. I was also curious about the zinc found in foods and was easily able to find that: best foods for zinc are lamb, beef, leafy grains, root vegetables such as potatoes and carrots, shellfish, and organ meats such as liver or kidneys found in Brody, Tom, and Samuel Uretsky. "Minerals." The Gale Encyclopedia of Children's Health: Infancy through Adolescence. Ed. Kristine Krapp and Jeffrey Wilson. Vol. 3. Detroit: Gale, 2006. 1186-1188. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 15 Mar. 2010.

I do like the download and email feature. I know when I am helping students I will often email them an article that I think might help them.

Lesson 3: Proquest

I have used Proquest before for research. I researched different current issues, recipes for soups, etc. I also searched by different publications. The RSS feeds are good if you follow a certain issue or journal and want updates. It's very easy to use; I like the subjects or topics they give you at the top to help your search.

Sirs: Lesson 2

I like the different features in Discoverer. I find them very useful.  I also like how they have the reading levels color-coded. It is easy to use and follow. We use Researcher a lot with classes and their research papers. It is very helpful in giving students topics and viewpoints and ideas on how to write the paper. I had never tried the curriculum pathfinders before so I will try using those.

Lesson 1C World Book Encyclopedia

I think this would be helpful for students who speak Spanish or taking Spanish classes. Our Spanish classes use it occasionally. The text read-aloud feature is nice.

Lesson 1a/b World Book School Edition

I just checked out the kids edition. I don't use this one much since I mostly work with middle and high school students. The pictures are great and very user friendly for kids. I chose dolphins for my animal and I enjoyed watching the videos and pictures. I noticed the text read aloud options and I always appreciate the citation information.

I use the student edition frequently with different classes. I like the current events section and just noticed the inventors section which we are currently doing a unit on. For my animal, dolphins, there was more specific information about it along with the links for related information such as websites, books, etc.

The World Book Advanced version: I noticed the ebooks available which I had not checked out previously. Again it's easy to use with the different sections on the left and the tools available.

With World Book Discoverer, I noticed the comprehension questions available, and the translation tools as well as the Spanish and French versions.

Lesson 1B
I tried out the World Book Online for Kids - Public Library version. I tried out the games and activities, World of Animals, biographies, maps, etc. On Info Finder I perused the biography center, current events, and the virtual tours. I also tried out the links to newspapers.  With the World Book Reference Center I tried out the interactive maps, current events, and some of the research tools.

Intro

I am excited to do these lessons and hopefully learn some new tools. I do use the databases quite a bit, but like all things I use a few and neglect some of it. So hopefully there will be some fun and interesting things to learn.