Lesson 1: World Book February 2

I spent quite a bit of time just exploring the various World Book editions. First Off, World Book Kids I perused the various features such as World of Animals which would be great for our elementary students when they conduct research & reports on animals. There were plenty of articles, videoclips, exhibits, quick facts, etc. I took a look at a few of the science projects and a variety of experiments that were exhibited there. Maps &More had numerous outline maps, atlases and I especially liked the interactive maps. I could see that being very helpful in social studies and geography classes.

The Compare Places feature was also a feature I could see using in elementary when they study states or countries. They could compare different states from different regions and discover facts and photos about those states. The Activities feature contained puzzles and games I could see being used in classes as well.

In the Students edition I also took a look at the Explore feature containing the maps which could be used in our geography classes at the Middle School. We already use the biography feature with our People of the Past research in 6th grade. We have also used it to research inventors and authors at various times. I liked the Behind the Headlines feature and plan to tell teachers about this as some of them would use that with current events. The Research tools were helpful. I've used the citation feature and have shown that but most of our teachers use Microsoft Word to create citations. There was a good timeline builder as well which showed examples and how to create your own timeline. Again could be useful in social studies or any class. The My Research and educator resources were interesting to view and even included some video clips, etc.

The Advanced World Book contained the ebook feature which I have shown to classes previously. We have used some of the classic ebooks found there and stories or poems as well. I have looked at the Grimm's tales and Andersen's fairy tales previously and have used them a few times when students or teachers are looking for fairy tales. I took a look at the special feature of World Book Explains Video in World Book Discover. I found many videos that even included students asking questions with an expert providing the answer. For example, "Why are pigs so fat?" was asked by a student and then an expert provided the answer. All in all, I found quite a few things I would use throughout the school year.

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.