Sunday, August 1, 2010

Week #6-WorldCat

1. In WorldCat, besides keyword, you can also search by many different categories. Some of them are: Author, ISBN, Musical Composition, Material Type, Subject, Publisher, etc. There are 29 different ways to search.

2. In the Advanced Search using Title Phrase, I searched for Charlotte's Web. There are 2,710 libraries world wide that have this book. The top library in my search was Alexander Mitchell Library in Aberdeen, SD.

3. The Call Number for this books is LC: PZ7.W58277; Dewey: 813. When you click on any of the hyperlinks, you get more related information.

Other FirstSearch Indexes
The access button in the search results for the topic South Dakota gives you access to external websites that could give more information related to your topic. This would probably help to provide more information to the topic that you are searching for.

Week #5-Netlibrary

1. In searching for Columbus Day, I found 3 books. With the books it gave published information as well as price to buy the book. I do not totally understand this site. Do you buy the book and then you own a ecopy of it, or do you borrow the book? I could see this being helpful to find the titles/publishers to books, but I don't foresee a lot of use in our classrooms if we have to purchase the books.

2. In searching for Constitution Day, I found a total of 9 books. A couple of them were Jury Nullifications and Reasonable Doubt, and Beyond a Reasonable Doubt.

3. I was not able to access the publisher's box without a password and user name. I tried what I had, but did not work. This site is much hard to use then the other ones. I do not see much use for this in my classroom.

Week #4-Gale Virtual Reference Library

1. In the Gale Virtual Reference Library I clicked on Endangered Species because this is something that I have my children do a research project on each year in third grade. This will be a great resource for them to use to find some well know and some unique endangered species. I chose the Matschie's Tree Kangaroo as my endangered species because it was an animal that I have never heard of before; I would hope that my students would also take this list and find an unknown species to learn more about. What a great way to expand their knowledge of endangered species. The article I looked at gave great information on the animals: history, the conservation measures that have been taken to save the animal, their habitat, current distribution, description of the animal and the biology of the animal. Their was also information about its classification and pictures of the animal. I can see using this site in conjunction with the World Book Kids sites that I currently have been using.

2. As I searched for The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in the basic search, I found 4 books with information on this topic, but there was also related information on the left side of the page that you could use. This information gave overviews of the book as well as historical information at the time the book was written. It gave insight into where Mark Twain came up with his characters, settings and plots for the book.

I used the read aloud feature to read the whole article. I thought it would be pretty neat for our visually impaired students, but also for our students who need to work on fluency or that are struggling readers. When I tried to just have it read one section, it would only accept 600 characters at a time. This may have some limitations in the classroom, but still would be a great tool.

Saturday, July 31, 2010

Week #3-Proquest

1. When I did a basic search in proquest I found 8 articles that related to my topic. The name of the article was listed and linked to the article; plus the citation information including the date of publication. Also, you could view the full article or just the abstract. The tabs to sort my resources included: all sources, scholarly journals, magazines and trade publications. This could really speed up your research time if you could only use a certain type of source.

2. I clicked on publisher and typed in Educational Research Quarterly. A new search came up, but also the information about where it is published and what issues (by date) are available online. I could then search for articles within a specific issue by using the search or look in at a complete issue of the journal. I wish I would have had more knowledge of this resource when I was completing my Masters Program 2 years ago.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Week #2 Sirs Discoverer and Researcher

1. Armadillos

When I searched for Armadillos in Sirs Discoverer I found 70 articles, but when I looked at the tabs across the top it was neat to see that I could also find newpapers, pictures, magazines, webfind sites and other references. This would be great for doing research where we wanted kids to have multiple types of resources for their research. The lextile levels and the icons by each article made for quick refernces. For instance, if I wanted an article with a picture I could just click on the camera icon. The "Sort by" feature would also be handy to find text at a certain lextile level.

2. Data Features

When I went to the country facts button, I saw many countries and decides to click on Maldives. Their was so much information about the country from population to location to history. What a great and quick way to find a lot of information about any country.

When I went to the maps of the world button, I found many choices for maps. One way I could see using these maps in my classroom is to do a map study with the colored detailed map and then use the outline map of the same country as an assessment.

I also clicked on the Activities button to see what I could find...There were activities in many different categories, from art projects to social issue projects. This would be a great resource for finding activities to fit with lessons that I am planning for my students. There are step by step directions and the plays will be a great resource for reader's theaters in my classroom. Great Resources that never seem to end!

Sirs Issues Researcher

1. In Sirs Issues Researcher I clicked on Character Education and found a quick overview of the topic with more information available. I really liked the table listing the essential question followed by articles supporting and opposing the topic. What a great way to give children (or anyone) the knowledge of both sides of an issue. This was a quick reference with more articles available and a search engine if you wanted to search more information than what was presented.

2. When I clicked on the curriculum pathfinders button and then moused over the course subjects each one had a huge range of courses within them. I chose Science to look at more in-depth and found some great resources. There was a research ideas section, some science interactives, science tools, history about science, a section on science and society, and the main areas of science buttons.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Week 1- World Book School Edition



1. World Book Kids


I think that elephants are quite amazing animals as they are the biggest animals in the world, probably why they eat around 300 lbs. of plants per day. Their long trunks double as a nose and they use it like a hand to feed itself or pet their baby. To take a shower the elephant will suck water into its trunk and then spraying it over its body.









2. World Book Student vs. World Book Kids


In comparing World Book Kids to World Book Student, there are major differences. The first thing that I noticed is that the reading level is higher, also there is much more content on elephants in World Book Student. World Book Kids would be much easier for our beginning researchers with less information and easier readablity.



3. World Book Advanced


I teach in a third grade classroom so the types of information that will be most valuable to my patrons are: the introduction, people, land, and ways of life.



4. World Book Discover


World Book Discover has some wonderful features to help our struggling readers as well as our children who are not fluent in English. It has a read aloud feature, a define the word feature and also on the left hand side you can translate the article into other languages.