I almost hate to say this, but this was not my favorite search! I'm either going to have to spend a lot more time working with this resource or find someone who can use it well to help me.
It started out fun. I decided to research nursery rhymes, since that is one of the story hour topics I do. There really wasn't much that came up and was useful. But along the way I saw the book, The Idiots Guide to Scrapbooking, which I own. Then I saw some of the other Idiots Guide books, which I'll go back and look through more. There is so much diverse information that comes up with one topic that I felt like I was wasting time looking through everything, even when I searched for relevance.
The Constitution question was not fun. I came up with two titles that I might be able to use - Readers Companion to American History and The Bill of Rights: A Bicentennial Assessment. The whole time I was searching, I was thinking about a teacher I know does Constitution Day with her 3rd - 5th grade students, and there wasn't anything I thought I would even recommend to her. Maybe I'm just not searching right.
Again, I had trouble getting to the spot where I could search Western History. I blame that on my not understanding what I was doing. Once I got somewhere I thought I was supposed to be, I did find some interesting titles through the University of Nebraska Press. One was on Orphan Trains. Another was American Indian Women, Telling Their Lives. The one book I spent the most time looking through is titled Wigwam Evenings: Sioux Fold Tales retold by Charles A. Eastman. This looks like a good book to recommend to teachers when they are doing folk tales.
One thing that discouraged me was when I was using the computers at work, I could enlarge the page so I could read it on the screen. But when I used the Mac at home, I wasn't able to make it enlarge. Plus, it was slow to move around in with the Mac. I did like the feature that allows you to search the table of contents and see what specific page you wanted and then to put that page number in and go right to it instead of scrolling.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Lesson 5 - Gale Virtual Reference Library
Ok, it's just kinda fun to follow links through to other topics, which I've been doing in Gale Virtual Reference Library.
In the first assignment, to click on a book title of interest and access an article, I chose the World War II Reference Library 2000. I am in a young adult reading class and it seems like historical fiction books with families fleeing during WW II has been a hot topic in reading. I know when the kids get to that part of history, they come into the library wanting everything they can find on Holocaust. So I was curious what I'd find on this reference site. Under "Choose a Volume", the Almanac part was where I started looking. There is a great time line given on events of WW II. You can quickly see how the events unfolded. I also liked the words to know section. It's a great glossary. Then I enjoyed looking through the research and activity ideas. What a great resource for projects to do with your students to enhance what they're studying. I was really intrigued by the "Rations Recipe" activity - what an eye-opener that would be for students (and myself)!! When I started reading the parts of the article about the holocaust, I had to stop reading. It is just mind blowing to me what happened during that time. This is not a reference I'd give to Jr. High students, but High School would be able to handle it.
Another choice in "Choose a Volume" was biographies. This was another favorite part for me. If you want to know more about just one person involved in WW II, you can easily find their biography here.
When I went into the next assignment of putting a search term in the search box, I drew a blank, so decided to look up the Huck Finn assignment. I noticed in the side bar to the left there was a topic of banned books, which led to censorship. I spent some time looking through the articles there.
Next, I wanted to try something medical, so I chose "diabetes diet". I found a lot of information about symptoms of diabetes, types of diabetes, treatments for diabetes, but I wasn't finding anything I really was wanting to know. It wasn't getting specific enough for what I thought I wanted to know, which is good foods and bad foods and portion sizes. I'll have to do some more searching.
Now I'm off to see what others found in their Gale Virtual Reference Library search. And to try to catch up!!
In the first assignment, to click on a book title of interest and access an article, I chose the World War II Reference Library 2000. I am in a young adult reading class and it seems like historical fiction books with families fleeing during WW II has been a hot topic in reading. I know when the kids get to that part of history, they come into the library wanting everything they can find on Holocaust. So I was curious what I'd find on this reference site. Under "Choose a Volume", the Almanac part was where I started looking. There is a great time line given on events of WW II. You can quickly see how the events unfolded. I also liked the words to know section. It's a great glossary. Then I enjoyed looking through the research and activity ideas. What a great resource for projects to do with your students to enhance what they're studying. I was really intrigued by the "Rations Recipe" activity - what an eye-opener that would be for students (and myself)!! When I started reading the parts of the article about the holocaust, I had to stop reading. It is just mind blowing to me what happened during that time. This is not a reference I'd give to Jr. High students, but High School would be able to handle it.
Another choice in "Choose a Volume" was biographies. This was another favorite part for me. If you want to know more about just one person involved in WW II, you can easily find their biography here.
When I went into the next assignment of putting a search term in the search box, I drew a blank, so decided to look up the Huck Finn assignment. I noticed in the side bar to the left there was a topic of banned books, which led to censorship. I spent some time looking through the articles there.
Next, I wanted to try something medical, so I chose "diabetes diet". I found a lot of information about symptoms of diabetes, types of diabetes, treatments for diabetes, but I wasn't finding anything I really was wanting to know. It wasn't getting specific enough for what I thought I wanted to know, which is good foods and bad foods and portion sizes. I'll have to do some more searching.
Now I'm off to see what others found in their Gale Virtual Reference Library search. And to try to catch up!!
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Challenge 4 - ProQuest
Sorry I haven't been on for a few weeks. I've been having fun with the 6th - 8th graders doing Pro vs Con from SIRS Reseacher on the issue of cell phones in schools. I didn't know I could get kids so excited about debating!!
On ProQuest I did a basic search for Common Core Standards. I wasn't overly impressed with what was coming up. Then I did the Advanced Search and searched by relevance. Much better!! There were a lot of current articles about Common Core Standards that helped me to understand it better.
On the Publications tab, I started just lookng to see what publications there were to see if I was interested in any. There were more than I thought! So then I just picked Publisher's Weekly and looked to see what was offered. I liked that I could look at the Children's Book Reviews this way. Most of the time I don't get to see the magazine we get at the library, so now I will remember to look here!
I also looked up Instructor Magazine. We used to get it at the library but don't anymore. I am glad to see I can research it here and find articles to give me ideas. I missed not getting it anymore at the library.
This is one site I will continue to go through on my spare time (Ha, Ha, What's that??!) to look up not just professional articles but personal articles of interest.
On ProQuest I did a basic search for Common Core Standards. I wasn't overly impressed with what was coming up. Then I did the Advanced Search and searched by relevance. Much better!! There were a lot of current articles about Common Core Standards that helped me to understand it better.
On the Publications tab, I started just lookng to see what publications there were to see if I was interested in any. There were more than I thought! So then I just picked Publisher's Weekly and looked to see what was offered. I liked that I could look at the Children's Book Reviews this way. Most of the time I don't get to see the magazine we get at the library, so now I will remember to look here!
I also looked up Instructor Magazine. We used to get it at the library but don't anymore. I am glad to see I can research it here and find articles to give me ideas. I missed not getting it anymore at the library.
This is one site I will continue to go through on my spare time (Ha, Ha, What's that??!) to look up not just professional articles but personal articles of interest.
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