SIRS

SIRS Discoverer First Task- look up armadillos. It was easy to search and I clicked on the first option. I picked the first option because I thought that may be the first reaction of an elementary student. It was a good selection: an article on “Awesome Armadillos” by Diane Thuna that appeared in Wild magazine…in 2003. I’m sure information on Armadillos hasn’t changed much over time, but in some cases 10 year old research can be outdated. I liked the access to information, but I think that it is going to be hard for students, especially younger ones to get their heads around the idea that this was in a magazine. They’d like to see it. (I would have settled for just seeing the cover of the magazine.) But this magazine is designed for kids. I’m sure that it was full of pictures and text boxes with little bits of information to make it appealing to young students. Now, when I need it for research I am forced to look at just the text. To me, this tells young students that research is the boring part of reading. With the technology of tablets, we should be able to see the magazine article. That way we show students that they can be entertained and interested while doing their research. Next task: database features. Country Facts. I had options of Country Facts, State Facts, and Canada Facts. This was very straight-forward. I was able to click on a country and find the basic facts and see a map and their flag. It’s useful information, but I do not think that this beats the CIA World Factbook. Maps of the World. I could find almost any map here. I looked at the Historical Maps. There were so many maps. And they had printable versions! This is an excellent resource for teachers to find maps for their classes. Historical maps are a great resource to illustrate change over time. Skills Discoverer. I selected Social Studies for a topic and then selected maps. This led me to a list of areas that I could find maps for. Which led me to the CIA website. It seemed a long way around to get to a site I already use. SIRS Issues Researcher: I like that the SIRS Researcher gives “leading issues,” this is perfect for students who “have no idea what to do.” I looked at the top ten and most of the topics made sense to me. They seemed to be the same controversial issues that were discussed when I was in high school: gun control, abortion, marijuana use. Among these issues was cheerleading. I was curious as to what the “issue” was with cheerleading. I was interested in the debate over whether or not cheerleading was a sport. I liked that the pros and cons were laid right out for me when I was looking. Research Tools. The note organizer was amazing! I could easily see using this with students. It would help them to keep their paper balanced. And they are right where the research is so they would easily be able to see if one side was stronger than the other, then they could even it out. Articles. There were a ton of articles out there on a topic that I didn’t even realize was being debated. This is where I learned the most: if student comes to me with a topic in mind ask for them to show me that there is research available. If someone would have come to me wanting to discuss the topic of cheerleading being a sport I would have wondered where they would get their information. Now, I’m wondering what else is out there. ~Common Core~ 11-12.RH.1 Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, connecting insights gained from specific details to an understanding of the text as a whole. SIRS Issues Researcher could be used when a student is writing their research paper to ensure that the research is balanced. The cheerleading articles were a good combination of primary and secondary sources. And with so many to choose from students will be able to find proof to make their argument easily. (I was not impressed with the Educator’s Resources.)

Learning Express Library

There are so many (free!) practice tests here. I went to the US Citizenship test. I liked the test because you write in your own answers; it is not multiple choice. I think that I could use this in my government and civics classes. After about ten questions it showed the answers I had that were correct and incorrect and what a good answer would be. Under Job Search and Workplace Skills I found WorkKeys Reading for Information Practice Test. These are great for Common Core. I like that they are full length practice tests and that they are timed- like the ACT. I think this could be very helpful to prepare. When I used the search box to look for e-books I was surprised with the variety that turned up. I searched for “government.” The topics that came up were the citizenship exam, civil service exam, geography review, and vocabulary. I selected “Becoming a Homeland Security Professional.” This seems like a topic lots of people would be interested in based on the numbers of people that are entering into criminal justice educational programs. The book itself seemed OK. I like that it’s available for people, for free, on their computers, but I also am wondering how easy we need to make this for people. (Then again, maybe if they’re just gathering information.) ~Common Core~ Standard 11-12.RH.1 Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, connecting insights gained from specific details to an understanding of the text as a whole. I like the Reading Comprehension Skills Improvement section for meeting this standard. If I was going to use the e-books from the Learning Express Library I could have students look up the topic that we are studying. We could use the table of contents (I noticed most of the e-books had them) to look for the chapter or section that may tie in the best with our current lesson. From then we could scan the chapter for a phrase that we think best relates to our topic.

World Book- Foreign Language Edition(s)

World Book Foreign Language Edition (French) I looked up elephants (again). I took a gamble by assuming that in French the word is spelled similarly. It turns out elephant is not just similar, in French and English, it’s exactly the same! But I also had the pictures to help me. And the arrows above “suivant” which I assume means “next” were also helpful. I didn’t realize how much I relied on pictures. I’m not really sure where I could use this in class, unless I had a student who read in another language. Or (here’s an idea!) I could use it to have students try to figure out how they would navigate the website when they don’t speak the language. I think they could learn how much they are able to do with out the language and they may also take away the idea that just because you do not know another language that does not mean you don’t know anything. World Book Foreign Language Edition (Spanish) I looked up “historia” and had the article read aloud to me. Again, I was grateful for the sound image that showed me what I could click on to have it read to me. Again, I think this could be useful for students that speak mostly Spanish. And some students need things read to them, this would include ELL students. ~Common Core~ Key Ideas and Details: Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text. In social studies I could see using the foreign language world books to see the similarities in different languages. I think students would be surprised to see how similar some words are (or even that they are the same) and that they can figure it out.

World Book Public Library Edition

I tried the World Book Online Kids (grades K-5). This World Book looked a lot more fun than the others. It was very colorful and had games. I do wonder if that would be distracting for a student though. The games would be useful if you went there with that purpose (to play the games). But if you sent your student there to do research maybe they would get off task. But you deal with this in all grades and students need to learn to resist the temptations on the Internet and do their work. I really liked the link to other elephant information. (I looked up elephants again; I wanted to be able to compare to the other World Books.) The websites looked good: PBS and zoo websites. World Book Online Info Finder Right away when I opened the Info Finder I liked that they had a box with options like “How to do research” and “Citation Builder.” Then I started my search for elephants. The article had a lot of good information. Here’s what I like about the World Book: the “Hear text read aloud” option under “tools.” This is great for a lot of students. The “tools” section also has an option that students can easily save articles. On the left side were the main sections of the article, this is good for scanning the article for what you are looking for. World Book Online Reference Center Here, I searched for the United Kingdom. There was a typo and I ended up searching for “Unites Kingdon” and I was disappointed that there was no information. Am I just too used to spell check pulling up the answer for me? Or, am I used to Google asking me if this is what I meant, and supplying me with the alternative? Either way, I didn’t like this. Students frequently misspell things. Well, I found my mistake and fixed it. (Maybe that is better for students, what if they had been spelling this wrong their whole lives and now because it wasn’t “auto-corrected” for them they’ve learned how to spell it correctly.) What I like best about the World Book overall (so far) is that they give you the citation. So many students make mistakes with their citation and World Book is just saying, “Here it is, take it!” ~Common Core~ Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, assess the credibility and accuracy of each source, and integrate the information while avoiding plagiarism. Using World Book Online Reference Center I looked up the Dust Bowl. I was surprised to see a video clip along with the text and pictures. I liked it because it was short (19 seconds) with narration. Students would be able to use the video clips and pictures to describe (in writing) what they are seeing.

Common Core with World Book Advanced

An important part of my US History class is working with primary sources. Once I convince students (and the occasional parent) that there is a difference in primary and secondary sources the problem becomes where a student can find reliable primary sources. World Book Advanced weeds those primary sources out so a student can easily find them- I love that they are separated from the rest of the research. How can I weave this in with my Common Core Standards? I’m trying to figure it out one standard at a time. Today I’m looking at: 11-12.RH.1 Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, connecting insights gained from specific details to an understanding of the text as a whole. My lessons in US History are focused on the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. Today, we read and discussed a letter written by a woman in the midst of the Dust Bowl. Using World Book Advanced, I can have students research the Dust Bowl. The goal is to find another primary source confirming her experience. What in your primary source was like this lady’s experience? What was different?

World Book- Student Edition

Today, I looked at World Book Kids. I teach high school students so I kept that in mind as I looked through the site for K-5 students. The first task, search for information on a mammal of my own choosing. First I typed “elephant” into the search box. It pulled up a page of elephant information that included pictures and videos. The videos were the best part! I went back to the beginning of the World Book Kids site and searched using the buttons “Plants and Animals,” “Animals,” Mammals” and finally looking through the list for elephant. I thought that a young student would find this way of searching easy. (Not too easy, just easy.) Here’s what I didn’t like about World Book Kids: Why wasn’t the elephant page divided with headings like “food” or the question “What do elephants eat?” I think I expected there to be buttons on the side that I could click to find out these things about the elephant. I would have also included topics like “Dangers to Elephants” and “Habitat.” Next, I checked World Book Student (grades 5-9). I typed elephant into the search box and was given several results in addition to elephant (elephant seal, elephant shrew, etc.). When I looked at the elephant information I saw this edition has more information on the elephant and it is divided in to sections with headings, making it easy to find specific information. I also noticed there were fewer pictures, but I think it just seemed this way when compared to the amount of written information on the page. World Book Advanced- I researched France. The best part of this- for me (I teach social studies)- was the primary sources. Sometimes just trying to get students to understand the difference between primary and secondary sources is hard. I like that World Book Advanced has the primary sources separated for students. World Book Discover- Here I looked up the subject American Government. This World Book looks like it would be good for ELL students or foreign exchange students (or anyone who may be looking for information in a language other than English). This World Book is featured in two other languages (French and Spanish) and also has a drop down box that you can select another language to have the page translated in to.