Lesson 5 -- Gale Virtual Reference Library

Basic Discovery Questions:

1.  For this I chose the title:  Chemical Elements:  From Carbon to Krypton, 2006.  I chose this because I wanted to see if it would be something useful to use within my classroom.  I know that there are instructors out there that can make studying the element exciting, however, there are times within our Chemistry units that studying the elements can be a little dry.  I really liked the pieces about the periodic table.  It has the ability to select any element and see electron configuration and other various types of good information.

2.  Zinc...ADHD Diet.  I really liked the listening tool.  The only flaw I saw in it was the voice was very robotic.  I can see where this tool would be extremely useful to my auditory learners and special ed. kids who are required to listen to the text in their IEP's.  I also like how it highlights the portions they are at in the text.  This would also be extremely helpful with the kids who have a hard time following along while someone is reading the information.

Common Core Connection Questions:

1.  The first article I chose to read and connect to the common core standards was Science Learning; Encyclopedia of Education.  We are taught from a very young age that science is one of the best subjects in schools to teach critical thinking skills, being able to explain concepts from a scientific basis, and argumentation.  I thought that this article would cover the standard for Reading Grades 9-12 Integration of Knowledge and Ideas.

2.  The second article I actually gave to my senior advisory group and had them read it during our advisory time.  The article was titled Strategic and Long-Range Planning in Higher Education.  I thought the article was very interesting because it touched on how colleges and universities much continue to offer the most modern forms of education and facilities to ensure they do not decline in enrollment.  When I gave it to my senior group I thought it was an excellent choice to cover the standard for Reading grades 9-12 Key Ideas and Details #1.  Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.  As an advisory group we had a great discussion about how universities are currently doing this and we also went into the ones that they feel are not staying ahead of the trends.  I then asked the question if any of this was reasons they were making the choices of their college.  It led to a good discussion with them.

Lesson 4: ProQuest

I have to say that this was my least favorite of the resources thus far.  I chose to look up information on G-Forces because that is what I am currently teaching about in our Physics class.  I was pleasantly surprised about the amount of useful information within the site.  I was also very happy with the variety of different topics under the same topic.  For instance, I found an article:  Experts: New Football Helmet Technology can cut G-forces to the Brain by 50%.  This was a very interesting atricle and I even sent it to our athletic director to read.

As far as the publications portion of the assignment...I was not very impressed with this portion.  I may need to use it more to become more familar with it, but I thought it was fairly hard to use and navigate to find information.  I tried to various topics such as Gravity, Laws or Motion, G-Forces, Accleration, etc. and it alwasy came up that it could not find any...then I just put in Science and it pulled quite a few, but the span of information that it covered would take me a long time to find anything that I am covering in class.

Common Core:
Using the article I mentioned above would connect perfectly with  the common core standard:  Reading Standard for Informational Text #1:  Cite Strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicity as well as inferences drawn from the text.

Lesson 3: SIRS

Basic discovery exercise questions:

1.  I ended up teaming up with my second grade son on this portion.. We chose to look up information on hamsters.  When we put the word hamsters into the search engine we were very surprised at how much information and different topics there were to choose from.  We selected "hamsters on the wild side".  There was only one picture on this particular topic.  And there was only one reading level to choose from and that was an easy reading level.  Even though there was only one reading level to choose from this was very good information.  My son really enjoyed reading about them.  I particularly liked the citation part of the page To explain to my students where the information came from.

2.  I chose to complete this question with my fifth-grade son.  He chose to look up information and facts about Russia.  We both Really liked the overview portion of information about the country.  I really enjoyed the major events in history portion of this page because it provides an excellent opportunity to open up discussion about your country that you're talking about.  My son really enjoyed the "did you know" part it really Struck his curiosity and imagination about the country.  The maps of the world tab I don't even know where to begin because of the amount of information that was there and the amount of different maps there were to browse through and look at.  This was by far my favorite part of this assignment because it really showed me how much data there is on this particular website.  Wow!  Unfortunately I could not find the database features for this particular subject I don't know if I did anything wrong or not but I just could not find it.

SIRS Issues researcher questions:

1.  I chose to look up information on education funding.  The overview portion of this was very good I thought it was very informative.  The research tools I thought was very diverse and gave me many options to choose from.  As far as the articles part on the left-hand side of the page there were 1000+ newspaper and magazine articles to choose from on this subject.  Plus the part that I really like is that it had reference articles as well.  If I needed very good information I know that I could count on coming to this particular page and finding anything that I need.

2.  In the curriculum pathfinders portion I chose to look up information on physics.  As far as core subjects all of the important core subjects were there to choose from I just chose science and physics because that's the area in which I teach.  Again I cannot say enough about the range of topics covered and to choose from within just one subject of science.  Again I chose physics and I thought that it was very extensive with a huge amount of information that it discussed.  In the research tools on this particular subject it had newspaper articles,  magazine articles, Government documents which I really liked, It had reference articles, graphics and media which is something that would appeal to my visual learners, And then finally it had a web select sites, Which was amazing because it had about 25 pages of other websites that I could visit to get different types of information and just elaborate more on my subject.

Common Core Connections

I chose to look up information on physics.  And I hope that this answers this particular part because I actually thought that it could look up information on every single standard within science.  I was very impressed with the amount of information and the depth of that information that it covered.  My students would be able to get any amount of information from this website and I as a teacher am going to be using it within every chapter that I cover.  Awesome website!

Lesson 2

1.  This set up for the login process was very easy.
2.  When I logged into the learning express Library and went through a fourth-grade test I was very impressed with the grading portion.  It was very fast and efficient.  The part that I like the most was when I clicked on the answers part of the testing component... I really liked how much it explained which ones I got incorrect and how I could improve my skills to get it correct next time.
3.  Okay for this one I went into the business writing one portion... It was titled get organized.   The overview part was great.  It did a good job explaining the course.  I loved the pre-writing part where it had templates that you just filled in the information.  Overall I thought the course part of this was very organized and thorough.
4.  For this one I chose the job interviews that get you hired.  I thought that it was very thorough and easy to use.   I also thought that the information that was given to me was extensive and I can find pretty much anything I wanted to.

Common Core:

The area in which I teach is ninth-grade physical science.  I did not think there was a whole lot available as far as e-books and information for my content area.  I was able to find some information or an ebook on chemistry.  I thought that it would cover the common core standard 9-12.P.1.2 Where students are able to describe ways that atoms combine.  I also thought that it would cover The common core standard 9-12.P.1.3 Where students are able to predict whether reactions will speed up or slow down as conditions change.  Overall I was not very happy with this portion of the website because there was just not a lot of information available For the rest of the content that I teach throughout the year.

Lesson 1:  World Book Exploration

Basic Discovery Questions:

1.  Using World Book Kids, I found that the information was pretty general, however very good for kids of ages K-4.  The pictures and videos that were available make the information interactive and fun.

2.  Using World Book Student, I found that the pictures and videos were about the same as World Book Kids.  However, the information that was available was much more specific and in depth.  I would definitely recommend using this for kids in grades 5-9.

3.  Using World Book Advanced, I noticed right away that the information presented on the right and left side of the screen was just like using the encyclopedia's in the library.  The main difference was that is was much easier to use.  I looked up information on Rio, and it gave me many choices in the search.  I then selected Rio De Janerio.  As far as the types of information that would be most available for my students, I feel that all the information they would need was present.  I really liked the Citation part of the page, where they list the resources used for the articles and in the different formats.

4.  I thought that the World Book Discover was pretty similar to the World Book Advanced.  However, the ability to change the languages from Spanish to French was amazing.  I have a couple of ESL students and to be able to change the information to Spanish would help them considerably.

Common Core Connections

I currently teach 9th grade physical science.  When using the World Book Student site I searched for information on Newton's Laws of Motion because that is what we are currently learning about in class. The information presented was very good and really liked all the different resources the kids could use to find information.  The fact the kids could watch a small video describing Newtons Third Law was outstanding because I have a lot of students who are visual learners and this would help them a ton.  The common core standard I would have covered with this information was 9-12.P.2.2  Students are able to predict motion of an object using Newtons Laws.