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.
Hi, Adam, great to see you digging in here! You have made some good observations about World Book. I will mention that World Book does have a Spanish language version that has read-aloud in Spanish, which may benefit your students. And Advanced & Student also have text translation features that include Spanish, so there's plenty of help for your Spanish-speakers. You might like to take a look at World Book Discover's World Book Explains videos (left sidebar of home page) for short videos to use in the classroom. For the Common Core connection, we are asking you to make a connection to Common Core standards. That's a little tricky for you as a science teacher because those standards are still in the works. What you've described is a great connection between World Book and the current SD State Science Standards. Can you find a way to connect to Common Core? There is a section for non-ELA content areas you can try: http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RST/9-10 Thanks for your comments!
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