What a wealth of information on hobbies and crafts! Although I already knew about this database, I haven't taken the time to explore it; now I'll be telling my friends about it.
I started out looking at the Browse by Category for Outdoor and Nature. I looked at Canoe and Kayak articles for basic "How to" information for a friend. I found several articles that worked for this purpose. I noticed that some of the PDF's were difficult to read on the screen. When I enlarged them, only the Hobbies and Crafts background enlarged, not the article. So, I tried printing it, hoping I would be able to read the print out - no such luck. Anyway, this was not the case with all of the articles, just some of them.
The magazines represented by these articles were; Canoe and Kayak, Kayaking, and Wooden Boat. I receive none of them in my libraries. It also accessed some really good books and gave links to the appropriate chapters. For a project, it offered several (real) boat making projects, however I found one I could make - a canoe from the "Little Book of Whittling."
I also looked for information on "Penny quilts," but was finding mostly quilting articles. Not sure how to narrow this search, I used Google and searched the same two words. Many of the hits on Google were entitled "Penny Rug Quilts" and when I searched for these terms on "Hobbies and Crafts" I found articles on this very narrow topic. But again, many were hard to read because of gray text color and printing did not improve it. This would be good feedback for the producers of "Hobbies and Crafts." I wonder if is the "core, proprietary articles" that are in gray text.
The "Help" had lots of information. I watched the video about Hobbies and Crafts which had a little different information from the MARVEL video. I looked up "Field Codes" because I didn't know what that was. As it turned out, it is using the codes that are in the drop down menu to the right in all the Ebsco databases "advanced search" pages, such as SU-Subject, AU-Author or TI- Article_Title.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Friday, October 19, 2012
Teaching Students About MARVEL
Silly as it is, I always tell students that MARVEL is marvelous. I give them background information on how access to all of these databases helps even the playing field among schools in Maine.
I am the district librarian for 5 schools; two K-5, one middle school and two high schools, so I am spread pretty thin. After reaching out to the middle and high school teachers, offering to help students with research, I have worked with 6th and 9th graders so far and will do many more lessons at point of need.
I have students work on their keyword list, prior to starting research. I make sure they understand that their keyword list is not static and will change as they proceed with their work. Also, that they will add new words they discover in their reading and eliminate words that lead them in the wrong direction.
When doing research on a variety of topics, I direct all students to Britannica Online first. This is to help them get good basic information on their topic that should help with the rest of their research.
I encouraged the 6th graders to go to "MARVEL Kids" "Elementary K-5." I explain that many of the articles found there are very appropriate for middle and even high school students. I give them the average Lexile range for their grade level and show them that the results are not necessarily "too easy." After this explanation, they use the "Elementary K-5" section without hesitation. However, I really wish that the name of this group of databases could be changed to "Grades K-8" and overlap with "Grades 6 and up."
For 9th grade I ask them to go to "Grades 6 and up." I encourage them to use Student Research Center because of its user friendly interface, ability to select the type of material you want to search and choose the Lexile level. If students have very specific needs, I point them to the "Select a Subject" list of databases on the left side of the homepage. Depending on the topic, I counsel them to use "consumer edition" or those most accessible to them.
With all students I show them how to create a search and how to read the results. I stress the importance of requesting "full text" and encourage them to email the article to themselves, so they don't lose it. I show them how to sort their results and how to narrow the "publication date." At this point, they are in danger of becoming glazed over, so I have them research their topic and trouble shoot on a case by case basis, unless a common problem arises when I address the whole class again.
I am the district librarian for 5 schools; two K-5, one middle school and two high schools, so I am spread pretty thin. After reaching out to the middle and high school teachers, offering to help students with research, I have worked with 6th and 9th graders so far and will do many more lessons at point of need.
I have students work on their keyword list, prior to starting research. I make sure they understand that their keyword list is not static and will change as they proceed with their work. Also, that they will add new words they discover in their reading and eliminate words that lead them in the wrong direction.
When doing research on a variety of topics, I direct all students to Britannica Online first. This is to help them get good basic information on their topic that should help with the rest of their research.
I encouraged the 6th graders to go to "MARVEL Kids" "Elementary K-5." I explain that many of the articles found there are very appropriate for middle and even high school students. I give them the average Lexile range for their grade level and show them that the results are not necessarily "too easy." After this explanation, they use the "Elementary K-5" section without hesitation. However, I really wish that the name of this group of databases could be changed to "Grades K-8" and overlap with "Grades 6 and up."
For 9th grade I ask them to go to "Grades 6 and up." I encourage them to use Student Research Center because of its user friendly interface, ability to select the type of material you want to search and choose the Lexile level. If students have very specific needs, I point them to the "Select a Subject" list of databases on the left side of the homepage. Depending on the topic, I counsel them to use "consumer edition" or those most accessible to them.
With all students I show them how to create a search and how to read the results. I stress the importance of requesting "full text" and encourage them to email the article to themselves, so they don't lose it. I show them how to sort their results and how to narrow the "publication date." At this point, they are in danger of becoming glazed over, so I have them research their topic and trouble shoot on a case by case basis, unless a common problem arises when I address the whole class again.
Maine Newsstand
I am an avid whitewater kayaker and am amazed as to how deaths from whitewater rafting get reported as heart attacks. So, I decided to look up articles on this topic.
My list of keywords was as follows: whitewater, died, death, heart attack, mortality, and accident. I explored all of these combinations, but I had the best results with the combination of "whitewater" and "death." However, the results list included many articles about the Whitewater scandal of 1997. To avoid most of the articles on this topic, I went to advanced search and looked for "whitewater" and "death" not "White House." This list of results was generally on topic, but I was able to "add a row" to my advanced search and include not "Starr." These results were even more on topic. The dates ranged from 1993 to 2012 and were easy to arrange by oldest or newest first using the drop down menu to the right that allows you to sort by relevance and publication date. I liked the use of highlighting, which made it easy to zero in on my keywords, and I really loved the publication date graph. I can see using the publication date graph with students when looking for a quantity of articles on the same topic. For example, if they were looking for the year with the most hunting accidents, this graph could point them in the right direction. By clicking on a section of the graph, you will get your search results for that year only.
I was uncertain about "Tags." My marginal understanding is that they are names attached to something (picture, article) to help organize information. If I attach "whitewater" to pictures and articles, I should be able to search for this tag and get my stuff with the "whitewater" tag. However, I'm not certain how to put tags on things.
RSS feed was another area I didn't know much about. Again, my marginal understanding is that it helps publishers send you information (articles) on a topic that you are interested in and have created a feed on.
When I tried to create an alert, I was stopped by the message: "Server error caused your requested action to fail..." I'm sure this is because I am doing this research at school and our filter is blocking this process.
My list of keywords was as follows: whitewater, died, death, heart attack, mortality, and accident. I explored all of these combinations, but I had the best results with the combination of "whitewater" and "death." However, the results list included many articles about the Whitewater scandal of 1997. To avoid most of the articles on this topic, I went to advanced search and looked for "whitewater" and "death" not "White House." This list of results was generally on topic, but I was able to "add a row" to my advanced search and include not "Starr." These results were even more on topic. The dates ranged from 1993 to 2012 and were easy to arrange by oldest or newest first using the drop down menu to the right that allows you to sort by relevance and publication date. I liked the use of highlighting, which made it easy to zero in on my keywords, and I really loved the publication date graph. I can see using the publication date graph with students when looking for a quantity of articles on the same topic. For example, if they were looking for the year with the most hunting accidents, this graph could point them in the right direction. By clicking on a section of the graph, you will get your search results for that year only.
I was uncertain about "Tags." My marginal understanding is that they are names attached to something (picture, article) to help organize information. If I attach "whitewater" to pictures and articles, I should be able to search for this tag and get my stuff with the "whitewater" tag. However, I'm not certain how to put tags on things.
RSS feed was another area I didn't know much about. Again, my marginal understanding is that it helps publishers send you information (articles) on a topic that you are interested in and have created a feed on.
When I tried to create an alert, I was stopped by the message: "Server error caused your requested action to fail..." I'm sure this is because I am doing this research at school and our filter is blocking this process.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Britannica Online - High School Edition is an excellent resource for high school students. It offers good basic information on a variety of subjects. This is where I recommend students start their research on most topics to gain good overall knowledge.
Our World Cultures classes are currently researching Latin American countires. Their challenge is to analyse a country's social and natural environment to learn how it effects the country's culture.
I chose Costa Rica as a country to explore and see what information Britannica Online offered. The information was extensive and provided many leads that could be followed up in other resources. Thirty-nine pages of information were indexed with active links on the left side of the article. Students could read the information from top to bottom or skip around and read the articles that fit their topic best. Britannica supports students with limited vocabularies by linking key words to their definition. To support different learning styles, students can print the page or article, save it to their workspace or email it to themselves. Britannica also gives them the article's citation in MLA, APA or other styles.
In addition to Britannica's article, there were links to "The Web's Best Sites" in a box on the upper right. Those included links to: Costa Rica National Parks, World Health Organization, BBC News - Costa Rica, Lonely Planet, and National Geographic Travel and Culture. These are all great resources. There is also a link in this box to "Journals and Magazines" provided by EBSCO.
All in all. This is not only a good place for students to start their research, but also a source of other useful resources to get more information.
I also explored the World Atlas link from the Britannica Homepage. Here you can look up a country and get a map, a summary, a profile (which is a table of key information), points of interest, and a short article on the country that links to the extensive article I discussed above. One nice feature is the map, which allows you to zoom in and move around. You can click on different parts of the map and have articles on that area pop up.
Our World Cultures classes are currently researching Latin American countires. Their challenge is to analyse a country's social and natural environment to learn how it effects the country's culture.
I chose Costa Rica as a country to explore and see what information Britannica Online offered. The information was extensive and provided many leads that could be followed up in other resources. Thirty-nine pages of information were indexed with active links on the left side of the article. Students could read the information from top to bottom or skip around and read the articles that fit their topic best. Britannica supports students with limited vocabularies by linking key words to their definition. To support different learning styles, students can print the page or article, save it to their workspace or email it to themselves. Britannica also gives them the article's citation in MLA, APA or other styles.
In addition to Britannica's article, there were links to "The Web's Best Sites" in a box on the upper right. Those included links to: Costa Rica National Parks, World Health Organization, BBC News - Costa Rica, Lonely Planet, and National Geographic Travel and Culture. These are all great resources. There is also a link in this box to "Journals and Magazines" provided by EBSCO.
All in all. This is not only a good place for students to start their research, but also a source of other useful resources to get more information.
I also explored the World Atlas link from the Britannica Homepage. Here you can look up a country and get a map, a summary, a profile (which is a table of key information), points of interest, and a short article on the country that links to the extensive article I discussed above. One nice feature is the map, which allows you to zoom in and move around. You can click on different parts of the map and have articles on that area pop up.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
MARVEL Videos
The three videos were good. I'm wondering if they would be good to use for a teacher's technology workshop about MARVEL or if they are too simple. I'll have to look at all the videos offered by MSL on MARVEL to see if there is a more comprehensive one.
For those of you who would like to access these videos from the MSL website here is the link: http://www.maine.gov/msl/mrls/coned/index.shtml
For those of you who would like to access these videos from the MSL website here is the link: http://www.maine.gov/msl/mrls/coned/index.shtml
Monday, October 1, 2012
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