My biggest discoveries were WorldCat & CAMIO. I had never used those resources before and they are wonderful! I had used many of the other resources we investigated, but it was great to refresh my memory. As often happens when I attend a workshop or conference, I learn about great resources, but then get caught up in trying to keep up with school, and then forget some of what I learned, so the refresher was welcome.
My school is a one-to-one technology school, so each student has their own computer for their use while they are in high school. We as teachers are constantly challenged to keep our increasingly tech savvy students engaged in learning, and also to provide safe, accurate, reliable sources for our students. The State Library electronic resources nicely fit the bill.
Thanks for a great online learning experience!
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Monday, March 18, 2013
Lesson 9
AncestryLibrary
1. When I searched for myself, I was interested to find there are lots of people with my name that were born about the same time as I was. I seem to be the only one from South Dakota though :)
There were 26,801 matches to my name, the first one had my name and correct addresses that I have lived at, but oddly enough had the wrong date for my birthday - close, but not right. So, I guess one still needs to be careful and use this as a tool to help you find original sources.
I liked that you could click on categories to narrow the search results.
2. I searched for my mother's father and found him in the 1910, 1930, & 1940 census results. It was fun to see the original, scanned document. The census was quite different from what it is today! It was also neat to see my mom's name in the 1940 census as a child. I also found, after just a little looking, the marriage record for my grandparents.
3. When I searched "South Dakota" in the location box there were over 2 million results. You would really need to use the categories to limit your search, or you would be overwhelmed trying to look through all those results. When I looked for Pictures, again there were way too many results, so I searched for Miller, South Dakota and found 3 historical postcards from my community. Very interesting to see what those historical buildings in town used to look like.
4. HeritageQuest. Again, I had trouble accessing this at school because it was blocked by our firewall, so I tried from home and was happy that I could get to it at home.
I clicked on "Persi" then filled in South Dakota, Hand County to search. There were 11 results including newspaper articles, cemetery records, census records, and other historical records.
5. Sanborn Maps. I searched for Miller, South Dakota and chose the January 1904 map. I was interested to see the original businesses on main street and a little surprised at how little they were. I did find a building that is still in it's original place - the Presbyterian Church - it was actually one of the historical post cards I found earlier also.
1. When I searched for myself, I was interested to find there are lots of people with my name that were born about the same time as I was. I seem to be the only one from South Dakota though :)
There were 26,801 matches to my name, the first one had my name and correct addresses that I have lived at, but oddly enough had the wrong date for my birthday - close, but not right. So, I guess one still needs to be careful and use this as a tool to help you find original sources.
I liked that you could click on categories to narrow the search results.
2. I searched for my mother's father and found him in the 1910, 1930, & 1940 census results. It was fun to see the original, scanned document. The census was quite different from what it is today! It was also neat to see my mom's name in the 1940 census as a child. I also found, after just a little looking, the marriage record for my grandparents.
3. When I searched "South Dakota" in the location box there were over 2 million results. You would really need to use the categories to limit your search, or you would be overwhelmed trying to look through all those results. When I looked for Pictures, again there were way too many results, so I searched for Miller, South Dakota and found 3 historical postcards from my community. Very interesting to see what those historical buildings in town used to look like.
4. HeritageQuest. Again, I had trouble accessing this at school because it was blocked by our firewall, so I tried from home and was happy that I could get to it at home.
I clicked on "Persi" then filled in South Dakota, Hand County to search. There were 11 results including newspaper articles, cemetery records, census records, and other historical records.
5. Sanborn Maps. I searched for Miller, South Dakota and chose the January 1904 map. I was interested to see the original businesses on main street and a little surprised at how little they were. I did find a building that is still in it's original place - the Presbyterian Church - it was actually one of the historical post cards I found earlier also.
Lesson 8
Basic Discovery Exercise Part 1 - ArchiveGrid
1. When I searched for "Sitting Bull autograph card" I learned that Sitting Bull was a Hunpapa Sioux leader who, among many other things, led the Sioux & Cheyenne against the 7th cavalry at the Battle of Little Bighorn. After that, he led the tribe to Canada to live until the surrender. After capture, he toured with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, and was killed resisting arrest for doing the ritual Ghost Dance.
Much of this I already knew, but it was an interesting article.
2. I decided to search "Hand County South Dakota". There was 1 result from the Farm Security Administration Photographs 1936-1942. This is a collection of 482 photographs depicting the negative effects of the Dust Bowl, Great Depression and farm mechanization as well as mobilization efforts for World War II. This was a link to digital versions of the pictures. I looked through several of the pictures and they were very interesting. A look at a time gone by.
Basic Discovery Exercise Part 2 - CAMIO
I had an interesting experience trying to do this part of the assignment. I am a teacher, so I tried to access the CAMIO database at school. Oddly enough, it was blocked by our Firewall. So, I appealed to have the category changed. This took a couple days, but then I was able to go to it. Then when I tried to blog about it, our school has Blogger blocked - so I had to write down my thoughts and then post at home. Technology has an interesting trail at a public school. :)
1. When I searched for Paul Revere, there were many silver items that he created - teaspoon, sugar bowl, salver, bowl, teapot, coffee urn... and there were paintings of him, stories & poetry written about him, and work that his son did.
2. When I searched "Sioux", again there were many results of objects such as shirts, gauntlets, drawings, pipe bowls, dolls, pouches... All very beautiful and interesting.
3. I searched several artists, DaVinci, Remington, and Monet. It was very interesting to see the works of these artists that are held in American museums.
4. I am not sure how I would use this resource in my science classes, but I can see how it would be a valuable resource for an art class or social studies class where one could look at different cultures or different time periods.
5. I thought the "add to favorites" feature was easy to use and I really liked the Compare feature where you could get a side by side look at different works to be very interesting. I also thought the Slideshow was a very cool feature.
1. When I searched for "Sitting Bull autograph card" I learned that Sitting Bull was a Hunpapa Sioux leader who, among many other things, led the Sioux & Cheyenne against the 7th cavalry at the Battle of Little Bighorn. After that, he led the tribe to Canada to live until the surrender. After capture, he toured with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, and was killed resisting arrest for doing the ritual Ghost Dance.
Much of this I already knew, but it was an interesting article.
2. I decided to search "Hand County South Dakota". There was 1 result from the Farm Security Administration Photographs 1936-1942. This is a collection of 482 photographs depicting the negative effects of the Dust Bowl, Great Depression and farm mechanization as well as mobilization efforts for World War II. This was a link to digital versions of the pictures. I looked through several of the pictures and they were very interesting. A look at a time gone by.
Basic Discovery Exercise Part 2 - CAMIO
I had an interesting experience trying to do this part of the assignment. I am a teacher, so I tried to access the CAMIO database at school. Oddly enough, it was blocked by our Firewall. So, I appealed to have the category changed. This took a couple days, but then I was able to go to it. Then when I tried to blog about it, our school has Blogger blocked - so I had to write down my thoughts and then post at home. Technology has an interesting trail at a public school. :)
1. When I searched for Paul Revere, there were many silver items that he created - teaspoon, sugar bowl, salver, bowl, teapot, coffee urn... and there were paintings of him, stories & poetry written about him, and work that his son did.
2. When I searched "Sioux", again there were many results of objects such as shirts, gauntlets, drawings, pipe bowls, dolls, pouches... All very beautiful and interesting.
3. I searched several artists, DaVinci, Remington, and Monet. It was very interesting to see the works of these artists that are held in American museums.
4. I am not sure how I would use this resource in my science classes, but I can see how it would be a valuable resource for an art class or social studies class where one could look at different cultures or different time periods.
5. I thought the "add to favorites" feature was easy to use and I really liked the Compare feature where you could get a side by side look at different works to be very interesting. I also thought the Slideshow was a very cool feature.
Monday, March 4, 2013
Lesson 7
Observations about WorldCat.
1. In the first task we were to check out all the different ways to search instead of Keyword. There are many other options including the usual Author, Subject, and Title as well as specific subcategories within those categories. Something I thought was useful was to search by material type, and something I have never thought to do is to search Musical Composition.
2. For the Title Phrase Search, I searched for "The Time Machine". This resulted in 1,156 results. 1,270 libraries have the #1 result which was "Seven Science Fiction Novels". The top library is the Brookings Public Library of 6 libraries in South Dakota.
3. The call numbers (Class Descriptors) are LC: PZ3.W465; PR5772; Dewey: 813.0876 . When I clicked on the Author's Name, another search page opened up with other books as well as tabs along the top that would limit the results to Books, Internet sources, Sound, Visual, Archival, Articles, Scores, Serials, Computer, and Maps. There was also listed how many results in each catagory. When I clicked on the subject of Science Fiction - English, I ended up with 6,164 results in another search. Again, there were all the subheadings to refine my search.
When looking at the other FirstSearch Indexes, when a database is chosen and you click on the i, a window opens that give you information about that database and the subjects it covers.
In the last part of the assignment, the subject phrase search for South Dakota resulted in 827 results. I chose to take a look at a Visual Material result called "En route to Black Hills". Which, interestingly enough is owned by the Tulane University Library. It provided a description of what the picture was of in the Abstract and who took the picture as well as other information about the item. Over all this resource is very easy to use.
1. In the first task we were to check out all the different ways to search instead of Keyword. There are many other options including the usual Author, Subject, and Title as well as specific subcategories within those categories. Something I thought was useful was to search by material type, and something I have never thought to do is to search Musical Composition.
2. For the Title Phrase Search, I searched for "The Time Machine". This resulted in 1,156 results. 1,270 libraries have the #1 result which was "Seven Science Fiction Novels". The top library is the Brookings Public Library of 6 libraries in South Dakota.
3. The call numbers (Class Descriptors) are LC: PZ3.W465; PR5772; Dewey: 813.0876 . When I clicked on the Author's Name, another search page opened up with other books as well as tabs along the top that would limit the results to Books, Internet sources, Sound, Visual, Archival, Articles, Scores, Serials, Computer, and Maps. There was also listed how many results in each catagory. When I clicked on the subject of Science Fiction - English, I ended up with 6,164 results in another search. Again, there were all the subheadings to refine my search.
When looking at the other FirstSearch Indexes, when a database is chosen and you click on the i, a window opens that give you information about that database and the subjects it covers.
In the last part of the assignment, the subject phrase search for South Dakota resulted in 827 results. I chose to take a look at a Visual Material result called "En route to Black Hills". Which, interestingly enough is owned by the Tulane University Library. It provided a description of what the picture was of in the Abstract and who took the picture as well as other information about the item. Over all this resource is very easy to use.
Monday, February 25, 2013
Lesson 6
For the first part of this assignment I searched for "Astronomy". I limited my search by clicking the Full Text tab, and I set the publication dates to 2000-2013. I received 34 results back. Near the top, I found two very good books. The first was "Astronomy Demystified" by Stan Gibilisco, published in 2003. This was a very good choice as it was a very readable text that covers a wide range of astronomy topics. I really like the way the books are presented with the clickable Table of Contents, so that a user can easily and quickly move to another section of the book. The icons for Search and Bookmarks were also very handy and easy to use. Another great feature was the Cite icon, which is wonderful for students to use when creating their Works Cited or Bibliography pages. Another great book, which really pulled me in was "Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions & Misuses" by Philip C. Wiley Plait, published in 2002. This book did not have a clickable quick links to the chapters the way the first book did, but it did have a table of contents with the pages listed. You could then type the page number in the field at the bottom of the book to jump to that page. Great resource!
For the second part, searching for resources for Constitution Day, I have to admit that I was not familiar with that particular event, so I had to first do a little research to learn what it was. Then, I first searched "Constitution" and found "Companion to the United States Constitution and Its Amendments" by John R. Vile. This looks like a good resource for understanding the Constitution. Then I searched "United States Citizen" and found the book "Living in the U.S.A." by Alison Raymod Lanier and Jef C. Davis. It is a book written for people who are not actually from the United States as a guide to our culture, values, and society. I thought it was quite interesting to read about things that we who have lived here our whole lives take for granted that 'everyone' knows, but really they don't.
For the last part of the assignment, I searched Nebraska in the Publisher field and found 88 books published by the University of Nebraska Press. These included a wide variety of topics, as well as some actually about the west. A search of Oklahoma resulted in 82 results from mainly the University of Oklahoma Press, with the same variety of topics, and also many directly about the west. One book that I thought was interesting was a book about Lewis & Clark's journey. In the synopsis, it listed the states that were mentioned in the book. Interestingly enough, neither South Dakota or North Dakota were included. I did not take the time to read the book however, so I do not know if they were actually excluded or not.
Interesting assignment. I have used the Mega EBSCO before to find magazine articles, but I have not used the e-books before. I learned a lot about another great resource.
For the second part, searching for resources for Constitution Day, I have to admit that I was not familiar with that particular event, so I had to first do a little research to learn what it was. Then, I first searched "Constitution" and found "Companion to the United States Constitution and Its Amendments" by John R. Vile. This looks like a good resource for understanding the Constitution. Then I searched "United States Citizen" and found the book "Living in the U.S.A." by Alison Raymod Lanier and Jef C. Davis. It is a book written for people who are not actually from the United States as a guide to our culture, values, and society. I thought it was quite interesting to read about things that we who have lived here our whole lives take for granted that 'everyone' knows, but really they don't.
For the last part of the assignment, I searched Nebraska in the Publisher field and found 88 books published by the University of Nebraska Press. These included a wide variety of topics, as well as some actually about the west. A search of Oklahoma resulted in 82 results from mainly the University of Oklahoma Press, with the same variety of topics, and also many directly about the west. One book that I thought was interesting was a book about Lewis & Clark's journey. In the synopsis, it listed the states that were mentioned in the book. Interestingly enough, neither South Dakota or North Dakota were included. I did not take the time to read the book however, so I do not know if they were actually excluded or not.
Interesting assignment. I have used the Mega EBSCO before to find magazine articles, but I have not used the e-books before. I learned a lot about another great resource.
Monday, February 18, 2013
Lesson 5
This week's assignment is again very timely for me to use in my classroom. At the Gale Virtual Reference Library, when I chose "Title List", the first book on the list was "Alternative Energy". This week my physical science class will be doing research on the various ways electricity is generated. A quick look in this three volume title showed that this will be another great reference to point my students toward when they are doing their research.
I searched for Hydroelectric Power Plants in the search box. I received 188 results. Of those results not all of them were directly about hydroelectric power - some were about other forms of alternative energy. One of the results was an entry about Generators from the Gayle Encylopedia of Science. It was a very good article and I especially liked the Key Terms at the end of the article.
I searched for Hydroelectric Power Plants in the search box. I received 188 results. Of those results not all of them were directly about hydroelectric power - some were about other forms of alternative energy. One of the results was an entry about Generators from the Gayle Encylopedia of Science. It was a very good article and I especially liked the Key Terms at the end of the article.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Lesson 4
The assignment is to do a basic search in Proquest on something that interests me. My physics class is going to be researching, designing, and building solar ovens this week, so I searched 'Solar Ovens'. There were 1200 results. I liked the icons that indicated if the results were from magazines, trade journals, scholarly journals, etc. I found many great articles with instuctions on how to build a variety of solar ovens from the simple to more complex, as well as articles about where and why solar ovens are used. This will be a great resource for my students to use instead of a Google search which gives way too many results that are not relevent.
When I chose the Publication tab I learned that Proquest has over 4400 publications available. I searched for Chemistry journals and found 8. I was interested in learning that there is such a thing as the American Association of Cereal Chemists published in St. Paul. While it and the other chemistry journals I looked at seem to be beyond the scope of a high school chemistry class, I think if a student was doing research on a chemistry topic, this would be a wonderful resource to find scholarly journal articles.
When I chose the Publication tab I learned that Proquest has over 4400 publications available. I searched for Chemistry journals and found 8. I was interested in learning that there is such a thing as the American Association of Cereal Chemists published in St. Paul. While it and the other chemistry journals I looked at seem to be beyond the scope of a high school chemistry class, I think if a student was doing research on a chemistry topic, this would be a wonderful resource to find scholarly journal articles.
Monday, February 4, 2013
Lesson 3
I looked up Black Footed Ferrets in SIRS Discoverer. There were 30 resources all together. Of these, there were 4 newspaper articles & 15 magazine articles. There were several older articles as well as some from 2012, including from magazines such as Science World, Ranger Rick, and National Geographic Young Explorer. All the articles included proper citations near the bottom. There were also 3 reference articles, nine graphics, and a really excellent web page.
In the Database Features I selected Country Facts and investigated Germany. It included basic information similar to what one would find in an encyclopedia, major historical events, a map, the flag, and also a section with interesting facts about the country.
In the Skills Discoverer section I chose, Science, then Inventions. There was a Featured Interactive that proveded 4 games, as well as a link for more websites that led back to the main web links one would get to if they had searched from the home page.
In SIRS Issues Researcher I chose Gun Control from the quick links in the middle of the page. It was easy to use and proveded excellent resources. I really liked the note organizer link that popped up a graphic organizer. I think that would be a great resource for students to visually organize their data.
In the Curriculum Pathfinders there was a nice selection of topics. I chose science. There was Research Ideas, Interactives, and Subject Areas. I chose Chemistry and found lots of websites, articles, refrences, and other media. Good resource!
In the Database Features I selected Country Facts and investigated Germany. It included basic information similar to what one would find in an encyclopedia, major historical events, a map, the flag, and also a section with interesting facts about the country.
In the Skills Discoverer section I chose, Science, then Inventions. There was a Featured Interactive that proveded 4 games, as well as a link for more websites that led back to the main web links one would get to if they had searched from the home page.
In SIRS Issues Researcher I chose Gun Control from the quick links in the middle of the page. It was easy to use and proveded excellent resources. I really liked the note organizer link that popped up a graphic organizer. I think that would be a great resource for students to visually organize their data.
In the Curriculum Pathfinders there was a nice selection of topics. I chose science. There was Research Ideas, Interactives, and Subject Areas. I chose Chemistry and found lots of websites, articles, refrences, and other media. Good resource!
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Lesson 2
At the Learning Express Library I chose ACT Prep to take a look at. I looked at a science test. I liked that it gave the option to open the narrative in another window so that I didn't have to keep scrolling up and down to refer to the text. The diagnostic page was also good showing right away how many questions were answered and how many right/wrong. I think this will be another great tool to help my high school students prepare to take the ACT.
On Job Search & Workplace Skills, I went to Job Search, Resumes, and Interviewing. I checked out books on choosing a career and resume writing. They were easy to download and both were current with great information. I started the course, Creating a Great Resume. I really liked the tool bar on the left side that showed you where you were in the course. It also let you jump to another section or review a previous section easily. I was impressed with the books offered in the eBooks section. Since I teach chemistry, I chose a book called Chemistry Review in 20 Minutes a Day. The process to find and download a book is very quick and easily done.
On Job Search & Workplace Skills, I went to Job Search, Resumes, and Interviewing. I checked out books on choosing a career and resume writing. They were easy to download and both were current with great information. I started the course, Creating a Great Resume. I really liked the tool bar on the left side that showed you where you were in the course. It also let you jump to another section or review a previous section easily. I was impressed with the books offered in the eBooks section. Since I teach chemistry, I chose a book called Chemistry Review in 20 Minutes a Day. The process to find and download a book is very quick and easily done.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Lesson 1
Using World Book Kids, I searched for bats. I discovered that bats live all over the world except the artic and antartica. They choose to live in quiet places such as attics, barns, and caves.
The article included basic information about bats, the above picture, and a short video about bats.
Using World Book Student, I found quite a bit more information. Information about habitat, different types of bats, more pictures, and a recording of bat sounds along with information about ecolocation.
Using World Book Advanced, I searched for Italy. The left side bar gives links to specific information in the article so if the searcher is looking for information about the government, for example, they could jump right there. On the right side bar there are primary sources listed. I took a look at An Englishman's impression of Italy from from 1750. I would think this would be a great resource if a student was writing a report or investigating a specific time period.
Using World Book Discover I used the links to find an article about the Bill of Rights. I really liked the read aloud feature, as well as reading the text, it highlighted the words it was reading.
The article included basic information about bats, the above picture, and a short video about bats.
Using World Book Student, I found quite a bit more information. Information about habitat, different types of bats, more pictures, and a recording of bat sounds along with information about ecolocation.
Using World Book Advanced, I searched for Italy. The left side bar gives links to specific information in the article so if the searcher is looking for information about the government, for example, they could jump right there. On the right side bar there are primary sources listed. I took a look at An Englishman's impression of Italy from from 1750. I would think this would be a great resource if a student was writing a report or investigating a specific time period.
Using World Book Discover I used the links to find an article about the Bill of Rights. I really liked the read aloud feature, as well as reading the text, it highlighted the words it was reading.
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