Gale Virtual Reference Library

I was a bit overwhelmed at first when viewing all the titles in the Gale Virtual Reference Library.  It really helped to think of specific topics in the middle school curriculum.  I did find the UXL Encyclopedia of World Mythology, 2009.  There is a teacher at my school that does an 8^th grade mythology class.  I do like that though the reference is on world mythology, I can look at the table of contents by culture.  I selected Greek and Roman mythology and then Aphrodite.  I liked that there were also great tools available such as printing, email, download, citation tools, listen, download MP3, and download PDF to eReader.  The information on Aphrodite was excellent and at the end of the section were links to other articles with that index term.  I really liked the “Read, Write, Think, Discuss” sections which give the article additional depth.

I searched propaganda once again as the 7^th grade English teachers are still working on this writing activity.  I sent the link to the results page to those teachers to allow them to select what article they thought would be most useful.  I chose an article titled Propaganda from the Dictionary of American History.  It was nice to be able to search other articles through the hyper-links related to the term.  I listened to the article and found under the settings I could change the speed at which the article was read.  Medium was the default setting and was the easiest for me to listen to the article, despite the voice being a bit mechanical.  There were other options for listening such as word and sentence, sentence only, word only and no highlighting.  I tend to like the highlighting which could aid students in following along. 

I did some other exploring which allowed me to identify subject areas useful to the curriculum areas in middle school.  I agree that taking the time to become familiar with this resource is the same as getting to know my own physical library collection.

Proquest

I recently held library classes to discuss the different types of propaganda for 7^th grade English, so this became my search topic.  As I typed in propaganda, other relevant search terms were listed below.  The term I ended up selecting was tv propaganda.  Proquest  presented 9784 results for my search.  This result page also included a box with suggested subjects related to my search.  Various tools are available such as email, print, cite, export/save and save to my research which are very useful for someone doing in depth research.  Each result showed the source (magazine or other) in bold print.  What I really liked was the ability to sort/narrow my results in the right side bar.  The basic sort was available by relevance and publication date (oldest first or recent first).  This side bar also allows me to narrow my results by; full text, peer reviewed, source type, publication title, document type, subject, classification, company/organization, location, person, tags, language, database, and publication date.  These fields have many subfields to select from.  I chose source type and selected magazines which then narrowed down the results to 3327.  I explored a few in the side bar and found I could easily narrow the results to publications/magazines that I was more familiar with as well as some from other countries.  I really liked narrowing the results by persons.  I have read Breaking Stalin’s Nose by Eugene Yelchin (a quick read but very captivating), a book I heavily recommend.  Stalin was a heavy user of propaganda and I was able to find 3 magazine results.  What a great tie in for the book! I strongly believe that students should be asked to explore/research subject matters beyond the book which can create a deeper understanding.

I found visiting other blogs helpful and an excellent way to find discoveries that I had missed!

I looked at all the publications that are available in Proquest and was amazed at the number.  I searched “library” and had 26 publication results.  Many of these I had never heard of before.  The School Library Journal is available in full text from Jan. 1996 up to the present issue. The journal is also available in other formats as early at Jan. 1988 to the present.   Looking at this list I see a couple of other journals I am interested in and may create an alert for those journals new to me.  I sent an article to my fellow middle school librarians about trends in the 21^st Century Library.  I set up an alert but first had to set up an account under My Research.  Once I did that, then creating an alert was very fast and easy.

SIRS Discover/Issues Researcher

I decided to search gorillas again as I did in the previous lesson.  I received a total of 288 results (all articles) which broke down into 56 newspapers, 152 magazines, 29 reference, 37 graphics and 7 webfind sites.  I really liked the legend header on reading levels/source & summary.  The icons allowed me to filter through the results looking for various reading levels, graphics, activities, pdf, etc.  I was able to sort my results by relevance, date and lexile.  I did sort the results with lexile which is useful however it seemed to then affect the relevancy of the search (which I understand but feel it is important to be aware of). Our district does not use lexile levels as elementary tends to use Fountas & Pinell and middle school uses F&P and AR leveling.  I do keep a lexile conversion chart as well as an AR & guided reading chart for any teachers and teachers with questions.  It is just a helpful guide/tool to have available.   I was somewhat confused by a couple of results (second and third one).  The second result had the blue book icon which in the header labels it as moderate and the lexile score is 1000.  The third result has a green book icon which labels it as easy, yet the lexile level is 1090 which is higher than the second result.  I did appreciate that I could see which periodicals, references the article came from.  The periodicals I am familiar with are Scholastic, Muse, Weekly, and Highlights for Children, which are all wonderful magazines for children.  Many of these periodicals are no longer budgeted for, so this is a great find and should be shown to classroom teachers.  I have seen many teachers hold on to old ratty copies of periodicals because of various articles that they link to their lessons.

I decided to open the Gorillas in Danger article and found a good article along with a map and graphic as well as vocabulary definitions, background information, critical thinking, resources as well as a multiple choice and fact and opinion questions.  The resources contained two web addresses for further research.  The citation information is given at the end in MLA format and permission to copy and paste this information into your documents. Awesome!

In SIRS Discoverer I selected “Country Facts” in the “Database Features” section.  This brought me to a screen which is divided into three sections: country facts, state facts & Canada facts.  Under each section they were then grouped into regions with an expandable list.  I chose Canada and selected Manitoba under the Provinces list.  There was a section with quick read information such as the abbreviation, capital, population, motto, etc. which is similar to what many children have been exposed to when doing state research.  Also included on the page are the major events in history, National Parks and historical sites which have internal and external links.   At the bottom of the page is a list of additional resources with links.  Citation information is once again available.  A lot of information in a small space.

After going back to the homepage I then selected “Maps of the World” under the “Database Features”.  Maps were available for the United States, Canada, Nations, Regions, U.S. Historical, World Historical and outline maps.  The “Picture for the article” link took me back to the Country Facts section related to the map.  After looking through the various groupings, I found that they all seemed to have a printable PDFs available as well as a link to “all articles” related to that particular map.  The “outline maps”  could be a great reproducible for teachers to utilize with various studies.  The last section under “Database Features” I selected was activities.  The activities are organized into 22 categories (alphabetical listed), beginning with art projects and ending with social issues projects.  When I selected a category I was brought back to the articles in SIRS that type of category.  I think it would be handy to be able to do a subject search under each category in activities.

In SIRS Issue Researcher, I selected Cheerleading from the top 10 because my daughter did competitive cheerleading for the first time this year and I had a hard time thinking there was an issue with this sport.  The other top 10 issues are in the news frequently and made sense to me.  Before I selected the issue, I notice the column to the right.  I had the opportunity to vote in a poll on athletes using performance drugs.  Once I voted I was able to view the stats and a disclaimer stating it was not a scientific and advised the user not to use the statistics for papers.  Below the poll were links/issues on: Common Core Writing Guide, Election 2012, Today’s News, Focus on Terrorism, Natural Disasters, Spotlight on…, Curriculum Pathfinders, World Almanac & Maps and Browse Topics.  I did get side tracked and “lost” looking through these and found a mountain of information.  Once I selected Cheerleading, the page presented me with an overview of the issue, articles for pro and con and essential question(s).  In this case the issue is whether cheerleading should be considered a sport.  There is also a research tool box available to aid students as they explore this issue.  I selected statistics and was shown a page on sports statistics but could not find statistics on cheerleading.  There was also an Interactive to the right which was a video on promoting healthy athletes but not a focus on cheerleading itself.  When I scrolled down, I found the result box that showed sources in newspapers, magazines, viewpoints, reference and graphics.  To the right of the results box was the list of the available articles written on the issue.  I then went back to the top of the page and clicked on “At Issue” for another page which gave a fuller overview of the topic, the pro/con and essential questions and articles links which supports both sides of the debate.  What I liked on this page was the “Perspectives” section, which gives both sides of the debate weighted thought.  There is also a section on Critical Thinking & Analysis which could guide students in developing their personal opinion on the issue while understanding the other side.  Additional Resources are available and include writing a mini-research paper, research guide and a debate guide, among others.   Citation information is provided again.  Also on this page is a translate selector and an mp3 audio of the issue.  Twice on this page is the ability to add the information to my list, email, and print option.  A share “button” is provided that will allow the user to share this issue through other networking like blogger, delicious, facebook, etc.  Many, many, many potentially useful tools and information again.  And yes, I believe cheerleading is a sport as my daughter used her gymnastics tumbling and lifted and caught the stunting cheerleaders.   Many athletic skills were required of her.

I was delighted to go back to the curriculum pathfinders.  I have put together a couple of pathfinders and find this as an exciting find.  There are 6 major subject headings. I selected Science as I have a science teacher with whom I pass along web links I think she’ll be able to use.  She will find this very valuable.  Once I selected Science, I found the subject to be divided by biology, chemistry, earth science, human Anatomy & Physiology and Physics.  There is further divisions with science & society, history and tools relevant to science (periodic table, research guidance and scientific method).  I then selected space exploration and a page with the leading issue on this topic.  This page was similar to the cheerleading issue page I had looked at earlier with all the same useful functions.