Tuesday, March 24, 2009

IT Summit - Databases for Educators and Students

What are the 21st Century Skills Students Need?
- at center, 'core subjects'; integrated within those are the '21st Century Themes' (what our curriculum calls cross-curricular competencies (thinkning, identiy, literacies, social responsibility)
- on the outside of the circle are life/career skills, learning/innovation skills, technology/media/information skills
- focus of this session is the technology/media/information skills

Our Challenge: Targeting Reliable Information!! (not just 'googling')

Framework:

Newspapers and magazine databases
Encyclopedias and e-books
Experts
Directories (subject directories)
Search engines

Multitype Database Licensing Program
- allows schools to have a number of newspapers/special libraries/journals

Various Databases to try:
KidsInfoBits (Gale Databases)
- good for differentiated learning (different reading levels)
- some magazines are even spoken aloud for the students, or download in PDF

Discovery Collection
- only contains reference books
- multimedia link in the collection contains audio files, podcasts, radio broadcasts, etc

CPI.Q
- Canadian content the focus
- click the "limit results to documents with full text" so that brief abstracts don't show up
- the 'Related Subjects' on the left side may help students

Gale Virtual Reference Library
- the suite of e-books, organized by subject area
- good site! (make sure to use the boolean operators AND, OR)

ProQuest
- contains all the Canadian newspapers and daily/weekly newspapers. Current, local information. Is available with a 2-day turnaround.
- more for grades 7+
- good for teachers: CBCA Education database
- again, make sure to look at 'full text documents only'

Britannica Online
- organizes the articles by elementary / middle / high school levels (and teacher resources, too)
- current health informaiton at "Health and Wellness Resource Center"

These databases are available from home... they are available through the public library (as long as you have a library card)

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