I have learned quite a bit these last 10 weeks.

I am always looking for great sites for Genealogy.  The resources are fantastic.  My students do a beginner lesson on genealogy that go along with one of their reading books. This will help them get started on their own.  Some of my students who have  moved on to H.S. and college, return to say thank you for getting them started in their family history.  They have dove deeper into their history and found fantastic and surprising things.  The Genealogy Resources – Ancestry Library will give both my former and present students another avenue. To make it even better, IT’S FREE yeaaaa.

Another area I didn’t realize was available, the Business Resources.  I have already shared this site with my nephew for his tatoo shop.  He is able to keep up with the trends  and new equipment in his field.  Though I would not use this with my students (to young) I feel it is a very valuable resource.

I have passed the LearningExpress link on to our H.S. teachers  along with my own staff.  They are always looking to fine tune their skills.

Overall, I am very glad to have taken this class.  I’ve learned a lot and knowledge is key.  I want to pursue some of the new areas you have given information on.   Just finding the time may be tricky – LIFE…

Thank You

I started out using the Marvel home page.  I chose “Middle School Plus”.  I have to admit I have used this with my students in the past but it is great to learn new info.  I tried the alphabetical list but found there were too many to scroll through, so I went back and typed in “Newsweek” and it brought me the periodical as a 1st choice.  I typed in zinc in foods and was given 14 results.  I then tried putting a check in the “full text” box and received 11 results.  When I tried the “cover story” box there were 0 results.

I like how you could choose the data bases to search in, that way my Jr. High students are not wasting time trying to figure out information way above their level.  I also like the “cite” on the right side of the screen.  This would help my students cite their info.  Jr. High students have a hard time finding all the info needed to cite (unless it is a book) 🙂  I find at times when they have a hard time finding cite info, they either leave it blank or put NA in the place.

I also like the fact you can make your own notes, but of course, you need to be signed in to save the notes or place the article in your folder.  At times my students need to find quick one time information, and this would be quick and helpful to use and not sign in (it amazes me how long it takes for a student to long into something but can text like crazy).  I find the “tools” to be very useful and easy on-screen oriented.

Getting back to the results list is great, my students LOVE the back arrow.  Teaching them there are other ways to get back to where they were seems challenging at times.

Now on to the eBooks.  eBooks are becoming the way to read. I myself still love the feel of a book in my hands along with the smell of the pages.  Guess that makes me old-fashion.  My students tell me books are a thing of the past and I need e-readers. I would love to have e-readers, but with budget cuts I don’t see that happening in the near future.  So a e-book on computers are my next best thing.  Though students don’t care for reading a book on computer, unless it is read to them 🙂

I searched for “Christmas” since it is that time of year :-). I received 120 hits.  I proceeded to limit my results to “download available” and my results changed to 117.  NICE!!!  Here again I could limit my search by data base, and did not have to log in to get the results.  Of course I would need to log in to download one.  I changed my search to Constitution Day and received 15 results with full text and downloadable.  I have to say that I question some of the results and how they connect.  I started an “Advanced Search” typed in Nebraska and received 43 results.  Again here I question some of the results and the connections to Nebraska.

I think at a Jr. High and Elementary level, this may be confusing and would need step-by-step directions.

I must say this has been very eye-opening and I have learned quite a bit. My plan is to continue with my personal investigating of the Marvel Databases.  I also plan on continuing to get my students more  involved/interested and diving deeper into the databases. I love it when I learn something new and am able to pass the knowledge on to my students and their parents and they in turn pass it on to someone else.

With the holidays upon us and scheduling at a max, my confession is am glad this is the last week (except for the test).   I’ve learned a lot, and enjoyed most of it, but am ready to move on.

Once I set up my account, I tried the New York Real Estate Broker Practice Exam 1.  I answered 5 questions and did NOT do well at all.  I only had 1 out of the 5 correct.  Once I received my “score” I like how it suggested I retake some practices lessons along with some personal recommendations located at the bottom of the screen.  Once you’ve added to “My center” you have a choice of when to take them.  I also like in the “View answers” it gives you all the questions, how you answered and the correct answer.  I could also jump to different questions, continue the test later, score the test, or get the instructions. I hate tests and this didn’t seem to horrible to take, pretty on-screen oriented.

I clicked on the tab for job search and workplace skills. there it promted me to choose test, courses and e-books. Pretty straight foward so far.  I tried Creating Great Cover Letters.  I like the fact in the course it saves for you and you are allowed to pick back up where you left off.  Well only on page 3 and already learned something.  I never realized you should have your cover letter and resume printed on the same paper, the font and formats I already knew.  I like how it allowes you to print certin pages of the course.  On the right side of the page I was able to skip to different areas of the course.  I think I will continue this course on my own time, sounds intresting.

I typed in “Library” in the search box and it gave me 4 items for e-books.  I chose Research & Writing Skills
Success in 20 Minutes a Day .  I started reading it and decided to save the book and finish it at home in my spare time. 🙂

Since I work with Pre-K to 8 students I decided to do some looking in the 4th grade Reading Pratcice.  I like how they could finish at a later time, can get insturctions, get their score and most of all it is not timed.  I also played around with some of the other tabs.  Wow, I truly like the “Popular Software Tutorials”

Over all, I think this is the most exciting lesson.  I can’t wait to dive deeper into this.

The Ancestry Library sounds Fantastic, my problem, we do not have a public library for 30 miles (round trip).  I am into genealogy, I started quite a while ago but stopped.  I wish I could access this resource to continue in my family hunt.  I did do the tutorials and they were very informative.  Looks like Ancestry Library would be very easy to use.  Didn’t seem to screen busy” with a lot of info.  I will be trying out the 2-week trial after the holidays.  I want my students to have as much time as possible using the trial.

I looked up “thyroid” and was amazed at the number of results 855 to be exact.  I also liked how it showed if it was a report or journal, magazine, periodical before you dive deeper into the article.

I chose Potassium Iodide.  I like how you were able to have it read to you. Though the language was easy enough for me to understand and read, my jr. high students this feature would help tremendous.  I also like the right hand side bar with all the choices easily found. The cite the article was great with all kinds of citing options.

I tried the “find similar results using smarttext searching” and found the exact article.  This surprised me because I usually fill my file with articles because I don’t want to lose them or spend extra time trying to find them over again.  Fantastic feature.

I went to “Medline” in Marvel and it didn’t take me to the same page as the link Medline Plus in the email.

The right column gave  info for teens to elderly.  The left column gave direct links to different medical areas such as diabetes, autism, along with the most popular searches.  It also gave a dictionary and a featured site which I would assume changes each week.

I tried searching for Prilosec. It gave me everything from heartburn to heart transplant. WOW what a range.

The search result for Health topics were different between the 2 Health Source and MedlinePlus.  Medline Plus seemed to give a  manageable range for me to find the info I would want.

I tried the “Battling Back Pain” video.  I like how the video was short and to the point.  It video had great information and also showed the text on the screen.  A Patron would get some information with some ideas to research farther.   I clicked into “About your Health” general tab, I chose Back pain and it directed me to a very short sumary along with being able to f

Though this week assignment was something I would rarely use with my students, I think it is a fantastic rescourse for people using a public library.  I also feel a bit more confortable using it for personal use.

I choose the company my nephew owns called “Evil Ink”.  Evil Ink Tatoo shop located in Skowhegan.  As I sat here trying to figure out what info would help him or he would be interested in were: Getting the business info out to potential customers (aka advertizing).  Maybe supplying a little history of tattoos along with his background.  I also thought about how he may be able to have  multi suppliers bidding to supply  his inventory.  But the one that keeps sticking in my mind is for him to showcase his art work.

I like how each window opens in its own, but I think that is how I have my machine set up 🙂

I tried the “One Search” and to my surprise it came up with 1,183,567 results.  That was WAY too many for me to thumb through.  I went to the Business and Company Resource Center and tried the company finder.  I was surprised to only get 8 results and none being the business I was looking for.  At this point I am beginning to become frustrated due to the fact this is all new and I have no clue what I’m doing.  Once I gathered myself :-).  I tried some of the tutorials on the Transition Tools on performing a company search.  The tutorial was helpful in the aspect of large businesses but not a small one.  This area of Marvel so far has been disappointing and confusing.  It seems to be geared toward large businesses.  I tried searching for the company name and all I received for results were for ink not having anything to do with the company I was searching for.  Another problem I had been finding Business and Company Resource Center, I found the name changed to “Business Insights Essentials”.

I am very confused and going to move on to a different exercise.

I’ve moved on to “Business Source Complete”

When I did the FM Radio search, the results were Note: Your initial search query did not yield any results. However, using SmartText Searching, results were found based on your keywords.  Howerver, the search gave me everything from Journals to Reviews.  When attempting the visual search, my results were less than helpful, as there were none.

Moving on to EconLit

To start off my search the drop down menu gave me small business loans, banking, investors. not bad for just beginning to type.  I like information found under the subject tab.  Under the publication tab it gave even more information. But I need to narrow my search since I don’t need any info from Nigeria.

The tax policy search only resulted in 5 results and those all being articles or books.  When I did the EPA and sm. business there were 0 results.  when I did sm business OR EPA the results were almost 800.  The OR search yielded tons of sources, publications and subjects.

Now on to Regional Business News:  I chose McDonald’s, the results were over 8000.  I tried using the “hint” link and that turned out to be of little use in this case.  Though I do have my Jr. High students use that link quite a bit.

I chose Gifford Ice Cream, and one result was surprising to me.  MAINERS BRING STARS AND STRIPES ICE CREAM TO PENTAGON .  I don’t remember reading or hearing anything about this, but then again it was back in 2002. There was not much else to read.  I do like all the other “tools” on the right side of the screen.

Ok I tried the Value Line Research Center.  I feel this would be an excellent recourse if you knew what you were looking for and at.  I think once I’ve spent hours and hours on this site, it would become useful on a personal level but not with my jr high students.

Now on to the Wall Street Journal.  I was surprised at how many articles came up when I typed in “small business AND health care”.  One thing I noticed was the articles are not in chronologic order or alphabet order.  I do like the alerts available along with the ability to create a RSS feed and saving the search.

Though this weeks assignment was enlightening, I feel as an Elementary/Jr. High Librarian my students would get very little out of these resources. But, on the other hand I think I can learn quite a bit using the Value Line Research Center, which I plan to myself with.

1.  When I checked out the “series” tab I loved the fact it gave me all of the books in the series plus it gave  me the extras such as: subject headings, the tone of the story, pace and story line along with much more. On the right it gave me other Authors who  write  the same Genre.  Again I could print the results, put them in my folder, email them. That would come in real handy when looking for multi genres.  I could keep track of all of them without having to redo the search.  On the right side it gave a list of things already in my folder.  I could limit my search or search for more in the same genre, subjects, pace, location, even the writing style.  That writing style piece would be very handy when a patron comes in and says they want a book written like a certain author.  I also like the choice of “sort by” so if you didn’t want all the info you could just get titles.

While viewing the “grid” it gave me just the title and author, but still allowed to save to a folder.  There also was a “Popularity”  piece.  When I viewed the “Title Only”, it gave me the publication date, could put it in my folder, Title, author and series read-alikes links along with being able to check MaineCat link.  Very useful so wouldn’t have to redo your search in MaineCat it takes you right there and allows to request on the spot.  The Detailed even shows the lexile level which would be great with the students always asking what the lexile level is of the book they either have read or want to read.   I also like the fact you can print any of the views.

 

2.  If a student knows the author they like and want to see if there is anything else similar, they could hover over the magnifying glass it gives them a little info for another author they might like to read.  Students could also print out the list or save them to their folders for a later date.  It would lead them to other author with similar writing or story plots.  Sometime students don’t like to change authors when they find one they like.  This would help them broaden their horizons and maybe find a new favorite author without having to change plot, or writing styles.

3.  I have dabbled in Novelist k-8 a bit more than Novelist Plus because I use it once in a while with my students.   I like to use Novelist for book reviews.   I see I could use this for the staff along with my personal searches.   I do have to remember to switch the search criteria with each search so I don’t come up with 0 results.  That seems to be tricky for myself to remember not to mention my jr. high students.  I am excited, I found 2 bks. in my favorite series that I haven’t read yet, so in the folder they are to enjoy later whooo hooo.  I set up an alert for a specific author, but was disappointed in the fact that there was only 1 result for him.  I know he has written many more books.

I just realized that once into my folder, I can add folders… whoo hoo… now I can separate work and school without having 2 accounts.  That makes my life so much easier.  Now that I can make all these folders, I’ll be making folders within folders to help me keep things organized.  Plus, it will be easier to delete from the lists. yeaaaaaaaaaa.

I think I will have to work over and over again with my students to get them used to the site.  Jr. High students think when the click the “go” button, the info should jump off the page and bite them in the nose.

Can’t wait to play around some more with this… just wish I had more time, 24 hrs.  in a day just isn’t  enough.

After playing with novelist some more, I found you could not copy and paste from other sites.  I was looking for a book someone wanted me to review for the library.  They sent it from another site and I tried to copy and paste the title and author into novellist to no avail, I had to retype everything. So far that is the only thing I dislike about novelist plus.

I have used Marvel and am realizing I haven’t even scratched the surface…

I am always looking for projects to go along with my story times. I used the one on the right for Halloween.  I didn’t see any magazines we subscribe to.   Since I have such a limited budget this gives me access to quite a few magazines.

When I started searching around the articles I noticed “source, document type and subjects” all listed.  Not to mention the cite tab.  I love the fact you can search without signing in then if you find something you can sign in from that screen and not have to go back to the home screen.  I was happy to see getting back to the results list was very easy or you could continue onto the next or previous article. The PDF’s are great.  I love the color directions and returning to the results page was very easy.  The printing and adding to your folder is very simple.   I downloaded and put in my folder the “Bat mobile” and the “Make a Mummy”.  I also searched the “Needles and Crafts” icon and added a new hat and mitten pattern…  whoooo hoooo

The Help area references  the area you are looking at example: Knitting will be referenced to knitting, Halloween crafts is referenced to Halloween crafts.  I found that very helpful, I didn’t have to search around to find the help area I needed.

When I went into the “help” button, I see that the Hobbies and Crafts is geared for public libraries but I think I could still use it in our school setting with my staff.  I also learned about “Proximity Searches” using the letters N or W and a number.  As a school librarian I’m embarrassed to say I don’t ever remember learning about this.  It is something I am going to have to do a bit more research on, (in my spare time :-)).

I did enjoy this weeks assignment but more for personal use than with teachers and students.

I like all the info when  results are given.  But I also see that with the results being so “busy” I would have to do a step-by-step with my students.  It would be very distracting to them, as the old saying goes “Too much of a good thing”.

I love the fact you can save your search, but there again unless students set up their own account at home this would be a bit tricky.  I could help students set up an account at school, but I would rather they set one at home with parents, then came to school and used that account to keep the confusion down. Plus it would help when doing research both at home and school.

I have never used the RSS feed, but have seen them and think it is real neat they are available here. That is another area where I need to strengthen my ability.

When looking at the “short preview” it didn’t seem to give much info, at least the ones I looked at.

Being able to create new folders in “My Research” would be very useful for students to be a bit more organized.

I think I am having tech problems…. I was unable to use the Obituary section to satisfaction. I ended up with 0 results no matter how I searched.

I am having trouble posting to other people.  It seems I never have enough time to comment and this doesn’t save it for you so you can go back later and finish, and if I do finish the post, I keep getting an Oops error… OH the “wonder-less headaches” of technology.

Using the Maine Newstand with students is fun but trying. Some will go ahead and just explore (love them), others need a step-by-step handholding experience.  Those that explore on their own, get excited about how easy it is to use and the information they find. Students love to share their excitement when they find something that interests them rather it has to do with what they are looking for is another story. But it is fun to see students get excited with learning. Some of my students wanted to know “Why is it under “M” and not “N” for newspapers.

The Maine Memory Network is a fantastic historical resource, though limited in some areas.

Still not sure on these blogs… Never used one before and until I get used to it hard telling what will show up and what will not..

Marvel I know is a wonderful rescourse,  but finding the time to use it is another thing… I try and do the tutorial with my jr. high students but they are in such a hurry to “hurry up and wait”, People now want instant.   But maybe now I will get more confortable with using it and pass that on to my students both elementary and jr. high.

Good thing this is on our own time otherwise I would be up a creek without a paddle… 🙂