1. For the fourth-grader who needs help with reading comprehension, he could be directed to the Elementary School section of the Learning Express Library. From there, he could go into the section on Reading Skills Improvement, and then to the Fourth Grade Reading Practice. I think it would be good for him to do any number of the reading exercises in this section and then take the quizzes to see how well he understood what he read. He should also be shown that after he scores a test, he can go back and see the answers, so he can see exactly where he might have made any mistakes and see the correct answers. It would also be useful to point out that when taking a quiz, rather than scrolling back up to the top for the text, he could open a "New Window" to display the reading section.
2. Where I would direct her would depend upon what skills it is she feels she needs to improve. She might want to look at the sections of Job Search and Workplace Skills, Jobs & Careers, and Skill Building for Adults. There are areas in these sections she could get help doing her resume, preparing for an interview, and improving skills such as math, reading, speaking, finance, etc. If she is looking for a job in one of the fields listed in the Jobs & Careers section, she may want to look at the ebooks listed there and/or take some of the practice exams in that field. The Job Search and Workplace Skills tab includes a section on Success on the Job. Here she will find some ebooks that cover topics such as team-building, professional relationships, etc., which will be important skills for her to develop to be an effective office manager.
3. If the high school student would like help with the actual writing of his report, he could be directed to the Writing and Grammar Skills Improvement and/or the Vocabulary and Spelling Skills Improvement sections under the High School section. Next he could be directed to the Nursing and Allied Health section under the Jobs & Careers tab. There he will find ebooks about these careers as well as test preparation areas and practice tests. He could also be shown that the College Preparation tab has practice tests covering several areas. This information might be good to add to his report to show where students can help prepare themselves for college directed towards such careers.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Monday, January 28, 2013
Lesson 1c
1. I'm not sure if I did this correctly, but here goes. I typed the work "house" in the search term on the Spanish edition. That resulted in eight hits of articles which appear to be mostly biographical. The only information it appears to give in the sidebar is the citation information (when I click on an individual article). When I went to what I think is the browse feature, I clicked on the "A-Z" link and then clicked on the "H" to try to get the the term "house." But that term is not in the list, so I'm not sure where I'm supposed to find it. Perhaps I was supposed to be searching for the term "casa"?? That brings up a totally different article that is apparently about different types of houses, as well as links in the sidebar to related articles on such topics as architecture, construction, etc.
2. The search box would probably work better if you knew a specific term you wanted to search. The browse feature would be good to use if you didn't want to search a specific term or if you didn't know the exact spelling of a person's name but knew the first few letters and could recognize it if you saw it.
2. The search box would probably work better if you knew a specific term you wanted to search. The browse feature would be good to use if you didn't want to search a specific term or if you didn't know the exact spelling of a person's name but knew the first few letters and could recognize it if you saw it.
Lesson 1b
1. In World Book Online Kids (Public Library Ed.), I looked at the Games & Activities. We have a lot of kids who come to play computer games at our library, and there are some educational but fun games in this section. If we could make parents and kids aware of these, perhaps they would be challenged to play them.
2. In the Online InfoFinder, I first looked at the "Interactive Earth" feature. I was glad to see that you can zoom in with the maps and switch to the satellite view. This feature doesn't have nearly as many fancy viewing features as GoogleEarth, but it would probably suffice for someone wanting basic knowledge about an area or a student doing a report.
3. In the Online Reference Center, I looked at the ebook of "Emma" by Jane Austen. It appears that the same features are here as are in the World Book Advanced E-Book Center. Based on what I found out concerning the Korean translation in that section, I suspect that the same problems would exist when using the translate feature in this Reference Center. Being able to hear the text read aloud would be useful for someone who had vision problems or who perhaps just wonders how a particular word is pronounced.
2. In the Online InfoFinder, I first looked at the "Interactive Earth" feature. I was glad to see that you can zoom in with the maps and switch to the satellite view. This feature doesn't have nearly as many fancy viewing features as GoogleEarth, but it would probably suffice for someone wanting basic knowledge about an area or a student doing a report.
3. In the Online Reference Center, I looked at the ebook of "Emma" by Jane Austen. It appears that the same features are here as are in the World Book Advanced E-Book Center. Based on what I found out concerning the Korean translation in that section, I suspect that the same problems would exist when using the translate feature in this Reference Center. Being able to hear the text read aloud would be useful for someone who had vision problems or who perhaps just wonders how a particular word is pronounced.
Lesson 1a
1. In World Book Kids, I looked at the "Science Projects." This section has some good experiment ideas. Some are quite simple and basic (seeing how the amount of sunlight differs between the equator and the polar regions), while others are a little more involved (testing how yeast works or growing crystals). These ideas could be useful for elementary teachers or home school parents to get their students interested in science and how things work.
2. In the Student edition, I looked at "Quizzes and Activities" and went into the "Trivia Quizzes" section. I tried a couple of the quizzes there--did well on some and not so well on others. These quizzes might be really useful for students to try after studying different units of history, science, etc. There is a lot there that I didn't know!
3. In the E-book Center of World Book Advanced, I looked up "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." At first, I thought the tool to be able to translate to another language would be really useful for a student whose first language is not English but who needs to read a book for say, a literature class, or for someone who is trying to learn another language. However, I can't verify the accuracy/readability of any of these languages because I don't know any other language well. So, I printed off "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" in both English and Korean and asked some Korean friends about the translation. The Korean friends I checked with agreed that the Korean translation of the story is "bad." One said it would be very confusing to a person whose native language is Korean and who is trying to learn English. The sentence structure is incorrect (they use a different word order than English) and some of the words are translated oddly. Apparently the translation is just a literal word translation which does not adjust for context, sentence structure, etc. I cannot verify the correctness of any of the other languages in the translate feature, but I would be suspect of their accuracy as well. On another note, being able to click into other articles via the Related Information would also be helpful, as is the "How to cite this article" note at the bottom of the page. All of this information would be useful to students doing papers, projects, etc.
4. Regarding the World Book Discover assignment, I work at a library and am not a teacher, so I don't have students to be able to say which features would suit them best. However, using the Dictionary, I tried looking up a word that I didn't know how to spell (onomatopoeia). Unfortunately, I wasn't able to guess correctly and it doesn't give you "Did you mean ....?" with the correct spelling. So, I went into Dictionary.com and was given some alternatives and was able to find the correct spelling. (I really wasn't too far off in my attempts.) Even more unfortunately, when I copied and pasted the correct spelling into the World Book dictionary, it said there were no matching entries. I also tried out the Atlas feature. It gives maps according to country, and on some it has additional features (population density, rainfall averages, etc.) for the continents. These would be useful for students doing reports or studying particular parts of the world.
2. In the Student edition, I looked at "Quizzes and Activities" and went into the "Trivia Quizzes" section. I tried a couple of the quizzes there--did well on some and not so well on others. These quizzes might be really useful for students to try after studying different units of history, science, etc. There is a lot there that I didn't know!
3. In the E-book Center of World Book Advanced, I looked up "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." At first, I thought the tool to be able to translate to another language would be really useful for a student whose first language is not English but who needs to read a book for say, a literature class, or for someone who is trying to learn another language. However, I can't verify the accuracy/readability of any of these languages because I don't know any other language well. So, I printed off "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" in both English and Korean and asked some Korean friends about the translation. The Korean friends I checked with agreed that the Korean translation of the story is "bad." One said it would be very confusing to a person whose native language is Korean and who is trying to learn English. The sentence structure is incorrect (they use a different word order than English) and some of the words are translated oddly. Apparently the translation is just a literal word translation which does not adjust for context, sentence structure, etc. I cannot verify the correctness of any of the other languages in the translate feature, but I would be suspect of their accuracy as well. On another note, being able to click into other articles via the Related Information would also be helpful, as is the "How to cite this article" note at the bottom of the page. All of this information would be useful to students doing papers, projects, etc.
4. Regarding the World Book Discover assignment, I work at a library and am not a teacher, so I don't have students to be able to say which features would suit them best. However, using the Dictionary, I tried looking up a word that I didn't know how to spell (onomatopoeia). Unfortunately, I wasn't able to guess correctly and it doesn't give you "Did you mean ....?" with the correct spelling. So, I went into Dictionary.com and was given some alternatives and was able to find the correct spelling. (I really wasn't too far off in my attempts.) Even more unfortunately, when I copied and pasted the correct spelling into the World Book dictionary, it said there were no matching entries. I also tried out the Atlas feature. It gives maps according to country, and on some it has additional features (population density, rainfall averages, etc.) for the continents. These would be useful for students doing reports or studying particular parts of the world.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Addendum
I would have to agree with another blogger who felt that the statement that this challenge would take about an hour per lesson was not enough time. I spent considerably more time than that some weeks, and yet I felt like I've only skimmed the resources. Thank you for the Challenge and the opportunity to better learn what is available!
Lesson 10
Probably the biggest "discovery" for me was SIRS. While I had previously used several of the other databases, I was not familiar with this one. It has a great deal of useful information and tools for all ages.
In the past I have had opportunities to show others where they can find information using Proquest, Infotrac, Ancestry, etc. Of course since we use WorldCat here for our interlibrary loan services, I've used that in the past and have shown others how to do so. I plan to continue to promote these services with those who come into the library as well as those with whom I speak in other venues when these resources would be helpful and appropriate.
In the past I have had opportunities to show others where they can find information using Proquest, Infotrac, Ancestry, etc. Of course since we use WorldCat here for our interlibrary loan services, I've used that in the past and have shown others how to do so. I plan to continue to promote these services with those who come into the library as well as those with whom I speak in other venues when these resources would be helpful and appropriate.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Lesson 9
I searched for myself in Ancestry and did find my name and address listed for both my current address and the address where I lived 20+ years ago. It appears this information came from voter registration records. I also found my marriage record and some other listings (probably again from voter records) when I searched under my maiden name.
I found my paternal grandparents listed in the 1910, 1920, and 1930 censuses. I found my maternal grandparents in the 1920 and 1930 censuses. I had searched for them a few years ago but had difficulty finding them in the 1920 census, even though they were married in 1918. At that time I was finally able to locate them by going through township pages. Even though they were married, Grandma's name was listed under her maiden name (they did live in the same home with her parents), and Grandpa's name was listed below the other siblings. Plus, the last name had been transcribed incorrectly. (I reported it to Ancestry at that time, and they have since added the corrected spelling to the record.) And, even though Grandpa's first name was Anton, the 1920 census listed him as Anthony. Grandpa immigrated to the U.S. in 1913, so I know he won't be in the 1910 census.
A search for South Dakota that is limited to photos and maps brings up more than three million results--a few too many to browse through at this time! I found it interesting that a picture of the 1909 Corn Palace in Mitchell shows the emblem of a swastika in the decorations! (I digressed to do a little research and learned that the emblem is an ancient Eastern religion symbol, and I'm sure that in 1909 it did not have the same connotations we associate with it today.)
In HeritageQuest books, I searched for my hometown of Highland, Wisconsin. I had 26 hits, but nothing that seemed of interest or pertained to my hometown. (Some hits were for other towns in Wisconsin with streets named Highland.) So, I tried a search for Aberdeen, South Dakota and looked at some of the pages of the book, "History of Dakota Territory" by George W. Kingsbury. I didn't feel like this resource would be very helpful for my personal genealogical research, but perhaps it would be for others.
In Sanborn Maps, I looked at maps for Aberdeen. Even though our house was built in 1911, I could not find it until the map for 1923. It looks like our house was on the edge of town back then . . . which is far from the case now! I also looked at the 1908 map and found what was then the Alexander Mitchell Library (a different location from where it is now). That building no longer exists.
I found my paternal grandparents listed in the 1910, 1920, and 1930 censuses. I found my maternal grandparents in the 1920 and 1930 censuses. I had searched for them a few years ago but had difficulty finding them in the 1920 census, even though they were married in 1918. At that time I was finally able to locate them by going through township pages. Even though they were married, Grandma's name was listed under her maiden name (they did live in the same home with her parents), and Grandpa's name was listed below the other siblings. Plus, the last name had been transcribed incorrectly. (I reported it to Ancestry at that time, and they have since added the corrected spelling to the record.) And, even though Grandpa's first name was Anton, the 1920 census listed him as Anthony. Grandpa immigrated to the U.S. in 1913, so I know he won't be in the 1910 census.
A search for South Dakota that is limited to photos and maps brings up more than three million results--a few too many to browse through at this time! I found it interesting that a picture of the 1909 Corn Palace in Mitchell shows the emblem of a swastika in the decorations! (I digressed to do a little research and learned that the emblem is an ancient Eastern religion symbol, and I'm sure that in 1909 it did not have the same connotations we associate with it today.)
In HeritageQuest books, I searched for my hometown of Highland, Wisconsin. I had 26 hits, but nothing that seemed of interest or pertained to my hometown. (Some hits were for other towns in Wisconsin with streets named Highland.) So, I tried a search for Aberdeen, South Dakota and looked at some of the pages of the book, "History of Dakota Territory" by George W. Kingsbury. I didn't feel like this resource would be very helpful for my personal genealogical research, but perhaps it would be for others.
In Sanborn Maps, I looked at maps for Aberdeen. Even though our house was built in 1911, I could not find it until the map for 1923. It looks like our house was on the edge of town back then . . . which is far from the case now! I also looked at the 1908 map and found what was then the Alexander Mitchell Library (a different location from where it is now). That building no longer exists.
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