It took me some time, but I finally got around to updating the Media Center Website after the district moved the pages to a new configuration. Most of my links were lost (about 3 month's worth of work), but I think most would agree that what is left and built back up is clear, concise and consistent with our mission as a teaching and learning resource.
I may go back and build in some more links for resources, but as it stands, this site will get you to all the academic databases that are offered by our district, county and state.
I will be adding a place for suggestions, suggested links and suggested books in the future. Oh, and a link to my blog!!
Today I went to St. Paul to attend the MAIB Roundtable Workshop on the Extended Essay for the International Baccalaureate Program that is being implemented at our school. We learned some tips that will help our students do well with this part of their International Baccalaureate program.
One of the things that struck me in the presentation was the emphasis on research. It mirrored much of the work that I have been doing with Mr. Heegard's classes. They have been visiting the lab and I have been sharing some resources with them that will make their work more manageable and less time-consuming.
Here are a couple of resources I have shown our students:
The Research Project Calcluator-- This link will bring you to the beginning page that the student see when they go in to start a project.
Research Project Calculator Support Materials -- are here for you and your students. When a project is started, the students have the option to see the Teacher Information. You should start the project with them and then the Calculator will send you emails reminding you of where your students are at with handy links to the materials and resources on the page.
It includes help sheets for every step of the research process and gives it to you in both a PDF and a Word Document. You are free to use them in your teaching. You could even save a copy and then email it to your students and have them use it electronically.
Easybib.com --
This will help you build your citations—either by putting the information into boxes or by copying and pasting the information into a textbox. You can create separate lists and you can keep your citations online and get back to them easily. You can export your list to Word and copy/paste your Work Cited list into a document.
We also went into using the ELM databases. They are high-powered databases that help students (and you!) find appropriate resources for research. Be careful, you may get hooked on the information!
I've joined the MILI Team at my school. This means that I will be exploring and using Web 2.0 tools with my colleagues. One of the activities is to blog about our progress. I wonder if I can use this blog as that tool-- or must it all be posted to my MILI page blog? This would give me a reason to keep moving with this blog and not have me duplicating my work. I guess it wouldn't hurt to ask!!
Posts
