World Book Lesson 1A

Advanced Challenge:
#1 I have introduced and given students hands-on time with all 5 of the special features listed. I have had students work with assignments where they have had to use these special features to locate answers. They have also used them when looking for information for projects. The "World of Animals" feature is great for both young and old students. I had older students browse through the animals to get ideas for what animal they would like to work with, this created much more variety of selection than just telling them to pick an animal. I have also used the "World of Animals" iPad app with K and 1st and it is amazing how quickly they were able to learn and use this software. Both the "World of Animals" and "Compare Places" features have been useful when working on compare and contrast concepts.

#2 I liked the section called "Research skills for students" looking at the information listed here it seems to go pretty well with the "Big6" information literacy program that we are using in the Rapid City Schools. This could be another tool that we use to help show the different steps of the research process. It would also be a good place to compare and contrast the steps from the Big6 to what World Book has written, the students will see that they are both similar. This would help to reinforce the steps that we are teaching from the Big6 process and show students that these steps are consistant with many different programs.

#3 This is a good e-book site if you want to demo how e-books work but don't have any in your collection. It looks like much of the material is beyond elementary school level so I'm not sure how much I would use this with the kids I teach. I think that the read text aloud feature is nice, especially when you can just highlight and hear one word. I also used World Book's translate feature last year when I had an ESL student transfer here from Brazil. I also like pointing out the "related information" links to my students. I tell them that when ever they find something they like that these links can lead them to other similar material.

#4 I really like the explainations for the dictionary skills found in the "Dictionary" Section. I have a power point that I use that has similar information. This would be a good place to send students to work independently with the various dictionary skills. They would have acccess to the list of skills and their meanings as well as access to the electronic dictionary itself. I also liked the "visual dictionary" and I think that it would be good to use with younger (k-2) students to help them learn to read and to build vocabulary.

Common Core Connections:
1A: Last week my 4th and 5th grade students worked on CCSS 4.RIT.7 and 5.RIT.7 and also SDLS 2.12.8 by using the "World Book Kids" Edition to look up information and answer questions in an on-line quiz on Edmodo. It worked very well, I linked the World Book site on the quiz so students could have the question open in one tab and then look up the information in World Book with the other tab. In this quiz the students needed to work with the different special features and basic search strategies to locate answers to multiple choice questions. We started by discussing both paper and electronic encyclopedias, I then demonstrated the various features of the World book and then had students do some hands-on practice by answering the quiz questions. I believe that the majority of both the 4th and 5th graders were successful in using the World Book to complete the quiz.

SIRS Issues Researcher

I selected cellular telephones, with a total of 392 articles available there was a wide variety of information available. The overview presented a fair and balanced view of the topic. I like the way that opinionated articles were listed in a pro/con fashion. Most of the information returned was from well know newspapers and magazines. I like the way the critical thinking and analysis sections offers ideas for students to use.

I like the structure of the Curriculum Pathfinder, it follows a logical progression of information down through the various topics. This would be a good visual for people who have problems seeing the relationships among topics. It would also be a program to use when discussing broadening or narrowing a topic. When a topic is selected a good variety and amount of results are returned. Again the resources appear to come from well known sources.

Sirs Discoverer

1. I looked up articles on several different animals and I like the way the search results are presented. I like the amount of information given on the list screen including: The names of the publications, the reading levels, if the article includes pictures or other media. Another feature that I liked was the ability to send an article to your e-mail. When I opened the articles I found them very similar to reading from the magazine. I think that this would be an excellent site to help teach the use of periodicals.
2. The "country facts" are similar to the type of information one would find in an atlas. General facts like size, area, population, etc... are displayed as well as a very nice historical timeline for that area. I also liked the government and economy information, I think this would be a good site to check before traveling to a new country. I assume that SIRS does regular information updates so that this would be a more current source than the encyclopedia. I like the maps of the world section but personally I think that everyone working with on-line maps is trying to play catch-up with Google Earth. I think that for an application where a simple map is needed these do a good job. As far as interactive maps go though, Google has this won easily.
I liked the training and activity information available in the educator's resources section. It is a nice mix of educational information, educator training, and student lesson plans and activities. I think that it is a nice application of skills needed to use this database.

Learning Express

I thought that the practice tests were very nice, it is a user friendly program that looks similar to the formats used when actually taking the tests. It is nice to have the immediate feedback on how you have done and it is nice to be able to see what was done both correct and incorrect. There seems to be a wide variety of tests available and we seem to have access to most of the major standard tests currently being used. This looks like a format that is far more reputable than many of the "practice tests" offered for sale.
The "course" I explored was "Social Networking for Career Success", this was not what I expected, this seems to be more of an e-book than an actual course. I only saw content on this subject to read, no activities, no related works. While it appeared to be current and revelent information it is lacking in hands-on material, it would be nice if this were a combination of the ebook and some of the on-line testing and activities I have seen in the practice test area.
I like the availablability of this on-line content, much of this is information and activities that one would have to pay for if not for this service. I like the way the SD library is using e-books and other types of e-resources, it allows people to work and get information anytime, anyplace.

World Book Discover

The World Book Discover has several nice features to help users who may struggle with reading English. One nice feature is the "translate text into" option, this allows the user to change the language of the text from English into the language of the user's choice. I was impressed with the variety of languages offered. Another nice feature is the read text aloud toolbar, this feature allows the user to have the text from an article read to them in English. Some people understand English better verbally than if they read. The final feature I want to mention is the double-click dictionary. If at any time a user does not know a particular word they can double-click their mouse on that word and a dictionary will open that provides definition and pronunciation information about that word. All of these features combine to provide much assistance for those who struggle to read English.

World Book Advanced

The World Book Advanced does a nice job of providing a varitey of information types. A typical search will show results for encyclopedia articles, presidential papers, maps, tables, pictures, special reports, and websites. What people will use will depend on their current needs, are they planning a trip, writing a paper, presenting information themselves? For my students I imagine that gathering information for research and reports would be the top use. For that need I would assume that the connections to the encyclopedia articles would be very valuable. Also elementary students are going to be interested in seeing the pictures and videos.

world book kids vs world book student

The obvious difference between these two sites is content. The World Book Student has more information that is written at a higher reading level. World Book Kids content is shorter with a simpler vocabulary. Both however offer the option of text read aloud which would allow for younger users to get more information by going to the student site and hearing rather than reading the article. They also both offer multimedia content in the form of both pictures and videos. I think that the compare feature is also informative.