Pounce into Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Month with Our Newest eBook

| By Jason Everett | April is Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Month. Each year during this month, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) asks its supporters to raise awareness about the many issues facing animals today. Animals throughout the world are victims of abuse, neglect, and abandonment. Although it … Read more

American Reference Books Annual Highly Recommends Gale Researcher

Gale Researcher provides the scholarly content and technology-fueled tools students need to improve their ability to find, evaluate, and apply a range of sources in their research and coursework. By aligning scholarly materials to the scope and sequence of introductory college courses, Gale Researcher creates a simple but sophisticated research path for students looking to … Read more

Big Leap for School Libraries

| Originally posted on District Administration by Abby Spegman | Students want to spend time in the active, group-learning learning spaces schools are building Steven Yates has a message for would-be school librarians. “If you’re coming to this because you like to read and you want to manage a collection of books, then you showed up about … Read more

Libraries That Support Local Workers

| Originally posted on Shareable | As the needs of communities change, libraries around the world are innovating to meet those changing needs. For a growing number of libraries, that means supporting the workforce by providing coworking spaces, internet access, business incubators, and networking opportunities. Coworking spaces and business incubators in libraries serve freelancers, students, entrepreneurs, … Read more

Not Studying for an Exam is a Crime…

| By Traci Cothran |

Two University of Kentucky students were arrested last week and charged with third-degree burglary for allegedly breaking into a professor’s office in the dead of night to steal an exam. The pair told police they entered the office via ceiling air ducts, and their teacher caught them upon returning to the office from a food break around 2 am.

While this does conjure up some cool images from Mission: Impossible, let’s not forget that these students now not only face a failing test grade, but college disciplinary action as well as legal proceedings . . . not to mention having to explain their actions to their parents.  And I have to wonder, dear reader, wouldn’t it have been just as easy (and less perilous) to study for the final?

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The Job-Market Moment of Digital Humanities

By Leonard Cassuto Digital humanities have become integrated into the academic job market. In fact, digital humanities are one of the few growth areas in the academic job market today say’s Leonard Cassuto of “The Chronicle of Higher Education. That raised the question: Will expertise in digital humanities get graduate students the academic jobs that … Read more

What My Seventh Grader Taught Me About Google Classroom

Posted on June 15, 2016

By Traci Cothran

“Kids these days don’t know how good they have it.”  It’s an old adage, but I swear these days it really is true.  Long gone are the days of Wite-Out, word processors, having to visit the library to see if a book for class is available, and walking five miles through snow (barefoot!) to get to school.

The Google Classroom integration with Gale products only provides more fodder for this truism – as it makes life much more manageable for students.  Middle-grade students on up use Google Classroom to seamlessly to connect from home – or any other location via cellphone or tablet – to view classroom assignments, post their homework documents (in Word, Prezi or other software), and much more.  Kids can also access e-learning texts this way, along with reference databases from their library’s collection, and our Gale databases can easily be highlighted, cut and pasted, and cited, then uploaded to the student’s Google Drive account.  Easy-peasy!  Sure, my daughter still has print text books, but they are no longer the primary guide to classroom activities – teachers can (and do) easily use multiple sources for lessons.  It’s a Brave New World out there in education.

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How to Make Complex Concepts Clear with Technology

Original Posting October 16, 2015

By Katrina Do

The advancement of new education technology is transforming classrooms across the globe. From hand-held tablets to 3D models, teachers are implementing new tools to optimize learning experiences.

Students who struggle with understanding complex concepts — whether it’s a math problem or understanding how molecules react — can benefit from innovative learning tools. Various education technologies work to engage students, helping them understand complicated ideas through visualization and hands-on experiences.

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Discovering History Through Digital Newspaper Collections

Posted on March 2, 2016

By Seth Cayley

Can cocaine really cure sea-sickness? Something tells me that very little peer-reviewed research has been done on the subject in recent years. But that didn’t stop the Victorians. From around 1870-1915 a large number of narcotics, including heroin, were widely and legally available, and often packaged as medicines. Historians have dubbed this period before the first international drug control treaties as “The Great Binge”.

I first came across The Great Binge when browsing through bound volumes of the Illustrated London News for the first time at university. While I was supposed to be looking for news items about pre-First World War Europe, my eyes kept on being drawn to the adverts. Leafing through these, I learnt that: smoking Joy’s cigarettes could help with bronchitis; a certain brand of men’s underwear does not shrink; and that an electric hairbrush could cure my “nervous headache” (although I was pretty certain my headache that day had other causes common to students).

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What’s your learning style?

Posted on February 4, 2016

Everyone has unique qualities, from hair and eye color to personal interests to ways of problem solving. I approach making cookies by searching for a perfect recipe, laying out all the ingredients before starting, and following the instructions step by step. Another baker might use the first recipe found online, locate each ingredient when needed, and regard a recipe merely as a guide. Still another baker might look up a segment from the Food Network online and follow along, while someone else may prefer to work in the kitchen with a more experienced baker who provides support through the process.

The method for making cookies doesn’t really matter, as long the result is yummy. Students learning in the classroom are no different. There are three generally recognized styles of learning. Visual learners process by reading and watching, while auditory learners prefer listening and reciting. Tactile, also known as kinesthetic, learners gain knowledge by doing or touching. Many learners thrive with one learning style, while some prefer using a combination of two or three styles. CLiC (Classroom in Context) can help teachers better address the learning styles of their students and ensure their success.

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