Posted on November 4, 2015
By Scott Steward
Welcome back. Last time, I gave you the first tip for organizing your electronic resources: using context. Today, I’d like to help you think like a user.
It doesn’t really matter if your user is a patron, student, teacher, or facility. At the end of the day, they all need to be able to find what they’re looking for, and if they can’t, they’ll go somewhere else. So, let’s make it easier for them.
Posted on November 1, 2015
By Diane M. Sweetwood
Many research studies have shown the positive effects of quality early childhood education on future academic development, educational attainment, and earnings later in life. Yet, 59% of preschool-aged children across the nation—approximately 2.5 million—are not enrolled in publicly funded preschool programs through state preschool, Head Start, and special education preschool services.
Although as many as 30% of three- and four-year olds are fortunate to attend private preschools and child care centers, hundreds of thousands of children have no access to the programs that can help them build literacy skills and prepare them for kindergarten and beyond. The U.S. Department of Education’s 2015 report, “A Matter of Equity: Preschool in America,” notes that “while both states and the federal government invest in early learning, these efforts have fallen short of what is needed to ensure that all children can access a high-quality early education that will prepare them for success.”
Read moreDigital Solutions Promote Pre-K Literacy Development and School Readiness
Posted on October 30, 2015
With more than 45 million Google Apps for Education users worldwide and an average of over 40,000 Google search engine queries per second [1], Google is indisputably the place where people get their answers.
As the library seeks to continue to be a valued educational partner in communities, schools, and institutions, bringing trustworthy digital content into the natural path of the student or patron has never been more important. To make it easier for people to find and use this relevant, authoritative information, Gale, a part of Cengage Learning, has partnered with Google for Education in two ways: providing intuitive integration of popular workflow tools through Google Apps for Education and indexing content in Google Scholar.
The ability for students to seamlessly login using Google Account credentials is now available through:
Posted on October 29, 2015
Gale’s Research In Context has added Google integration to the database providing more flexibility and ease of access to school resources for students and teachers. The changes you’ll see include:
Seamless User Login – Users can login using their Google Account credentials.
Integrated Google Tools – Once logged in, users can easily share and download articles – including their highlights and notes – using Google Apps for Education tools like Drive and Docs.
Read moreGoogle Integration Added to Gale Research In Context
Posted on October 15, 2015
New content has been added and existing content updated in a number of Gale’s In Context products.
Global Issues In Context
Read moreContent Updates for Gale’s In Context (week ending 10/16/2015)
By Traci J. Cothran
“Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need roads!” – Doc Brown
It’s hard to believe the first Back to the Future movie – starring Michael J. Fox – was released thirty years ago – 30 YEARS AGO! It may also surprise you to note that the “future” date visited via the time-traveling DeLorean in the movie is October 21, 2015 … which puts us officially in The Future.
Our editors on Biography in Context uncovered this fast fact recently, and currently feature Michael J. Fox (a.k.a. Marty McFly or Calvin) on the home page. We recently launched a new hotspotter feature in Biography in Context allowing users to hover on the pulsing circles on the picture to explore more facts about the subject (in this case, Parkinson’s Disease).
Posted on October 14, 2015
By Jan Snyder
“Because no matter who you are, no matter where you live, our parks, our monuments, our lands, our waters – these places are your birthright as Americans.”
– President Barack Obama
This year begins a new exciting adventure for 4th grade students across the nation, along with their families. Through the Every Kid in a Park initiative, each student/family is eligible for a free parks pass that will allow them to enter, without cost, any national park, monument, reserve, lands or waters until August 31, 2016. (It does not cover additional fees such as camping, boats, or tours.) No matter where you live in the U.S. you are less than two hours from any of the 2,000 included sites!
Learn how the program works, get a pass, plan a trip, find teacher activities to support the initiative, and get tips for parents or guardians. Many school districts are creating wonderful teacher resources to support the initiative as well. Our neighboring school district, Portland Public Schools, has published a supporting website with teaching materials to support the Every Kid in a Park program.
Oregon City school libraries’ staff plans to be involved with this project all year. We will be printing individual passes for all 4th grade students in our district (each has a unique code.). As our elementary students visit the library weekly, one library class a month will be used at the 4th grade level to focus on a different national park. We have a variety of resources at our fingertips to help with this process:
Read moreNational Parks “Every Kid in a Park” Initiative Underway
“Teaching middle school is an adventure not a job,” says author and educator, Angela K. Bennett. There’s no doubt grades 6 to 8 are among the most important for young teens and pre-teens to develop learning skills to launch them into high school and beyond. And until now, resources to support an integrated learning adventure have been few and far between, making teaching and supporting learning for this curious group a challenge. But the tide is turning with a new highly-visual resource featuring authoritative content that’s been designed specifically for middle school learners.
Read moreResearch In Context Meets the Needs of Middle Grade Students
Posted on October 8, 2015
New content has been added and existing content updated in a number of Gale’s In Context products.
Biography In Context
New homepage spotlights have been posted that include the “hotspot” feature. This feature allows users to hover over portions of an image on the home page enabling a pop-up window to appear with fast facts about the topic or links to additional content.
Spotlights for October are:
Read moreContent Updates for Gale’s In Context (week ending 10/9/2015)
Posted on October 8, 2015 New “infobits” have been added to the homepage for October. Categories and subjects covered include: People: Halloween Technology: iPod revealed in 2001 Social Studies: Columbus Day and Thanksgiving Day in Canada Plants: Rose as National Flower Science: First Motion Picture Arts: Landscape Painting Animals: Turkeys Air Jordan 1 Retro … Read more