LI Challenge Lesson 1a2

What luck that I should be able to search further on my good friend the naked mole rat. Upon typing this in the search bar, I was linked to a page about mole-rats,  which is defined as any variety of small rodents adapted to underground life. Their was however a different picture of my pal-

World Book illustration by John F. Eggert

 which seemed even less flattering than the one I had grown to think of "so ugly, it's cute." At the bottom of the page there was a link to the more specific mole-rat in question. The original profile picture emerged and I read some of the same material I had in World Kids but there was much more information added and included some scientific terms like eusociality, which means their colony resembles that of ants and bees, with one queen female.

So while I don't think I will be bringing one home anytime soon to cuddle with and replace my dogs, I do have a new appreciation for my hairless friend even if he does not resemble the Disney Disillusion.

LI Challenge Lesson 1a1

Before I started my assignment I spent some time getting to know the features in World Book Kids. I played a few games, looked at some of the activities and science experiments. Later I had my daughter play some of the games with me and she seemed very interested. Little does she know that I will be using this over the summer to keep her skills up. Mwahahahaha. I also intend to encourage kids at the library to use this as an alternate to the hours of uneducational games they play at the library.

Back to the assignment. I didn't really have a particular animal in mind so after narrowing my search to animals and then mammals, I clicked on an abritrary page and was lead to the n sewction, where I was acqainted with the naked mole rat. A fond memory came to mind as I recalled watching Kim Possible with my daughter and being enamored by the pink bundle of cuteness named Rufus.

Disney did a good job of smoothing out the rough spots because to my dismay, the real version of a naked mole rat was a far cry from the cute, energetic, coolness of Ron's side kick.

Is it the black beady, squintish eyes? The long, over protruding buck teeth? Or just the pink wrinkled, hairless skin that gave me cause to withdraw from the computer monitor. Anyway, when I got passed the initial shock I found out that naked mole rats live underground feeding on the underground parts of plants. They live in colonies of about 80 and only 1 female and 1-3 males breed for the whole colony.

Although he wouldn't make a good pet, his picture did kind of grow on me. Is that a smile I see behind those teeth?

Credit: © Frans Lanting Studio/Alamy Images

6.
 I am trying to beat the deadline and get all my lessons done before I get overwhelmed, with that in mind I m happy that I am on Lesson 6. Using the EBSCHost I looked up Grant Writing for Dummies and The Idiot's complete guide to Grant Writing since I am supposed to have a copy of a reference book for Library Institute this summer. I didn't find either of those reference books but I did see a few on Gant Writing. While scrolling through the list I also noticed some titles I will be glad to view in the near future like guides to Scholarships, I have a sophomore and guides for writing, hoping to write a book someday and how to start a small business among many other titles.

I settled on How to Write A Grant Proposal. It was very easy to read and very imformative discussing step by step what other terminology was used in different proposals as well as the best way to approach it. There was very specific advice on doing the right things to get your proposal looked at. This waould make a great reference to groups needing to find funding through grants.

Yay Constitution Day! First I had to look up the definition on Wickipedia just to make sure I was thinking on the right track. It seems that educational institutions receiving federal funding are required to do activities teaching about the constitution and this was mandated I think in 2004 or so, which is why some of us, cough cough older generation would not have known about it. Looking on EBSCOHost some titles of interest would be Our Elusive Constitution : Silences, Paradoxes, Priorities, Great American History Fact-finder : The Who, What, Where, When, and Why of American History,

Colonies and Revolution, a juvenile nonfiction book,

Representing Popular Sovereignty : The Constitution in American Political Culture.

 

There was a wide variety of subjects when I typed in Oklahoma and PB publisher so I imagine that had to do more with who published the book rather than the subject of Oklahoma since all items were published by the University of Oklahoma Press.

Lesson 5 Gale Virtual Reference Library

Whew! I was afraid after Lesson 4 that maybe I was not techy enough for this challenge but Gale was kind to me. Using the GVRL I looked in the Encyclopedia of Medicine and looked at the article on Menopause. It was very informative on the symptoms and general age in which women can experience this change in life. It also discussed the benefits and drawbacks to the types of Hormone Replacement therepies available. It was easy to read and understand and very easy to access. It also offered searches on related issues such as herbal treatment and a closer look at Hormone replacement therepy. I really liked the format of this site and the ease of navigating through it.

I first started a search on Harry Potter. Articles on mythological creatures from Harry Potter were listed and from there I read about Fenrir, the evil werewolf in the series. It was very interesting to find out wolves were very popular in English literature because wolves presented a real threat at one time. Which is why they show up in so many children's stories. The article did reference Harry Potter at the end but not really what I was looking for. I tried typing in the title of the book along with good vs. evil and the title with protagonist. Didn't get much results for that, so I fell back on the suggested subject of Zinc.

Again I was directed to the encyclopedia of medicine and settled on the article discussing mineral deficiency. I found that zinc deficiencies are not common in Americans except in cases of alcoholism, Croan's disease and celiac disease which is becoming a relatively well known condition. Even though I was a little disappointed in my Harry Potter search I still think this is an easy tool for the lay person.

4. Proquest
I'll admit, I am not a reasearch fanatic. I think proquest would be very helpful to someone needing information but it was a little overwhelming to me. There was much information on the medical topic I chose and it was time consuming to narrow down my search. If I had a life threatening health problem I would find this site very helpful, wanting to know everything I could about the topic.

Looking through my cohorts' blogs I find that many of them are procrastinators like myself or as I like to say just busy with life. It seems that everyone is equally impressed with resources available through the state library.

I was very frustrated using proquest publications. I even pulled up the 2 page list of directions and could still only get the cite page and summary even after created an account for my research. After 20 minutes I decided I will have to come back to this challenge when I am not pressed for time and read through it more slowly evn looking through some of my cohorts notes. I guess I shouldn't expect everything to be super easy. :(

Lesson 3- SIRS
1.
When using the SIRS discoverer I was impressed with amount of information provided on the subject of armadillos. I am sure not every subject is this extensive but the variety of reading abilities offered, and photos was impressive. I don't think I saw two of the same photo in all the articles I searched. Some articles even had activities at the end of the article to help with reading comprehension and knowledge of subject matter.

2.
There was a great deal of information in Country Facts as well. I learned how to pronounce the country, its location on a world map, its flag, population size and other interesting facts. As I scrolled down there was also a time lime on the history of the country. The site also provided graphic organizers at easy, intermediate and advance levels to easily organize the information presented. This would be great to use in the classroom as students hear names of unfamiliar countries in current events. They could look up the countries and understand the conflict or situation that may have brought them into the news.

When I first used Maps of the World I expected to see a map of the country I chose, in modern time. I was pleased to discover there was so much more. I was able to see the land expansion of Japan from 1920-1941, the rule of different dynasties 648-1000 circa, maps and photos of several key cities and the impact of the Kobe Earthquake all on the first page. The obvious use of such information is a comparison of a country now to a specified time in history but can also be used as great visual aides for research, gtreat teaching tools for looking at why a certain country has a big fishing industry or why they depend on trade so much. There are many visual learners out there and a map is a great tool for those who like to "see" things.

For my final SIRS Discover challenge, I chose Fiction under the Database feature. It had a wide variety of stories to chose from and it was just that, fiction stories. The story I read was engaging and suited for middle school kids with the age old delima of fitting in or just being yourself. At the end of the story were several activities to engage the reader further. There was critical thinking questions, a writing prompt, questions on theme and character change. What an asset to a teacher, or a parent trying to help their child be successful at reading comprehension. To the right was a key to narrow down your search to a specific genre, whether you were looking for stories of mystery, romance, school or even stories written by kids.

Sirs Issue Researcher
1. I chose the topic "Beauty Pageants" The topic overview gave a good point of reference to why people might find this to ba an issue of debate, sighting the psychological, physical and societal pro's and cons. There was a box breaking down the essential topic of the issue and a list of articles on either side of the debate. Scrollong down the window there was a phenominal amount of articles related to the issue.
 As I looked at the research tools I noticed how well you could narroww the search to focus more on a single issue with in Beauty Pageants. If you didn't know which aspect you wanted to sstick with the "my analysis" tool can help you do that depending on how you answer questions relating to the topic. I believe that students pick a topic and then are overwhelmed with information as each issue can be broken down further. This really helps to gather information when you know what to keep and what to discard. The time line gave a great overview of the history of the issue and how it came about to be controversial.
I wish I had had the note organizer when I was in high school. It makes this part of the research paper easier to edit, more friendly to organize and more fun to make things stand out for the individual.

2. The Cirriculum pathways had  great references to many great subjects. I looked up Language Arts and there was an interactive game of Lord of the Flies, which I failed, but it had been a long time since I had read it. The subject of Language Arts could be narrowed down further, which I looked up drama and fairy tales. There were many references to titles of these genres. You could even narrow down drama from the type of play you wanted to look for.

Lesson 2- Learning Express Library
I was amazed at how many practice categories there were and how easy it was to use. I decided to try the 7th grade math practice test as I have a 7th grader who sometimes struggles with math. My 10th grade son loves a good challenge so he too was behind me answering the questions. When (we) finished the program was very good at explaining how the correct answer was obtained, even if the tester was correct, which is great if you just happened to guess, as I did on some of those questions. (Hey 7th grade math was like 30 years ago). Anyway I am looking forward to becoming more familiar with this program as my son gets ready for the ACT and SAT. This would also be a good daily exercise before the kids hit the not-so-educational games.

The job courses are very helpful and easy to follow. I skimmed through how to make a resume and what you want for your career. This course seems like it would be just what a recent graduate needs when applying for and looking for that next great job, or even someone who wants to change careers.

When looking through the ebooks on a career I kept coming back to my tenth grader and his friends who are very soon going to be entering the work force. These ebooks gave very detailed information regarding the career of their choice, the job duties, the demand, school and work experience choices, it had everything to help a person become more focused on a career choice. I wish I had had this back when I graduated and maybe I wouldn't have changed my major so many times. It is amazing the amount of information the learning express resource provides. I am eager to tell my patrons with HS age kids about it and maybe those who are struggling in school. The number of people who could use this resource is endless. Can't wait to explore it further.