Online Resources: Finding Them & Integrating Them Effectively

Welcome to the Collins Middle School Instructional Media Center (IMC). Today's program facilitators are Beth Beaulieu, Language Arts & Social Studies Curriculum Coordinator (elizabethbeaulieu@salem.k12.ma.us), and Joanne O'Keefe, Library Media Specialist (joanneokeefe@salem.k12.ma.us). Please feel free to contact either of us if you should have any questions after today's session, if you would like assistance as you integrate these or other online resources into assignments or projects for your students, or as you pursue your own professional development goals.

Today's session will include:

- a virtual tour of selected full-text, bibliographic, video and other online resources available to you and your students, as members of the Collins Middle School research community;

- an introduction to the Research & Technology Support Center, created and maintained by Joanne O'Keefe and Technology Integration Specialist LeAnnette Goodwin, which features links to annotated resource lists, projects, and other tools created to support teachers and students as they carry out research assignments and other curriculum-related projects; and

- an overview of the print resources available in the Instructional Media Center's fiction, nonfiction, reference, and curriculum/professional development collections.

Let's begin by checking out the IMC's Full-Text Resources:

BrainPOP - Each of BrainPOP's 500+ movies (now available in English and Spanish) covering science, English, math, social studies, technology and health is designed for students in grades K-8, and accompanied by an interactive ten-question quiz, comic strip, timeline, and printable activities. More movies are added each week. (NOTE: A User Name and Password are needed to access BrainPOP.)

CobblestoneOnline.net - This collection includes the full text (from 1980 forward) of Cobblestone, Faces, Calliope, Odyssey, Appleseeds, and other magazines. (NOTE: A User Name and Password are needed to access this collection.)

CultureGrams - This comprehensive collection features information about the history, culture, and daily life of 187 countries and territories, including detailed statistics, maps, and much more. (NOTE: A User Name and Password are needed to access this collection.)

Middle Search Plus - This collection includes the full text of 140 popular magazines for middle school research, as well as more than 84,000 biographies, more than 100,000 primary source documents, and a growing image collection that currently includes more than 200,000 photos, maps and flags. All full-text articles included in the database are assigned reading level indicators (Lexiles). (NOTE: A User ID and Password are needed to access this collection.)

NoveList - This outstanding resource, through which readers can learn about books and authors, features a searchable database with a wealth of information including descriptions, suggested reading levels (Lexiles), reviews from high quality magazines and journals, and links to related full-text article and author web sites, about picture books, children's chapter books, young adult novels, and books for adult readers. (NOTE: A User ID and Password are needed to access this database.)

Student Resource Center - This terrific full-text resource features original reference material, subject overviews, critical essays, an extensive archive of primary source documents and periodicals, and full-text daily newspapers. (NOTE: An ID is needed to access this resource.)

In addition to the collections described above, several more full-text databases are available to members of the Collins Middle School research community, through our membership in the Northeastern Massachusetts Regional Library System (NMRLS). Among these databases are:

Biography Resource Center - This fine collection features biographical information about more than 275,000 people from throughout history, around the world, and all disciplines and subject areas. (NOTE: A public library barcode is needed to access this and other NMRLS databases, including Expanded Academic ASAP, Junior Edition (K-12), Professional Collection (full-text magazine and journal articles for educators), and Student Edition.)

Informe - This collection includes full text and images from popular Hispanic magazines.

NewsBank - this collection features 26 newspapers, including the full text of the Boston Globe (1980-present) and the Boston Herald (1997-present).

Next, let's visit the Research & Technology Support Center, created to help Collins students find the information they need to complete assigned projects, and exhibit their learning through the sophisticated use of a variety of multimedia tools.

Lockers have been established for each grade to make it easy for students to find links to annotated resource lists, projects, and other tools that will help them as they complete classroom assignments in math/science, language arts/social studies, world language, and specialist courses, including art, family and consumer science, music, physical education, and technology education. Here are the lockers:

Grade 6 Locker

Grade 7 Locker

Grade 8 Locker

World Language Resources

Specialist Resources

Art Resources
Family & Consumer Science Resources
Music Resources
Physical Education Resources
Technology Education Resources

Finally, let's review the IMC's policies, and take a look at the locations of the IMC's collections.