Five Top Resources for Fall: A wish list of essentials, pared down for a budget-conscious year
RSSBy Shonda Brisco
Sure it’s summer, but fall will come all too soon, along with those requests for additional resources, new ideas for lesson plans, and questions about how your library meets the needs of both students and faculty. With budget cuts and increased enrollments, it’s time to make your dollars work smarter. Over the year, we’ve shared some great digital resources to consider for your library, but now it’s time to showcase the must-haves for 2010. Following are my top five resources that school librarians should seriously consider adding to their library wish list.
AWE Early Literacy Station
www.awe-net.com
els.asp.
Reviewed January 2010, pp. 64-66
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The AWE Early Literacy Station is perhaps one of the more unique systems available for use by pre-K through second grade students primarily due to the wide variety of instructional games for younger users. In addition to the visual appeal of this child-friendly literacy station is the option to provide the same types of instructional content to bilingual students, making this product a valuable addition to schools with ELL programs.
The flexibility of the stand-alone computer system, which works independently from the Internet, assures teachers, librarians, and even parents that younger students will be working on the task at hand, rather than cruising the open Web. This, paired with the ease of assembly and user-friendly accessibility for students, teachers, and librarians, makes the AWE Early Literacy Station a top pick for educational programs and school libraries.
Children’s Literature Comprehensive Database
www.childrenslit.com
index.php
Reviewed October 2009, pp. 69-70
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For those researching children’s literature reviews, Children’s Literature Comprehensive Database (CLCD) goes well beyond a quick, Amazon-like overview of books. Content within this database includes professional review sources such as Booklist, H.W. Wilson Catalogs, and School Library Journal. While CLCD is commonly found in university libraries and used by education majors studying children’s literature, the database is a good choice for K-12 programs. For large or small school districts serving teachers and librarians interested in locating quality children’s materials, CLCD can be a valuable asset.
Librarians and teachers can quickly locate book reviews, including the review source, publication date, and any other information that might inform the selection process-or perhaps, a case of challenged materials. Reading and interest levels, special awards, and honors are also included for each book, allowing users to easily create their own lists of quality content that can be saved or compiled as an annotated list for selection or review.
Recent updates include the ability to link the library’s holdings to the database content, enabling users to identify which records are currently available within the school’s library.
Library of Congress Teachers Page
www.loc.gov
teachers
Reviewed September 2009, pp. 73-74
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For students of history, the Library of Congress (LOC) Teachers Page is a great resource for investigating and exploring the nation’s treasures in the comfort of their classroom or library. New content includes teacher-created lesson plans, thematic units, primary sources, and classroom activities.
Rather than having users wade through tons of resources, the updated LOC Teachers Page offers content that’s immediately relevant and ready to use in the classroom or library. Students in grades 3-12 can easily use the site to explore historical documents, photographs, and even music (available for listening online). Teaching materials, handouts, and worksheets are available in either PDF format or Word, providing instructors with the ideal solution for integrating primary source content into their lesson plans or for creating an entirely new project for the fall.
I had an interesting personal experience with this program. When I attended the teachers’ workshop on using the LOC Teachers Page with students, we were introduced to some of the archived music from the 1920’s (all available for downloading). While we listened to the scratchy sounds of the LP recording, we followed along with the lyrics and tried to determine what the political sense of the nation might have been just after World War I. An image of the sheet music was also linked to the MP3 on the LOC website and we discussed the publisher, the production company, and the songwriter-all of which, presumably, had been long forgotten.
Then about a month later, I was browsing a local antique store where I discovered an original copy of the very same sheet music that we had discussed during the Teachers Page workshop. Immediately, I recalled every point of discussion and observation made during the workshop; it all drove home the value of this material in today’s classroom. As I purchased the sheet music (cost: $2), I was reminded of the importance of primary sources-even if they’re virtual ones.
National Science Digital Library
nsdl.org
Reviewed February 2010, pp. 65-66
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There are times when you know you’ve discovered something so truly awesome, it’s difficult to actually describe the experience. That’s exactly what you (and your science teachers) will feel when you access the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) online. This absolutely free (yes, free) science resource is a collection of websites, instructional resources, tools, and classroom-related content that directly supports STEM education, as well as professional collaborative partnerships.
Specific instructional content for grades K-12 is available for teachers to easily access and use in the classroom. Audio content, including podcasts by scientists in the field, as well as video clips can be accessed in the classroom or you can provide links for students to access NSDL content through the teacher’s website. With thousands of resources available within this digital library, science and math instructors can easily supplement any lesson plan using NSDL.
This project, funded by the National Science Foundation, provides a trove of instructional material aligned to national standards in math and science. As a resource that can only improve as additional content is added, this database providing instructors, students, and librarians with quality instructional materials deserves to be at the top of the wish list for the coming school year.
PebbleGo
For a free trial, go to bit.ly
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Reviewed July 2009, pp. 57-58
bit.ly
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Amidst all of the databases available for elementary students, the dearth of similar products for the preschool level remains an issue. Unfortunately, databases for our youngest students have been difficult to find, until now. With the release of Capstone’s PebbleGo database for reading and research, pre-K through second grade students can now investigate a variety of topics from animals to earth and space science, as well as practice online research using a database, just like their older siblings.
PebbleGo’s leveled text, along with its science-related content activities and entertaining videos make this database a great learning station for the classroom, as well as an introductory tool for teaching younger students how to do research (as well as cite their sources). Read-along text accompanying each article helps struggling readers as they work independently and encourages students to practice their reading skills as they research their favorite topics.
Shonda Brisco (sbrisco@gmail.com) is assistant professor
curriculum materials librarian, Mary L. Williams Curriculum Materials Library, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater.
