Enclosed is this month's free newsletter for ProQuest® Platinum subscribers. This newsletter is designed to help teachers, librarians, and administrators stay informed about the latest changes to their subscriptions, while providing classroom resources and giving tips for using their ProQuest CSA solutions in a variety of settings.
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PROQUEST EDUCATION SOLUTION UPDATES
Our product development team is constantly reviewing customer feedback and making changes to our learning resources to meet your needs. Several updates or content additions were recently completed, and we wanted to bring them to your attention.
Platinum Podcast
When asked what their favorite websites are, most Internet users agree –- online search tools like Google are popular destinations.
Faced with a nearly limitless number of websites, it’s more critical than ever for researchers to carefully consider how they choose to utilize their limited time and energy tracking down information online.
Which brings us to this month’s podcast from ProQuest CSA -- a practical guide to objectively comparing online search engines like Google to its subscription research cousins, including eLibrary, SIRS, and ProQuest CSA. This is one podcast you want to share with your fellow teachers, librarians, and administrators!
April is Financial Education Month. For the next few weeks, folks from the twelve Federal Reserve Banks will be fanning out to schools, libraries and other locales to stimulate interest in economic learning, particularly among teachers and administrators.
Financial literacy is one of the major goals of the 21st Century Skills movement for K-12 education. It's a worthy cause, but something of an uphill fight. Everyone agrees kids should learn about money and the economy in school; but when budgets and class time are tight, economics often ends up as an elective, or is dropped altogether. As a result, Americans typically learn about economics like they learn about sex - in patches at home, on the street, and from the media.
That works for some, but if surveys and national studies are any guide, it leaves vast chunks of the population under- or mis-educated about the economic facts of life. Not all of this can be blamed on the kids. Even when there is some formal economics teaching, it too often is misdirected or poorly designed because teachers don’t have the background necessary to teach it effectively or the textbooks and resources to present basic fundamentals.
Activity: Assign each student to research a different topic from the listing that results from this search: click Topics tab > Type “financial education” in the Search box > Personal finance AND Consumer education > Narrow by related topic. Here are some examples of topics that can be assigned and would be relevant to high school students: Credit Cards; Investments; Savings; Mutual Funds; Shopping; Consumer Behavior; Interest Rates; Consumer Protection; Automobiles; Teenagers; and Identity Theft.
Oral reports of two- to three-minutes provide students an opportunity to share what they have learned, practice communication skills, and help to reduce plagiarism.
CultureGrams can help you broaden your students' understanding of the world and its peoples. The World Edition includes 190+ country profiles, written for junior high students and older. CultureGrams also has a Kids Edition, Provinces Edition, and a States Edition, geared for upper elementary students. These editions include kid-friendly profiles of 70+ countries, all 50 states (including Washington, D.C.), and the Canadian provinces.
CultureGrams goes beyond mere facts and figures to deliver an insider's perspective on daily life and culture, including the history, customs, and lifestyles of the world's people.
Finland: Did You Know?
Finnish soldiers on skis fought against the Russians during the Winter War. The Finns were dressed all in white, so they were hard to see in the snow. The Finnish troops were known throughout the world for their bravery.
About a hundred years ago, Finnish women gave birth to their babies in saunas.
Reindeer steak is prepared for special meals.
Language
Finnish is one of the hardest languages to learn. Each Finnish word has about 15 forms, depending on how it is used in a sentence. For 93 percent of Finns, it is their first language. Others first learn Swedish or Sami (pronounced “SAW-me”) at home. But in school, all Finns eventually learn the two official languages, Swedish and Finnish. Many people, especially kids, speak English as well. So, many Finns can understand at least three languages.
Independence
Soon after independence, civil war began in Finland. It only lasted two years, but it was very bitter. Peace didn’t last long, either. The Soviet Union (of which Russia had become a part) attacked Finland twice during World War II. Some Finns today remember fighting for their country’s freedom. Because their freedom is so new, Finland’s Independence Day is celebrated in a reverent way. People light candles and visit the graves of those who died for their country.
Sauna
Almost every Finnish home and apartment has a sauna, or steam bath. The sauna is a place for cleansing the body, relaxing, and socializing. It’s usually a small wooden room with wooden benches around the sides. Hot stones are placed on a heater. The family sits on the benches and pours water over the hot stones. This creates steam, which makes people sweat. Those in the sauna sometimes hit themselves on the back with birch tree branches to clean themselves. After sitting in a sauna, people cool off by jumping into a cold shower, lake, or pile of snow.
To find out more about CultureGrams, connect to our website today.
Each month, our SIRS® WebSelect and SIRS® Discoverer WebFind editorial teams scour the Internet for top-quality sites that help teachers teach and students learn. Although no Internet site can supplant a quality research database, these vetted resources offer unique resources that are sure to be of interest.
"James Arthur Wood, Jr., began collecting original cartoon art as a childhood hobby....The Art Wood Collection of Cartoon and Caricature contains more than 36,000 original cartoon drawings and is a jewel among the Library's special collections, illuminating his astounding lifetime legacy of American creativity." (LOC) View 102 drawings from the collection. The cartoons are divided into the following sections: Illustration, Political Illustrations, Caricature, Animation, Gag & Single Panel, Cartoons, and Comic Strips.
"U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's site for kids [provides] lots of fun and interesting things to read and do to learn about the environment." (EPA) Learn about protecting our plants and animals, recycling garbage, providing clean drinking water and clean air, and other ways kids and adults can help the environment. Also, play games and do art activities.
Inside the Cell
National Institute of General Medical Sciences
"This educational booklet about cell biology speaks directly to readers by vividly describing the processes occurring within their bodies. It also shrinks readers down to 0.5 micrometers so they can explore the cell and its organelles close-up. The booklet features cutting-edge cell biology research and techniques. It includes review questions at the end of each chapter and a glossary." (NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF GENERAL MEDICAL SCIENCES) This book is available online as an HTML or PDF version.
Try Spring training, ProQuest CSA-style! In April we’re offering more courses starting at more times, and have reduced your time commitment to just 30-40 minutes each! Download the list of available courses and get online today.
Our product trainers are standing by to help you get the most out of your subscription -- and learn more about our other digital learning resources! We offer a wide variety of online training sessions each month.
Plus, all attendees can easily obtain a Certificate of Attendance (right) for any of our online courses! The certificate documents the course name, amount of class time, date, and verifies attendance. You can use the certificate to document attendance in the class and submit it along with the additional documentation your school district requires for continuing education credits.
Be sure to tell your trainer that you would like to receive a certificate via email at the start of each class. They’ll be glad to help!
You can download three ready-to-print versions of forthcoming training dates and times in PDF format.
Our training sessions cover after-school hours within several time zones. Best of all, there's no cost to participate. All you need is a computer with Internet access, a phone, and one hour.
What features of Platinum do you and your students find the most useful? Have you recently used or are planning to use it as part of an assignment or student research project? How do you and other curriculum leaders in your institution use your ProQuest CSA educational resources?
Share your experiences with peers working in schools across the country and around the world--through an upcoming Product News Bulletin! We're waiting to hear from you. Please send your ideas and stories to: tim.mclain@il.proquest.com
If we choose your submission, we'll contact you for additional information and permission to use your story in a future issue.
FORWARD TO A COLLEAGUE + EMAIL SERVICE INFORMATION
Increase the usage of your digital learning resources! Our forward-to-a-friend service makes it easy to instantly send this product bulletin -- and all the great ideas and information it contains -- to others in your subscribing institution with a click of your mouse.
Also, be sure to encourage them to sign up for our SIRS, CultureGrams, ProQuest, ProQuest Historical Newspapers, eLibrary, eLibrary Curriculum Edition, and additional enewsletters as appropriate.
ProQuest offers a growing family of K-12 classroom-focused,
subscription-based online research tools. Many of these education solutions offer reading level-linked
(lexile) content, support
21st-century information
literacy skills, and help schools differentiate instruction across all curriculum areas.
Learn more about all of our tools here, tap into our training resources and videos, and don't miss our new eLibrary research tool (more). We also have a pair of special resource pages just for teachers (with lesson plans) and librarians.
April is Financial Education Month. For the next few weeks, folks from the twelve Federal Reserve Banks will be fanning out to schools, libraries and other locales to stimulate interest in economic learning, particularly among teachers and administrators.
Finland: Did You Know?
