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Enclosed is this month's free newsletter for eLibrary® 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 solutions in a variety of settings.
Don't miss our online archive for access to past issues, and to make changes to your newsletter options.
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.
Don’t Miss a Single Teachable Moment:
Free Curriculum & Lesson Plans
On the first of each month, our curriculum specialists deliver a powerful tool to thousands of K-12 teachers worldwide. And best of all, you can sign up to get this free, hands-on and classroom-ready content today at ProQuest.
Our monthly Teachable Moments email newsletter (December issue here) offers a treasure trove of innovative student activities that take full advantage of our complete line of K-12 learning solutions. Most can be easily augmented to fit into any classroom curriculum.
Sign up for Teachable Moments today using the box below, then browse our inventory of back issues. Consider it your own personal teachable moment with a professional development theme!
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ELIBRARY PODCAST + TIPS & TRICKS
Let’s face it--no matter how many times we visit our favorite online learning resources, we’re bound to miss a feature or two. This month, our free video podcast focuses on one of the least-known but most useful feature sets of your eLibrary subscription: American Heritage Dictionary | Pronunciation & Spelling Aide.
Let’s face it, learning how to spell -- let alone pronounce -- new words can be tough on students. From synonymous to cacophony and everything in between, sometimes learners need help with their spelling and pronunciation.
This month, we’ll show you how to use one of eLibrary’s most popular reference desk tools to tackle both important tasks! Welcome to this month’s eLibrary podcast from ProQuest.
First, login to eLibrary. Then click the Reference tab. Since we’re interested only in dictionary terms, go ahead and clear all of the sources, then check just the dictionary box.
Now comes the magic of eLibrary. Type a troublesome term into the search box, but misspell it on purpose. Don’t worry, it takes a lot to confuse our computers! Click LOOK UP.
Here we are –- eLibrary is nicely asking us if we really meant to spell it THIS way. Sure we did! Click the correct spelling of the word to continue.
Here’s our frustrating term. Click the link to move on. Here’s a concise definition of the term, and a handy control to play a sound of the word through your computer’s speakers or headphones. Students can click the play button as many times as they wish until they feel comfortable with the pronunciation.
As you can see, eLibrary makes it easy to help students -- even those in ESL programs and at all levels -- improve their spelling and pronunciation skills! The American Heritage Dictionary in its online form really makes the grade.
Now you’re in the know! We hope this month’s tip and trick bring you closer to being a true eLibrary power user. Be sure to sign up for our free video podcast (no iPod necessary!) to stay up-to-date.
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CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
December and early January are the times for a variety of holiday celebrations. Students welcome the days off from school and the festivities associated with these holidays.
Students will need to understand what these holidays have in common because of the increase in diversity of our population. The melting pot of cultures adds a richness that other nations do not enjoy.
Activity: “Winter Holidays around the World” is the title of the ProQuest BookCart that provides students with a variety of relevant resources for a mini-research activity and report. The BookCart focuses on learning resources for Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Islamic holy days, the winter solstice, and the Chinese New Year.
Students will be motivated to compare Christmas or their own ethnic holidays with one of these other celebrations. This helps foster the understanding that is essential in building social accord and helping eliminate any existing prejudices. Students should be assigned to compare two similar ethnic holidays of their choice. They should compare similarities and differences in historical roots, ceremonies, dress, ornamentation, food, and music.
BookCarts make it easy and quick for teachers and students to access a variety of relevant and quality articles, media, and websites. Time saved in searching can be reinvested in more time for analyzing, synthesizing, writing, and presentation of student ideas, resulting in increased student achievement in
essential skills.
Copying the “Winter Holidays around the World” BookCart is easy and it is only one of the 500 available for all core curriculum areas and levels.
Here is the link for the procedures to copy this and other model BookCarts to your My Local Carts collection. The Holidays BookCart is in the Ethnic Culture and Interests folder.
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PROQUEST® PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: ELIBRARY & SIRS
Our professional development training program is a complete package that delivers the key processes to ensure successful program implementation, and the content to support ongoing use and customization across the entire curriculum.
The CEU-eligible program provides educators with research-based technology integration strategies and tools for customizing instruction and assessment using our eLibrary and SIRS online learning solutions. Schools receive the materials they need to build professional development and instructional models that can maximize teacher efficiency and effectiveness, and improve student achievement.
Educators receive rubrics, assessments, activities, and content designed to spur students' information literacy skills, critical thinking, and reading and writing abilities, while increasing their own technology usage. Plus, our flexible model ensures that all instructional staff in a school or system will benefit from the lessons learned.
Our fresh support for our line of SIRS solutions will train your teachers to fuse four types of literacy using SIRS resources with state and national learning standards. Find out more about this new program today--just in time for your spring training dates!
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SIRS® DECADES: PRIMARY SOURCES IN YOUR CLASSROOM
The use of source documents offers students a direct glimpse into the past. But without context, these sources can confuse as often as illuminate.
SIRS Decades places these resources into a relevant framework for understanding that enriches both the content and student understanding of the material. SIRS Decades features more than 5,000 hand-selected primary and secondary source articles highlighting key events, movements, people, and places in 20th-century America.
Recently we completed a project to map all of our Document Based Questions (DBQs) with NCSS standards. You can connect to this critical information by clicking the State and National Standards Correlations link from the Decades homepage. It’s searchable, linkable and printable!
Find out more about SIRS Decades at our K-12 website.
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CULTUREGRAMS™ IN FOCUS
CultureGrams can help you broaden your students' understanding of the world and its peoples. Our World Edition includes 190+ country profiles, written for junior high students and older. CultureGrams also has a Kids Edition and a States Edition, geared for upper elementary students. These editions include kid-friendly profiles of 70+ countries and all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia.
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.
State:
Washington
Did You Know?
- Mount St. Helens is the only volcano in the continental United States to erupt in recent history. The 1980 eruption devastated an area of 250 square miles (400 sq km).
- One of the world’s largest totem poles is in Tacoma. It is 105 feet (32 m) high.
- The Space Needle in Seattle, built for the 1962 World’s Fair, attracts more than a million visitors each year.
Geography
Washington is the 18th largest state in the United States, at about 71,303 square miles (184,674 sq km). Much of Washington is mountainous. The Olympic Mountains lie in the northwest, the Cascade Mountains are in the center, and the Rocky Mountains are in the northeast. Some of these mountains used to be active volcanoes. Between the Olympic and Cascade mountains is the Puget Sound lowland. Because the Sound is connected to the Pacific Ocean, it became an important area for shipping and commerce. Olympia, the state capital, and Seattle are both located on the Puget Sound. The Columbia Plateau covers most of eastern Washington. Dry plains and rolling hills make up this region.
Early Inhabitants
Before Europeans arrived in the area now known as Washington, Native American tribes lived there for thousands of years. These natives lived very different lifestyles depending on whether they were west or east of the Cascade Mountains. The tribes on the coast (Quileute, Quinault, Chinook, etc.) enjoyed a milder climate and had plenty of food. They gathered fruits and nuts, and they caught salmon and other fish. Many lived in houses made of cedar. The tribes on the east side of the Cascades (Okanogan, Spokane, Wenatchee, Yakima, etc.) faced more difficult conditions. The climate tended to be drier and more extreme. These people lived in portable houses made of logs and woven grass, and they moved from place to place depending on the weather and the food supply. Once a year, the coastal and inland tribes met on the Columbia River to exchange goods, dance, and feast.
Mount Saint Helens
In May 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted in Washington, blasting more than 1,300 feet (400 m) off the mountaintop (the mountain went from being the state’s fifth highest peak to the thirteenth highest) and sending volcanic ash across the state. Some towns were covered with as much as 7 inches (18 cm) of ash. The disaster killed 57 people and thousands of animals. It also caused billions of dollars of damage to property, crops, and livestock. In 1983, Mount St. Helens became a national monument.
To find out more about CultureGrams, connect to our website today.
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EXPLORE OUR WORLD WITH CULTUREGRAMS
As world events increasingly affect all our lives, it’s more important than ever to educate students about the world around them. CultureGrams and World Conflicts Today show students how the world’s peoples live... and what’s behind the major conflicts they face.
CultureGrams concise, reliable, and up-to-date information delivers a true insider’s perspective on daily life and culture of the world’s people. Explore 190 country reports that include 25 cultural categories, maps, images, bios, glossaries, statistics, and five local recipes per country.
World Conflicts Today provides new ways to understand the high-profile conflicts currently engulfing many of the world’s nations. Unbiased overviews of the history, background, obstacles, and implications analyze each conflict, alongside primary and secondary sources, interactive maps, slide shows, and other multimedia.
Conflicts include Afghanistan, Basque Country, Chechnya, Colombia, Darfur, Iraq, Jammu & Kashmir, Korean Peninsula, Northern Ireland, and the Palestinian Territories.
Together you get more than facts and figures; you give students unbiased cultural and social insights they won’t find in any textbook, website, or encyclopedia.
Try both today, free for 30 days.
You can save 20% off World Conflicts with purchase of both* by 12/31/06.
And, with district purchases you may be eligible for up to 40% off CultureGrams!
* Existing CultureGrams Online subscribers are eligible
You’ll see why School Library Journal recommends CultureGrams for, “History, geography, foreign language, ESL, and current events teachers…[for] discussions, debates, presentations, research papers, reports, and reading and writing exercises.”
For more information, contact ProQuest toll-free at 1.800.521.0600, or by email at PQSales@il.proquest.com.
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TOP 3 WEBSITES
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.
Biodiversity Interactive
Organization: Field Museum
"Did you know that the Field Museum is home to 170 resident scientists who work in more than 75 countries internationally? These globe-trotting men and women comb the planet documenting biodiversity and developing ways to protect it. Travel around the world with the Field Museum researchers as they explore our web of life." (FIELD MUSEUM)
Pyramid Challenge
Organization: British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
"Journey back four and a half thousand years to Egypt's Old Kingdom, to the Pyramid Age. As the vizier, or head of state, you are about to undertake the most important project of your career--the building of the king's pyramid. To succeed in this task, you must be a good all-rounder. Not only should you be able to motivate your workforce, but you must have good observational skills and the ability to steer a barge up the Nile, avoiding hippos and crocodiles. Have you got what it takes to be a pyramid builder?" (BBC)
Want to Read Something Gross?
Organization: The Nemours Foundation
"What's earwax? Why do I have a belly button? What's a burp? You asked and we answered! Check out the answers to all your health questions." (THE NEMOURS FOUNDATION) Visitors to this site can also find out the meanings of expressions such as "Sick as a Dog" or "By the Skin of Your Teeth."
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FREE TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES
Our ProQuest 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 to award you with 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.
Register for an eLibrary or additional ProQuest solution course today.
(Interested in Reading A-Z programs? Click here.)
You may also sign up for a timely enewsletter to receive training dates each month via email as soon as they're available.
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CALL FOR USER TESTIMONIALS
What features of eLibrary 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 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.
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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.
To change your email address, sign up for additional newsletter titles, or modify your subscription settings, click here.
Cordially,
Your ProQuest K-12 Team
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