Welcome to the
April
issue of our K-12 newsletter. This newsletter is designed to help
teachers, librarians and administrators stay informed about the latest
changes to your subscription, while providing classroom resources and
giving tips for using your subscription in a variety of settings.
Don't miss our online archive (now available on proquestk12.com) for access to past issues, and to make changes to your newsletter options.
eLibrary® Canada & CE 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.
eLibrary Canada & CE 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 Canada & CE, SIRS, and ProQuest CSA. This is one podcast you want to share with your fellow teachers, librarians, and administrators!
Plus, don’t miss our free monthly Web training sessions, which are eligible for CEU credit!
Teacher Resource Explorers
Looking for our popular eLibrary Canada or CE teacher guide? We’ve replaced this tried and true offering with something more… focused.
This month we’re proud to release three new Teacher Resource Explorer documents. Each offers concrete, graphical examples of how eLibrary delivers tools and content to empower teachers and learners in three core curriculum areas. Watch for additional subject areas to go online in the coming months!
How is eLibrary Canada CE both a general reference AND curriculum solution?
April is School Library Media Month. It is important for librarians to be able to help teachers distinguish between a reference database and a curriculum solution, resulting in more effective teaching and more focused learning.
When teachers see the direct curriculum support for what they teach and the bonus of classroom time saved in searching by students, they will be motivated to use eLibrary Canada Curriculum Edition.
Librarian Activities
Demonstration 1: Show how one search can simultaneously provide resources from eLibrary Canada, History Study Center, and ProQuest Learning: Literature. Use the search “Civil rights reformers” typed in the search box. The search results will appear by default as eLibrary results with the General tab. Clicking the History or Literature tabs will provide additional results depending on the topic.
Demonstration 2: Show how BookCarts can be used by teachers to collect the best resources for another topic that is English Language Arts or History Study Center related such as “Poetry” (April is National Poetry Month) or Vietnam War protests (April is the 40th anniversary of a massive protest -- burning draft cards in New York City Central Park). BookCarts contain the best links to each of these specialty curriculum learning resources, rich in primary source documents for AP courses.
Demonstration 3: Show the collection of 500 BookCarts to your teachers. Show them how to use the folder system to connect to their curriculum area, level, and subject. Explain how the folder organization system simplifies reviewing, copying, and editing -- making assignments easy. Teachers will see how BookCarts are the best method to provide a guided learning experience for students in all the core curriculum areas and subjects, whether for research or for reading and classroom discussion.
Demonstration 4: Show how each model BookCart provides examples of essential questions that teachers can use to ensure that student research activities integrate critical thinking based on Bloom’s Taxonomy. Researching for facts only is expanded to include reasoned opinion expressed through original thought. These are the skills that benefit students now and in the future. Teachers can employ different questions with different students of the same topic. This strategy results in a variety of conclusions that can be shared within the class, increases motivation, and reduces plagiarism.
Looking for a fresh, up-to-date solution to power your social sciences, geography, or cultural studies curriculum? As always, our CultureGrams line is here to help.
Last month, our editors were proud to launch a new product -- Provinces Edition -- with reports on all 13 of Canada's provinces and territories.
Provinces Edition is ideal for upper elementary and middle school students studying Canada. Each province's report contains fascinating information on categories such as Geography; Wildlife; Environmental Issues; History; Population; Cultural Notes; and First Nations, Métis, and Aboriginal Peoples.
Each report includes maps, charts, a history timeline, and useful images, such as photos of the province's official emblems. Plus, statistical tables allow students to compare basic information on all of the provinces.
Find out more about CultureGrams at our K-12 website, or sign up for a free trial today.
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.
Capital: Brasília
Population: 186,112,794 (rank=5)
Area, sq. mi.: 3,286,488 (rank=5)
Area, sq. km.: 8,511,965
Real GDP per capita: $7,790
Adult literacy rate: 88% (male); 89% (female)
Infant mortality rate: 33 per 1,000 births
Life expectancy: 67 (male); 75 (female)
Did You Know?
Forests cover slightly more than half of Brazil's territory and include the world's largest tropical rain forest in the Amazon River Basin.
The largest Japanese community outside of Japan is in Brazil.
Nearly half of all private lands are owned by one percent of the people.
Language
Portuguese is Brazil's official language. It differs slightly in pronunciation from the Portuguese spoken in Portugal. English and French are popular as second languages. Spanish is also becoming more popular in some circles as Brazil establishes stronger trade ties with its neighbors. (Although Portuguese speakers generally understand Spanish, some Brazilians are offended when deliberately spoken to in Spanish.) In southern cities, some descendants of European immigrants also speak German or Italian. Indigenous peoples may speak any one of more than a hundred local languages.
General Attitudes
Brazilians are warm, fun-loving, and free-spirited. They are also outgoing and enjoy being around others. At the same time, they are hardworking. Brazilians are proud of the Portuguese heritage that sets them apart from other Latin American peoples. One point of pride is the “Brazilian way” -- their ability to find creative ways around seemingly insurmountable problems. Brazilians often are opinionated and will argue for their convictions with vigor. In spite of economic difficulties, most Brazilians are hopeful about their country's future.
Gestures
Brazilians often use gestures to communicate and express feelings. Gestures often accompany greetings. One beckons by waving all fingers of the hand with the palm facing either up or down. Pulling down the lower eyelid with an index finger signifies disbelief or caution. One may tap the fingers horizontally under the chin to indicate that another person does not know what he or she is talking about. The “okay” sign used in the United States, with the thumb and index finger forming a circle, is an offensive gesture.
Diet
In Rio de Janeiro, the favorite is feijoada (black beans with beef, pork, sausage, and sometimes a pig's ears, feet, and tail). Churrasco, which originated in the south, is a barbecue with a variety of meats. Bife à cavalo com fritas (meat with egg and french fries) is popular in many areas. Common drinks include lemonade, milk, fruit juices and shakes, soft drinks, coffee, and mate (MAH-tay), an herbal tea enjoyed in southern states.
To find out more about CultureGrams, connect to our website today.
Our trainer, Tasha Maddison, is standing by to help you get the most
out of your subscription--and learn more about our other digital learning
resources! She offers a wide variety of online training sessions (check our calendar of events) each
month.
The 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. Click the button to sign up:
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.
This is "the story of the colorful individuals, startling ideas and ingenious tools that brought us knowledge of the vast and strange universe we inhabit." (CENTER FOR HISTORY OF PHYSICS, AIP) Discover the ideas and tools of cosmology, beginning with the ancient Greeks to the present.
"Global warming getting worse. Petroleum growing scarce. Should we start making biofuels bigtime? If so, does corn ethanol make much sense? Why not get energy from the cellulose in plant wastes?" (THE WHY FILES, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN, MADISON) Learn about this biofuel to see if it can help counter global warming.
"For many years, most of the best writers of the English language found their way to Don Swaim's CBS Radio studio in New York. The one-on-one interviews typically lasted 30 to 45 minutes and then had to be edited down to a two-minute radio show. Wired for Books is proud to make these important oral documents publicly available for the first time in their entirety. Listen to the voices of many of the greatest writers of the twentieth century." (OU) Find interviews with famous authors and audio versions of many of their works--in some cases read by the author!
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.
