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 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.
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.
February Updates
On February 4, several important changes were made to your ProQuest subscription, including:
Publication Search Page: Users can now choose to browse issues or search the contents of a particular publication conveniently from the same page.
Authentication Enhancements: Informational messages have been revised to help ensure that remote users are able to successfully access ProQuest.
COUNTER 2 Compliance: ProQuest has updated its usage reporting to be complaint with Release 2 of the COUNTER Code of Practice for Journals and Databases.
Watch for future enhancement release announcements in upcoming issues of this free newsletter.
New ProQuest® Historical Newspaper Titles: Hartford Courant & Chicago Defender
The Hartford Courant --the "oldest continuously published paper in the United States"--is an exceptional source for Colonial, Revolutionary, and Early American research.
You and your students can read first-hand accounts of the Boston Tea Party; the Stamp Tax; the campaigns of George Washington and the Continental Army; public reactions to the Declaration of Independence; early American issues such as Federalists versus Republicans and slavery; and much more.
This title, in combination with The New York Times, provides a definitive collection of original sources from the two leading newspapers of their times, spanning the years 1764 to 2002.
Years currently available span 1764 to 1922. The remaining backfile will be completed later in 2006. You can view sample articles from this new title inside a special PowerPoint presentation.
The Chicago Defender is also now available. This title, nearing completion, will cover the years 1905 to 1975. The Defender has been considered one of the most influential African-American newspapers since 1905.
Each issue provides perspective on the daily lives of African-Americans, and a deeper understanding of the black perspective on key historical events and enduring issues. View sample articles inside a PowerPoint presentation.
For pricing information, call 800-521-0600, ext. 3344, today, or visit our solution resource page for additional information.
February is Black History Month. This important annual observance of the struggle for civil and human rights provides an excellent opportunity for teachers to integrate mini-research and in-depth study of topics that may not be covered, or not covered effectively by social studies texts.
Teachers can make mini-research assignments that are flexible and that integrate a student’s personal interests in studying Black History Month topics. An interesting twist is to find out more about Black History Month and the variety of ways it is celebrated, rather than just the typical research on famous leaders and events in African-American history.
Fortunately, ProQuest Platinum offers special student tools to make this assignment engaging and easy to complete by using the Marked List tool! Marked Lists will save the articles that a student is really interested in for their report and provide links, a research summary (cited sources), and formal citations as well.
To get started on the study of Black History Month:
Type Black History Month and Celebration in the Basic Search box and click Full-text documents only, then click Search
Browse the variety of articles that are available. Notice the small box on the left of each article.
Click the box for each article title that interests you and may be used in the report (you can add to or delete from your list later)
After selecting several articles, click the Marked List tab at the top
To learn more about how you can use your Marked List, click Help at the top-right of the page.
Mini-research activities are a proven ways for students to learn on their own. However these activities must be guided by engaging questions created by teachers to be more than a rewrite of encyclopedia articles and lower-level learning at best. Here are some examples of questions that teachers can assign to ensure that students will use their critical thinking skills when using these resources:
Why is the African-American struggle for equality and civil rights similar to, and different from, other ethnic immigrant groups?
Why is the study of Black History Month topics important to a student’s overall understanding of history?
What struggles and rights remain to be gained by African-Americans today?
Who were the most important people and events in the struggle for civil rights and why?
CultureGrams can help you broaden your students' understanding of the world and its peoples. Our World Edition includes 187 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 68 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.
Country:
Spain
Capital City: Madrid
Population: 40,280,780
Area: 194,897 square miles (504,782 sq km)
Real GDP per capita: $ 21,460
Adult literacy rate: 99% (male), 97% (female)
Infant mortality: 4 per 1,000 births
Life expectancy: 76 (male), 83 (female)
Did You Know?
A tortilla española isn’t a flat type of bread; it’s an omelette with potatoes and onions.
Muslim Moors from North Africa invaded Spain in AD 711 and ruled there for hundreds of years.
If Spaniards invite someone to visit their home “sometime,” they are just being polite and don't really expect a visit. A guest accepts the offer but only goes if the host has insisted or given a specific time.
Population
The population of Spain is around 40.2 million and is growing annually at 0.16 percent. The Spanish are a composite of Mediterranean and Nordic ancestry but are considered a homogeneous ethnic group. A small portion of the population is composed of immigrants from Latin American nations, other European countries, Africa, and Asia. More than three-fourths of the population lives in urban areas. Most Spaniards live near the coast. Low birthrates stem in part from high unemployment and steep housing costs, which make it impossible for most people to buy houses large enough for more than two children.
Language
Spain has four official languages. Castilian Spanish is the main language of business and government. The other official languages include Catalan (spoken by 17 percent of the population), Galician (7 percent), and Basque (2 percent). Catalan is spoken mostly in the northeast corner, down the coast to Valencia, and on the Balearic Islands; Galician is spoken in the northwest; and Basque is common in the Basque provinces in the north (near the border with France). Spanish is the language of instruction throughout the country, except in Catalonia and the Basque region. English is the most common foreign language, followed by French.
Personal Appearance
Style and quality of clothing are important indicators of a person's status and respectability. Men usually dress conservatively, avoiding flashy or bright colors. Women like to be stylish, and children are dressed as nicely as possible. Spaniards tend to dress up when going out in public. Colorful regional costumes are sometimes worn for festivities.
Commerce
Businesses are traditionally open six days a week from about 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and from 5 to 8 p.m. Banks are open from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. From May to October, banks do not open on Saturdays. The midday break traditionally allowed families to be together for the main meal and take a siesta (afternoon rest). However, this practice is disappearing, particularly in urban areas. Many businesses stay open all day or have a shorter meal break. Business is not conducted as usual during July and August because many people are away on vacation. Supermarkets and malls are gradually replacing many traditional markets and small family shops. Laws intended to protect small businesses prevent large stores from opening on Sundays.
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.
"Questions about our origins as a species have been plaguing us as humans, prodding us as scientists and dividing us as Americans for more than a hundred years, if not for all time. Gallup polls show that nearly half of Americans believe God created man 10,000 years ago, as the Bible says, and another third believe man evolved, but God had a hand in it. At the same time, only a third of the American public believe Darwin's theory of evolution is supported by evidence. Yet nearly all scientists and science teachers do believe in the evolutionary process. So when it comes to how we teach this topic in public schools, the controversy gets even more heated." (AMERICAN PUBLIC MEDIA) Go to Dover, PA, where the school board endorsed intelligent design over evolution, examine the controversy over the teaching of intelligent design in the classroom, and learn how the Blount County School Board passed a resolution to teach a "variety of scientific theories about origins."
"So how do dogs manage to achieve first-class social status with an economy-coach mentality? It's simple. Dogs have good people skills." (THE WHY FILES) Although chimpanzees are closer to humans genetically, dogs have long been our best animal friends. Learn what researchers have discovered about the ability of dogs to "read" humans.
"History, at times, gives some coins or notes special significance, and this money becomes legendary. Unlike money that changes hands daily, legendary coins and currency are larger than life. The Legendary Coins & Currency Web site provides details about the 50+ coins in the exhibition." (NMAH) Explore coins that are first in their kind, legendary in their beauty and design, contrived for profit, represent the quest for gold, and signify human struggle and triumph.
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.
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 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.
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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.
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