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Enclosed is this month's free newsletter for SIRS Knowledge Source® subscribers. This newsletter is designed to help teachers, librarians, and administrators stay informed about the latest changes to their SIRS subscription(s), while providing classroom resources and giving tips for using their ProQuest solutions in a variety of settings.
Check out our online archive to read past issues.
In this issue:
- What's New @ SIRS
- SIRS Decades: Classroom-Ready Primary Sources
- Professional Development Program
- Building Young Readers
- Applied Learning
- CultureGrams in Focus
- Top 3 Websites
- Get Credit: Free Training Opportunities
- Call for User Testimonials
- Email Service Information
WHAT'S NEW @ SIRS
Our product development team is constantly reviewing customer feedback and making changes to our learning resources to meet your needs. Several updates to our SIRS family of products were recently completed and we wanted to bring them to your
attention.
SIRS Government Reporter & WebSelect Surveys
Got an opinion? You could win a $25 gift certificate to Amazon.com! Give us your feedback on SIRS Government Reporter or WebSelect and you'll be entered to win.
What are typical classroom assignments that these databases are useful for? What could we change to make the products more useful and effective?
We’re working on updating the home page of both Government Reporter and WebSelect. Customer feedback is important to us, so please fill out the surveys in order for us to learn more about
your needs. Your feedback will help us shape our products --
click an arrow to begin:
Knowledge = Power: Spring Training Videos
Spring is in full swing! It’s time for Mother Nature -- and our trainers here at ProQuest -- to show off a little.
Along with the new flowers, leaves, and warmer temperatures, we’re proud to present an extra-large virtual bouquet of fresh, up-to-date training videos for more than half of our popular K-12 learning solutions.
These videos are presented in Flash, sporting quick load times and larger formats for easy viewing. Here’s a list of our newest offerings -- look for the rest of our popular library to be updated in July:
SIRS Decades
eLibrary & eLibrary CE
eLibrary Canada
eLibrary BookCarts & QuizCarts
History Study Center
ProQuest Platform: Platinum, Education Journals, etc.
ProQuest Learning: Literature
ProQuest Learning: Literature Canada
ProQuest Historical Newspapers
Newest Articles & Graphics
Our editorial team updates SKS every day with new articles and resources. Here’s a short list of the timeliest and most topical articles added to your product this month. Publication dates may vary due to the editorial selection process.
SIRS® WebSelect Subject Tree
At SIRS, we’re reviewing the WebSelect Subject Tree to provide a more comprehensive search function that reflects the carefully selected content available in the database. Below are examples of areas where new Subject Tree branches have been created:
- Business: Consumerism
- Environment
- Global Issues: History: American History
- Global Issues: History: Women in History
- Institutions: Education
- Literature: Literary Criticism
- Philosophy & Religion
- Visual Arts: Art History and Criticism
Renaissance's Literary Corner
Don’t miss SIRS Renaissance's Literary Corner! You’ll find a curricular study of prominent authors in every major literary period and region, along with fresh author profiles. To connect, click the link to SIRS Renaissance on the main search page, and you’ll see a large Literary Corner link on the right side under Database Features.
SIRS Leading Issues: This Month’s Top Picks
Our popular SIRS Leading Issues feature is dynamically updated daily with new content! New topics are added monthly along with "Your Top 10 Choices"--a list solely driven by end-user searches. Here's a list of some of the more commonly accessed topics by our subscribers:
- Marijuana legalization
- Gangs
- Capital punishment
- Abortion
- Teenage pregnancy
- Immigration
- Same-sex marriage
- Child abuse
- Eating disorders
- Nuclear weapons
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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.
This new offering from our combine ProQuest/SIRS team includes items called Document-Based Questions, or DBQs.
Created by a university professor, DBQs are available for every one of dozens of decade topics, helping teachers to integrate true critical thinking into each research activity. These DBQs require students to select, analyze, synthesize and reference documents to answer essay questions.
This type of question is a major component of Advanced Placement History courses and testing, the new SAT writing section, and some state tests. Students doing ongoing research activities with SIRS Decades are developing the essential skills that will boost their scores on these important measures of achievement.
Here are links to several sample DBQs. To access the material,
sign up for a trial, login, and then click on each link:
20s: Immigration
40s: African Americans
60s: Vietnam War
70s: Gender Equality and Sexuality
80s: The Arts
90s: Foreign Policy and Terrorism
Find out more about SIRS Decades at our K-12 website.
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PROQUEST LEARNING PAGE: BUILDING YOUNG READERS
I use Reading A-Z's guided reading books daily, and the students love having their very own books. We can highlight words they are having difficulty with, and the children can take ownership in their books when they color the pages. The students can then bring the books home so that they have their own library with books they can read independently or to a parent.
Janice McNulty; Kindergarten Teacher; Bridlewood Elementary; Flower Mound, Texas
This month, Reading A-Z features books about trees, animal moms and babies, a puppy's adventure, American sports legends, and a sightseeing trip to the Far East. We also have stories about monsters making music, a wordplay mystery, a boy who learns to fish in Singapore, a fantasy visit to the Land of Oz, and a mouse who finds a very imaginative use for oatmeal. A collection of ocean poetry rounds out our April offerings.
Visit Reading A-Z to view all the new materials.
This month's additions bring the total number of books on our website to more than 1,650, with thousands of accompanying lesson plans, worksheets, and activities.
Imagine having instant access to all the books you need for students at different reading levels, books they can take home and keep for repeated reading. Now you can. And it only costs between $49.95 and $74.95 per teacher annually (depending on the type of license purchased). Nowhere else can you get so much for so little. Sign up today!
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PROQUEST PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: SIRS & ELIBRARY
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 SIRS and eLibrary 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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APPLIED LEARNING
May has a variety of themes that focus on health and disease prevention: Arthritis Prevention, Family Wellness Month, Heal the Children Month, Mental Health Month, and Physical Fitness and Sports Month among others. Almost 46 million Americans, almost all of whom are poor, are not covered by health insurance and must rely on emergency wards of hospitals for their healthcare. This type of healthcare is expensive and, more important, ignores the economic, social, and moral benefits of preventive health care. Many of the other industrialized countries of the world provide this benefit to their citizens and it has resulted in lower costs than are common in our system for the same procedures.
Hilary Clinton was rebuffed in the 1990s for her support for Universal Health Care for all American citizens. Her initiative failed to receive Congressional support and has languished since that time. Recently, Governor Mitt Romney provided the leadership for a plan that will provide health insurance to all residents of Massachusetts. Perhaps this model holds promise for a national model in the future.
Activity: This topic should certainly motivate students to debate. SIRS Leading Issues integrates unique models for a mini-debate that could be completed in several days, including the research.
- Click the Educators’ Resources tab at the top of the Search page.
- Scroll down to Curriculum Training Materials.
- Click Guide to Creating a Debate Outline – Student.
- Guide to Creating a Debate Outline – Teacher.
- Note how the guides support mini-debates using the information structure of Leading Issues.
- Click the More Issues link in the Pro and Con section of the Search page.
- Click the Health Care Reform link to the leading issue.
State and national standards require the use of activities that help to develop student information literacy, critical thinking, and presentation skills. These are the skills that students will need for success in future education, careers, and in life. The additional benefits include the learning of content that focuses on the present and future needs of the student, the family, and the nation.
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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 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: New Zealand
Did You Know?
- About 90 percent of the plants in New Zealand can't be found anywhere else in the world.
- A New Zealander, Sir Edmund Hillary, became the first person to climb the world's highest point, Mount Everest. He did it in 1953 with Tenzing Norgay, who was from Nepal.
- Hector's dolphins, the world's smallest dolphins, are found only in the coastal waters of New Zealand.
Land and Climate
New Zealand's islands have some of the most amazing scenery in the world—huge mountains, rolling green hills, giant waterfalls and glaciers, and narrow sea-filled canyons called fjords. You can also see geysers exploding with hot steam and volcanoes blasting hot lava and ash into the air. New Zealand's climate is generally mild. In the winter, average temperatures rarely go below 40°F (4°C). Summer highs average about 73°F (23°C). Because New Zealand is on the southern side of the equator, it has seasons opposite from North America. Summer is from December to March and winter is from June to September!
Games and Sports
Rugby is the most popular sport in New Zealand. It is similar to American football, but players don't wear helmets or pads. The national team, the All Blacks (named for their black jerseys), is one of the best teams in the world. New Zealanders also like to play soccer and cricket, a game like baseball with a flat-surfaced bat. Another well-known sport is netball, which is like basketball but there is no dribbling. Because New Zealand is so beautiful, people spend a lot of time outside hiking, biking, sailing, swimming, and skiing.
Maori Culture
The Maori people are proud of their traditions. When two Maori greet, they close their eyes and rub noses. This is called a hongi. Maori men sometimes perform a fierce warrior dance, or haka, in which they stamp their feet, swing clubs, and stick out their tongues. Women perform a slower dance in which they swing poi balls on cords around their heads. Performers wear beautiful costumes and paint their faces with a moko. In the past, the moko was an elaborate tattoo that decorated the whole face of a man and the chin of a woman. Today, Maori usually just paint their faces with a temporary moko instead of getting a painful tattoo.
To find out more about CultureGrams, connect to our website today.
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TOP 3 WEBSITES
Each month, our SKS WebSelect™ and 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.
The Science of Cooking
Organization: The Exploratorium
The Science of Cooking provides recipes and activities on the science behind food and cooking. On this site, users can explore a spice map of the world, discover how a cucumber becomes a pickle, find out what happens to meat when cooked, learn about sucrose molecules, take a microscopic tour of bread and study how to make a naked egg. The Flash plug-in is required for certain interactive parts of this site.
It All Adds Up
Organization: National Council on Economic Education
"Welcome to It All Adds Up, a site for teens who want to get a head start on their financial future. Play online games and simulations to learn about credit management, buying a car, paying for college, budgeting, saving and investing. Click one of the images...to get started." (NATIONAL COUNCIL ON ECONOMIC EDUCATION) Learn about personal finance in these five modules: Getting and Using a Credit Card, Buying a Car, Budget Odyssey, Saving and Investing Blitz, and You're Going to College.
The Insurgency: Iraq
Organization: Frontline, Public Broadcasting Service
"Kidnappings. Suicide bombers. Beheadings. Roadside bombs. The Iraqi insurgency continues to challenge the most highly trained and best-equipped military in the world. FRONTLINE peels back the layers and gets beyond the propaganda to take a complex look inside the multi-faceted insurgency in Iraq." (PBS) On the companion site, consider if the insurgency can be defeated, read interviews with U.S. military commanders and journalists, find a timeline of attacks, and view a map of Iraq's ethnic and religious makeup.
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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 a course!
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 your SIRS subscription do you and your students find the most useful? Have you recently used or are you planning to use SIRS 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
Your SIRS license agreement gives us permission to send you email about product upgrades, special offers, and new services. If you'd like to discontinue receiving these messages, you may unsubscribe. If you have any questions or are having difficulty, please send email to Tim McLain. Thanks for your interest in SIRS and ProQuest!
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