Enclosed is this month's free newsletter for SIRS Discoverer® and SIRS® Discoverer WebFind subscribers. This newsletter is designed to help teachers, librarians, and administrators stay informed about the latest changes to their subscription(s), while providing classroom resources and giving tips for using their ProQuest solutions in a variety of settings.
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.
Discoverer Online Training Modules
Have 20-30 minutes to spare? Interested in learning more about your SIRS subscriptions, integrating content into your classroom or library, or just honing your searching skills?
Our full-sized, Flash-produced multimedia training modules make it easy to brush up on every aspect of our tools at your own pace. And best of all, our trainers spent the summer updating more than 90% of our modules to match new interfaces, content, user flows, and more.
Tap into our rich collection of free online training modules at our K-12 website today. (We also recently posted a revised version of our Discoverer Overview Powerpoint demonstration.) You’ll be glad you did!
Free Podcast Training via iTunes
Don’t miss this month’s SIRS podcast, focusing on our political cartoons feature! (Examples of these offerings appear below as well.)
As you know, we offer robust, Flash-authored training files for all of our K-12 solutions.
Beginning this year, we're proud to roll out a series of monthly video podcasts, along with smaller versions of our larger training files – all playable via iTunes.
Don’t miss our recently updated Maps of the World feature. More than 3,000 detailed, printable maps are available as an online reference almanac. The maps include all 50 United States, the provinces and territories of Canada, as well as nations and regions of the world including Europe, Persian Gulf, Czech Republic, the Baltics, and Times Zones of the World. It also includes U.S. Historical, World Historical and Outline Maps.
Political Cartoons in Discoverer
Did you know that Discoverer now offers political cartoons geared for the younger researcher, from noteworthy sources including Junior Scholastic, Scholastic News, New York Times Upfront and Current Events?
Students can learn how to read and decipher political cartoons, as well as understand the writing devices employed in them (satire, irony, metaphor, etc.). In a hurry? The quickest route to all of our political cartoons is Database Features, Activities, Editorial Cartoons.
Here’s just a few timely examples to get you started:
Travel -- with Discoverer! We provide map activities geared for the younger researcher, from noteworthy sources including Scholastic News, Junior Scholastic, and Current Events.
With these new resources, your young students will learn how to read and decipher varied types of maps, and answer discussion questions based on their observations. Visit a sampling of the following articles to learn more:
Our editorial team updates our SIRS products 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.
Tens of thousands of students mine SIRS resources for the latest information on the leading issues of the day. To help maximize their research time, our Suggested Research Topics feature offers instant access to relevant articles and resources on many of the most popular research subjects.
Here's this month's list of hot topics and timely issues in Discoverer:
September is Childhood Cancer Month. Building awareness of this disease and other diseases that affect children is an appropriate research activity for your students because they may be experiencing these diseases themselves, have classmates with these conditions, or have a relative who’s affected. This research activity may also help build risk awareness that may aid in the prevention of some of these diseases.
Activity: Click the Health & Human Body Browse Subject Tree icon. There are 3 Topics/subtopics listed on childhood diseases: Cancer, Child Development, and Kids Speak Out.
Students should be able to answer the following questions (or others provided by the teacher) as part of their reports:
What is the cause of this disease?
What is the current treatment for it?
What is a possible cure or prevention strategy?
Teachers should assign a variety of subtopics that include types of childhood cancers and other diseases that affect children. Two-minute oral reports are an excellent way for students to learn from each other’s research and also to build essential writing and presentation skills that are included in state standards in the English Language Arts.
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 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.
Country:
Morocco
Did You Know?
The movies Lawrence of Arabia, The Mummy, and Black Hawk Down were all filmed in Morocco.
Saffron crocuses (a kind of flower that grows in Morocco) supply saffron, the most expensive spice in the world.
Morocco was the first country to recognize the United States as a country.
Pirates!
The pirates off the coast of northern Africa (called the Barbary Coast because of the Berbers) were so powerful it took the navies of many countries to defeat them. During the 17th century, Morocco was a headquarters for pirates who captured ships and sailors or else demanded a tax from anyone going by. Even the young United States had to pay them $10,000 a year to let their ships go by. These pirates remained a menace until the mid-1800s.
Schools
Moroccan children typically study from eight in the morning until noon. They walk home for lunch and then return to school to study from two until five. Moroccan children go to both private and public schools; private schools are often taught in French. Each public school has its own color of uniform. Girls often wear a tablier (which looks like a lab coat) over their clothes.
Many classes have 30 to 40 students. Kids study Arabic and French in elementary schools and then add English, Spanish, or German as they get older. They also have art and gym classes, but must pay for private lessons if they want to study music or learn how to play an instrument. All students study Islam, the main religion.
Elementary school kids have about an hour of homework per day; older kids have two hours’ worth. Many poor families cannot send their kids to school. Almost half of the population cannot read or write.
Getting Around
In Morocco, most people walk or ride bicycles, while others use buses, taxis, or cars to get around. Trucks transport heavy materials, but many Moroccans use horse-, mule-, and donkey-driven carts to move food or goods. On the south side of the Atlas Mountains, where the Sahara desert begins, camels are vital. They may be grumpy, but they can go places cars can’t, and they don’t run out of gas very often! Their wide feet are good in sand and their milk is good to drink.
To find out more about CultureGrams, connect to our website today.
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.
"Achoo! Every time you go near your best friend's cat, your eyes water and you start sneezing up a storm. And every spring and fall, your dad gets a runny nose when he takes you for hikes in the woods. What's going on? Well, you and your dad may have allergies." (NEMOURS FOUNDATION)
"Earthquakes are among the most destructive natural events. Use this animated guide to see how they happen." (BBC)
Brain Geography
Organization: Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)
"What about your brain? It's with you everyday. It regulates your breathing, tells your feet when to walk or run, and allows you to be happy and sad. But where exactly inside your head does all that stuff happen? With a little help from your hands, a friend, a small ball, and a pencil, you can become your own brain geographer, and find out." (PBS) Click on the link to "brain geography" to learn the structure of the brain, using your hands as a model.
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.
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.
FORWARD TO A COLLEAGUE + EMAIL SERVICE INFORMATION
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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.
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!
Did you know that Discoverer now offers political cartoons geared for the younger researcher, from noteworthy sources including Junior Scholastic, Scholastic News, New York Times Upfront and Current Events?
Travel -- with Discoverer! We provide map activities geared for the younger researcher, from noteworthy sources including Scholastic News, Junior Scholastic, and Current Events.
Our editorial team updates our SIRS products every day with new articles and resources.
Country:
