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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.
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.
Educator's Resources
If you haven’t linked to our content-rich Educator’s Resources area, now is the time! To find this material, login to your subscription, then click Educator’s Resources in the top center of the main search page.
We recently rolled out numerous changes, updates, and fresh content, including our newest training modules, plus connections to free online classes with a live professional trainer.
We've even reorganized the resources to make finding the perfect tool even easier:
Information Literacy Training Materials
Contains our most popular links to guides on citing a source, copyright and fair use, and understanding about credibility when searching free websites. Additionally, overviews of each SIRS database are available in multiple formats (PDF, Flash, PowerPoint etc.) for different learning styles.
Educator's Guides
Contain lesson plans and instructor tools for finding SIRS resources correlated to State Standards, rubrics for Pro/Con research, and more!
Student Inquiry & Discovery Activities
Contain activities intended to promote critical thinking, which the student can use alone or in conjunction with existing lesson plans.
Free Podcast Training via iTunes
Don’t miss this month’s SIRS podcast, focusing on our political cartoons feature.
As you know, we offer robust, Flash-authored training files for all of our K-12 solutions. (Be sure to view many of our newly revised offerings!)
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.
Download your free copy of iTunes today, and subscribe to our free podcasts with a click of your mouse.
New Online Training Modules
Have 20-30 minutes to spare? Interested in learning more about your ProQuest subscriptions, integrating content into your classroom or library, or just honing your searching skills?
Our 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. You’ll be glad you did!
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.
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
- Gangs
- Teenage pregnancy
- Abortion
- Global warming
- Capital punishment
- Emigration and immigration
- Same-sex marriage
- Child abuse
- Eating disorders
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LESSON PLANS
September is National Hispanic Heritage Month. The Hispanic population of the U.S. is the largest and the fastest growing of all the minority populations. Most Hispanic Americans are immigrants from Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Central American countries. Unlike other immigrant groups of the past, Latinos continue to maintain their language and culture in America. This culture has had a significant influence on our music, art, food, and language. Spanish has become the most relevant world language taken in school by non-Hispanics.
Students need and will want to know more about the history of this popular culture because it affects many aspects of their lives. SIRS SKS Researcher/WebSelect provides excellent historical and other information about major ethnic groups of American citizens to help students explore their own ethnic identities as well as to celebrate National Hispanic Month.
Type “Hispanic Americans” in the Subject Headings Search box and click Search. You’llaccess a list of 26 Subject headings on a variety of topics that focus on Hispanic American life, culture, business, music, rights, etc. Each of these topics should provide enough information for a quality mini-research experience and a brief oral report. Oral reports are encouraged so students can learn from each other. They also provide an essential skills and standards-based learning experience for each student.
Reports should include answers to these questions as well as others that the teacher may provide:
- How well are Hispanic Americans assimilating into American lifestyles?
- What elements of Hispanic culture are most popular with Americans and why?
- What problems do Hispanics have in making adjustments to being American citizens?
- What are the barriers to equality for Hispanic Americans?
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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.
"So What?" is a unique SIRS Decades feature. This content is often found in Topic Essays, and helps students relate a historical topic to modern-day issues, encouraging critical thinking and the continued study of history with a “past meets the present” perspective.
Scientific research shows that students learn best when they can relate what they are learning in school with similar issues and problems in their current world. Without this teacher support tool, many lesson plans are focused on memorizing dates, people, and events of history that have limited interest and provide only temporary learning for most students.
Linking to the best of SIRS articles provides the “So What?” feature with engaging and relevant current information to make history come alive, resulting in more interest and an increase in permanent learning and understanding. Don’t miss out on over 100 “So What’s” available within SIRS Decades!
Here are links to several examples. To access the material, sign up for a free trial, login, and then click on each link:
The 1920s: Crime
The 1940s: World War II--Returning Soldiers
The 1960s: Civil Rights
The 1970s: Watergate--Break-In and Cover-Up
The 1990s: The Age of the Internet
Find out more about SIRS Decades at our K-12 website.
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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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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.
Country:
East Timor (New!)
- Capital: Dili
- Population: 947,000 (rank=156)
- Area, sq. mi.: 5,794 (rank=153)
- Area, sq. km.: 15,007
- Real GDP per capita: $400
- Adult literacy rate: 59%
- Infant mortality rate: 87 per 1,000 births
- Life expectancy: 55 (male); 57 (female)
Did You Know?
- After a long independence struggle, East Timor achieved nationhood in 2002.
- East Timorese families are generally large, with seven children on average.
- A prospective groom's family usually pays a bride-price of money, alcohol, and livestock to the bride's family.
- A major spectator activity is cockfighting, in which opposing roosters are agitated into fighting to the death.
Religion
About 90 percent of East Timorese practice Roman Catholicism. The remainder of the population consists of Protestants (5 percent), Muslims (3 percent), Buddhists, Hindus, and animists. East Timorese of all religions continue to perform animist ceremonies that honor their ancestors. In rural areas, members of a community pool a large portion of their assets to construct an uma-lulik, a traditional sacred house in which artifacts belonging to their ancestors are kept. When a person dies, family members hold a series of ceremonies to honor the deceased: the ai-funan moruk (held seven days after a funeral), ai-funan midar (held fourteen days after the funeral), and kore-metan (held on the first anniversary of the person's death, ending the mourning period).
Personal Appearance
Urban men and women generally wear Western-style clothing. For formal occasions, such as a church service, men wear pants and short-sleeved shirts; women wear blouses, skirts or dresses, and high-heeled shoes. Otherwise, people wear jeans and T-shirts. Ties are uncommon; a man usually wears a tie only on his wedding day. People in rural areas are more likely to wear traditional clothing. For men, this consists of a shirt with a lipa (a type of sarong). In some areas, men might also wear a cloth headwrap. Women wear a lipa and a kabaia, a long-sleeved blouse pinned together in the front.
Diet
Rice is the main staple in East Timor. Other staples are cassava, potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, yams, taro, sago, and breadfruit. Urban people might eat bread for breakfast, but cassava and sweet potatoes are common breakfast foods in rural areas. For lunch and dinner, a typical meal consists of rice with modo-fila (stir-fried vegetables) and salad. Another common dish is feijoada (also called koto-da'an), a soup made of red kidney beans. Rural people often eat batar-da'an (stewed sweet corn with vegetables).
Recreation
Cockfighting is a major spectator activity. Opposing roosters, each with a razor-sharp blade tied to one leg, are pushed against one another to agitate them into fighting to the death. Betting is a critical component of the event. The owner of the winning rooster receives his betting winnings as well as the body of the losing rooster. Cockfighting is considered a man's game, so women do not participate. Fighting roosters are beloved pets for many men, particularly the elderly.
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.
Digital Library of Appalachia
Organization: Digital Library of Appalachia (DLA)
"The Digital Library of Appalachia provides online access to archival and historical materials related to the culture of the southern and central Appalachian region. The contents of the DLA are drawn from special collections of Appalachian College Association member libraries." (DLA)
Beyond Intractability.org
Organization: Beyond Intractability.org
"What are Intractable Conflicts? Intractability refers to conflicts that seem to be stuck in an increasingly destructive spiral. Examples range from the Iraq War to a difficult divorce. These conflicts consume time, money and energy and at their worst, result in millions of deaths." (BEYOND INTRACTABILITY.ORG) Visitors to this site can learn constructive approaches to intractable conflict.
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
Organization: Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press does what its name implies: assists reporters in maintaining the freedom of the press. The site features story after story of government interference and what was done or should be done about it.
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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 SIRS 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 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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