Lesson 4b Additional Education Databases

Discovery Exercises:

1)  I did a search for Technology Education and Alaska in the Teacher Reference Center and returned 46 results.  When limited to full text and published after 2008 I only returned 7.

APA

(American Psychological Assoc.)

References

Skelton, S. (2004). Thriving in Rural Alaska. English Journal, 93(6), 76-81.

2)  Searching ERIC returned 297 results and when limited it returned only 10.  The title that I found without a PDF or HTML was  STEM: Science Technology Engineering Mathematics. State-level Analysis-you can only view full text online.

3)  Searching Professional Development returned 57 results and when limited returned 9 and yes many of the titles were familiar and they did overlap. 

4)  When searching all the databases together I returned 384 results and when limited there was a total of 18.  The value of searching just one database will narrow your results down depending on which direction you are leaning.  If you want more from the professional development standpoint then it makes more sense to use the Professional Development website to narrow your search in that direction.

Lesson 4a

The Time that this is available to me is not a good time for me to be working on this class so I will have to get back to lesson 4a so on to 4b.

Lesson 3 NoveList

We found out that while we were trying to access the NoveList site, the Ebsco site was actually down. It really wasn't operator error, although some of it may have been :o).  NoveList is something that I started using a long time ago as a library assistant to help student to find other books in a series or even just to help me to find other books that might fit on our library shelves so I am quite familiar with these databases.

Discovery Exercises:

1)  I think these searches are fairly accurate. They give you an idea of what or where to look next for your next exciting read.  I also think that the series recommendations are very useful when a student comes in and wants the next book in the series and you need the title to look it up.  Telling us that they want "book 2" doesn't really tell us anything :o).

2)  My folder is now full of books for me to read over the summer :o).

3)  Once again here is where the series order comes in handy for our students when they are reading the series and need the next book.

4)   I think that the author Read-Alikes are the most useful for our patrons and also the Book Discussion Guides are helpful to our teachers who are doing read alouds in the classroom.

I read the article 7 Book Recommendation Websites and there are only a couple that I can recommend because I hadn't heard of most of them.  Of course I would recommend Which Book Should I Read Next.  This is a website that I frequently used in the past with students when they were stumped on what book to check out next after they had finished an amazing series or even just an awesome read.  I would also recommend the website Library Thing for someone who may want to organize a list of books that they have read or maybe even a list of what they may want to read.  It is also an amazing site for someone who may be very social and would like to talk to others online about the books that they have read and maybe can't get out to join bookclubs.

All in all this lesson was somewhat familiar territory for me and was nice to learn of some of the other databases and websites out there that we can show our patrons to look for new books and resources to read and use.  

Lesson 2 Genealogy Resources

1)  I have to admit that I have gotten very frustrated with the fact that I need to have a username and password wherever you try to go for information.  For example you cannot search the census database with a password.  In searching for my great grandpa on my mother's side I found out that he was born in Russia and obtained citizenship in 1907.  His parents were both born in Germany.  He was married but I cannot read her name and they had two daughters, my grandmother Anna and her sister , and 6 sons. He was employed as a farmer in Russia.  At the time of the 1920 census my grandmother was 16 yrs. old.  The first two children, my grandmother being the oldest, were born in Russia, the rest were born in South Dakota.  This is a 1920 census from South Dakota.

I did not realize that my grandmother was born in Russia. I thought that they had come to America before she was born and that she was born on the homestead in Tripp, South Dakota.

2).  There are not too many states to choose from. Over 99% of the 1890 population schedules were destroyed in a fire which took place in 1921.  Of the 62,979,766 people in 1890 a total of 6,160 names could be extracted from the surviving schedules.  16 states were lost in the fire.  To protect these files now they are backing them up on many diff disk and storage devices and storing them in diff locations in fireproof safes and ect...

3).  No official census was taken in Alaska until 1880.

4).  You could always download your information to a disk or thumbdrive as a PDF or TIFF file or if you have your own computer just save it in downloads as a PDF file to print out later when it is convenient.

5).  I did think that is was cool that I could add notes and things to my image after I had downloaded it. 

When trying to access the 2 articles I keep getting a blank screen.  I get to the syllabus/course page just fine a couple different ways but once there when I click on the link to an article all I get is blank/white screen.  Again, this is very frustrating for me.

To conclude this lesson I will say that I got totally caught up in trying to find my ancestors and didn't start on the homework for a couple of days.  I now know how some of my relatives are hooked on genealogy and finding more information about our past relatives.  It is really interesting.  I have never tried to get into a database or website to look up information like this before and it was eye-opening.  Hard to read at times but worth it. 

Lesson 1 Business Resources

Discovery Exercises

1) I found that the directions were a little misleading in how to get to the datamonitor report. Once there I clicked on the Company Profiles and was set to find my info.

Peter Klein became CFO in 2009 and before that he spent 13 years in Corporate Finance in Seattle primarily in Communications and the technology sectors including Medaw Dellular, Orca Bay Capital and several startups including Homegrocer.com where he was the vice president and treasurer.

2) Since we are in a Middle School Library setting most students are just going to go to the search bar and type handicrafts, not go to the database. That being said I did find some articles related to selling goods online.  The first one was State of the Market and I really had to read into this one to find that you could sell your work at web based galleries or online auctions such as ebay .  They could sell their work in person at galleries or local craft events.  If you change your source to books and search you will find chapters that relate to starting a crafts business.  Chapter 17: 199 Internet based businesses you can start with less than one thousand dollars.  We didn't think that the last part to this question really related to the middle school setting. We don't necessarily work with small business owners.

3) I found that using the browse by category was much easier and intuitive.  I chose the Business area category and then Industry Info and Small Business Type.  This category would be most helpful to us because of our SBPC Class here at our school.  When looking at the popular resources for books I found that Legal forms and Patent, copyright and trademark might be helpful to us as a middle school library.

4) The law requires that the landlord or his agent must: give the tenant a copy of any written rental agreement, abide by the lawful terms of the agreement, keep the tenant informed of any change in the landlord’s or his agent’s address, make sure the premises are ready for the tenant when the rental agreement takes effect, ensure that the tenant’s enjoyment of the premises is not disturbed, maintain a fit premises, give adequate notice of a rent increase, give the required notice before demanding that a tenant move out and return the tenant’s security deposit and/or prepaid rent when the tenant moves out, and/or give a complete written accounting of money held for accrued rent, damages and the cost of repair within the time limit required by law.

Two examples of fraud or scams that I've heard a lot about are Fake check scams and Investment Scams.  The consumer resource link lists many places that you can file a consumer report, including the FTC and the BBB. The Consumer Complaint link takes you directly to a form to file a complaint.

5) In the municipality of Anchorage there are 64,427 female workers. I live in Eagle River and would have liked to have the option to chose that area but I guess we are lumped in with Anchorage.  Our top employer would be none other than my very own, Anchorage School District.

6) The stages are as follows: Think, Launch, Grow, Reinvent, and Exit. Under the tools tab at the top is your checklist for starting a small business.

7) First publication was Rural Broadband: Opportunities for Alaska and second is Broadband Policies for the North: A Comparative Analysis.  Yes small scale modular nuclear power has been considered as an option.  This research is not really relevant to the middle school student but possibly for the HS student during certain research.

8) If we are thinking about this question in the school setting for students not really, but, if we are thinking about the teachers using it personally then maybe.  Definitely would be helpful for the community members.

Good Afternoon Everyone,
Please hang in there with me as this is my first blog.  I am excited and nervous at the same time to be taking on this new adventure.  I think it will prove to be fun and rewarding, and an awesome learning experience.  I am taking the class Introduction to Alaska digital resources with my co-worker and we sat down this afternoon to get started on Week 1.  I'm hoping that it will introduce me to new resources and materials so that I can better help our students find their way around their research papers and anything else they may need from us.  Well, here we go...