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Instructional Technology - International Education - Wellness

Tag: databases

Using Online Databases for Inquiry with Primary Students

October 19, 2014 / / 0 Comments

PG

Do you use the PebbleGo online database with your elementary students? PebbleGo supports UDL by highlighting words as they are read to the students. The entries are also media-rich so that students can further see and hear to learn about the topics. It provides a terrific way to start teaching research skills to young students who need more reading skills to gather information from text-based resources.

Students at my school are introduced to PebbleGo beginning in Kindergarten as part of our Information & Communication Literacies (ICL) curriculum. In Grade 1, we guide students to understand further how the information is organized. In Grade 2, they start taking notes using a provided organizer with guiding questions.

The following is a link to a short video of Doris Clingman, our assistant librarian, describing a lesson with students researching a PYP unit of study. She is working with Second Graders in our Spanish program.

Using Online Database for Inquiry

 

Databases in the Primary School- Lessons Learned

March 21, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Databases

Our ICL team (Sue Anderson, Doris Clingman, and myself) teach in our scheduled classes and “just in time,” teaching the value of students and teachers in using our online databases. One of our goals is to make our PS Library website, with its many databases, the go-to place for our student researchers as they pursue their inquiries.

We start our Kindergarten students with BrainPop Jr and BrainPop videos in Spanish and French. We introduce PebbleGo in Grade 1, followed by Britannica. Spanish and French databases come into play next, as well as the incredible Britannica ImageQuest. ImageQuest is essential as it provides an excellent alternative to sending students searching on the Web as the provided ImageQuest images are right-cleared, covering various topics.

Sue is currently supporting a Grade 3 unit of study on economics by introducing more sophisticated databases and using them to have students learn about supply and demand. She teaches ICL information literacy and analysis skills by having the students go into the provided databases to gather information on supply and demand. She gives students the handout inserted below as they do their exploration.

Sue shared important insight with me yesterday regarding another goal in teaching databases. She stressed how important it is for the students to move beyond basic literacy in using them. As part of our ICL curriculum, we push students to analyze information, media, visuals, and technology fluently. A part of this fluency is becoming so comfortable that one is willing to persevere and stay on task in a database search when the information is not easy to find.

Sue explained that the last thing we want is for students to have limited experience with databases so that they do not become adept at using them. With limited use and skill development, they are more apt to quickly drop a database search when faced with an obstacle and jump into a search engine. In other words, the faculty and parents have to be all in when teaching and supporting the use of databases in school and at home so that they truly become a part of our student’s personal learning systems.

How “all in” is your school’s community supporting your students to become skilled and dedicated database users?

__________________________

Database lesson

 

Your Library Web Site and Promotion of Your Subscriptions

November 13, 2013 / / 0 Comments

online resources

Is your library Web site your “go-to” place for student researchers? We constantly remind our students via our ICL lessons that there are better ways to find valid and helpful information than Google searches. Especially in elementary school, we want to provide our students with various online databases and resources that give them a safe place to learn how to find information. With schools spending so much on online subscriptions, finding ways to guide our students to use the databases makes total sense.

Thankfully we have an incredible librarian at the primary campus of Washington International School who manages a terrific library Web site and promotes the tools within the site. Sue Anderson, our librarian, keeps very busy with her staff managing a collection in four languages while teaching our Information and Communication Literacies (ICL) curriculum. Sue annually promotes the library site and the databases during one of our Wednesday faculty PD meetings.

This year Sue included the following in her learning session:

  • A few Web sites need Flash, so Sue had all the laptops on one of our carts updated with Flash telling teachers not to bring their laptops. The last thing anyone needed would be the disruption of teachers being unable to access Web site sections due to a lack of a plug-in.
  • A brief review of all the databases and some of their features. Sue provided a copy of her presentation in a handout that had space for teachers to take notes beside each presentation slide.
  • Sue provided plenty of time for teachers to explore the databases. She had them sit together by language to share ideas as they reviewed the tools.
  • The handout packet also listed the user names and passwords for all the online tools. Teachers also took time to fill out the exit survey to turn in at the end of the session. They were asked to put check marks for each of the tools they currently use and for the ones they plan to use more fully with their students.

Look to review the Primary School Library Web site. Do note that the language pages are under development. I am working with our language teachers to populate those pages with educational sites for our students.

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