Information at our Fingertips: Databases

We have learned this week that New York State provides our schools with excellent resources for teachers and students to use. The databases are available to us through our school library website at http://nvhslibrary.weebly.com

We chose to really focus on and dissect three of the five available databases this week: Ebsco, Grolier, and GaleInfotrac. The databases provide a wealth of information for teachers to pull from and are guaranteed credible, reliable, and current information. Each company hosting and supporting the information (Scholastic, Gale) are working hard to ensure their content is aligned with the new standards. All three databases allow students and teachers to read directly from the screen, print a copy, and/or listen aloud to the text selected. Students and teachers can create their own accounts through two of the databases where they can store their research materials and quickly go back to retrieve the resources at any point. In addition, here are more of the great aspects we found when searching through the databases for great informational texts:

• Each article that appeared provides a quick abstract for teachers and students to easily read through for main ideas/key words and subjects
• Each article provides a Lexile reading level which is crucial for us to ensure our students are being challenged as well as fitted with texts that will boost their confidence in reading. Although our school is more familiar with the language of Fontis and Pinnell, we have found a chart that compares the two different leveled readings to one another for teachers to use as a guide: http://weblink.scsd.us/~liblinks/Reading_Grade-Level_Comparison_Chart.pdf
• The databases provide varied resources related to the search topic: journal articles, magazine articles, pictures, videos, websites. This allows for information beyond the text to strengthen what has been read and to check for understanding.
  
• The articles provide links to additional resources from magazine, websites, etc. that are directly linked to the search term and are already checked for credibility.

Below, you can see some example from search results that include Lexile levels and also what's available for teachers and students once they access the article(s):




We presented this information to our Social Studies department during our Superintendent's conference day Friday, March 16th. They were extremely enthusiastic learning about the information they have access to and were anxious to get started in picking out materials they could use from the databases for close reads.

We also presented to our Middle School faculty during their meeting time on Wednesday, March 21. We created a site for them to go to where they could easily access the databases that are relevant to their grade levels. The site can be found at: http://nvmschool.weebly.com Many expressed that their frustrations with the common core included not knowing where to begin to find great informational texts.. The website was very well received and the teachers were appreciative of the space they could go to and search for informational text to use for close reads. Many teachers shared examples of what they could use and how they could see a place for the databases in their classes.