Spend some time exploring portals, search tools, and starting points. Create your own set of professional tools. Think of this as your electronic, professional library.
Locate a dozen of your favorite tools that can be bookmarked, stored in a Word document, or placed on your personal webpage for quick access. These may be entry pages to places like Library Spot or specific project pages such as Literature Ladders. You decide.
Share with your cohort group how you organized and stored your selections for easy access. Also, share your top three starting points.
| Starting Points and Portals | General Subject Directories and Thematic Starters |
Age Appropriate |
|---|---|---|
Discovery School from Discovery Channel (I have used this site for years to get ideas for various lessons, make puzzles and find brain teasers. There's a lot of depth to this site, and content is addded from time to time. ) |
Homework Center from Multnomah County Library (This site is information rich, and the Multnomah County Library is one that has been mentioned in other library science classes as a model for superior services. The pathfinders give you a way to browse as long as you have an idea what your subject is about.) |
K-3 Themes from Enchanted Learning (There are lots of printables. I think the clipart is a bit annoying, but you should be able to find what you're looking for. I like the craft ideas and holiday themed things.) |
Eduscapes (I have to include this site. Whenever I want to refer back to all I have learned in my online library science classes from Annette Lamb or Larry Johnson, this is the place to start. Plus there are ways to find helpful tools for librarians and teachers throughout the different class categories.) |
Surfing the Net with Kids (This site is cumbersome if you sign up for the newsletters (as I have in the past) because you get topics that you're not really looking for at the time. The web site itself gives you a directory to search through for a topic YOU are looking for. It's personable and deep in information.) |
Theme Pages from Gander Academy (This site has nice descriptions of each link. You can search by browsing the categories. At the time of my assignment, last update was January 2005. It's easy to load. It's not as comprehensive as some sites, but there may be something here that is unique.) |
Education World (This is a very information rich portal with changing content that is very applicable to the elementary school professional. There are printables, lesson plans, tips for technology integration, current issues and more! It's almost a bit TOO much information on one page, but there's information here for almost whatever you might be looking for.) |
Library Spot (This site provides links to reference materials, changing exhibits, to other libraries of different types and more. You can look for lesson plans, obituaries, genealogy, booklists, weird trivia questions... It just goes on and on.) |
Thematic Resources from Electric Teacher (I like that this site has an easy table format to view what is available quickly. There are many common elementary science and social studies topics listed. All the links are annotated as well.) |
E-Pals (I would really like to use this site someday. The idea of pen pals has crossed over the information highway so the world becomes so much smaller. When I've been on professional school librarian listserv's, they often talk about wanting to find differnet groups to communicate with from different regions of the US and the world. I would want to refer them to this site!) |
Library in the Sky (This site helps you find websites that supplement topics of study for teachers. The site is searchable and also has departments to browse through if you don't have the right wording. There's a "site of the week" and most of the sites have a description giving more information about what's there.) |
Grades 3-5 Themes (Although this site doesn't have as many annotated links, the amount of selected links for each topic is broad. The layout is visually appealing, and you can tell when pages were last updated. Topics are arranged alphabetically.) |
This page was created on January 9, 2006.
It was last updated on
January 9, 2006
.
Author: Emily Morris, School of Library and Information Sciences graduate student at IUPUI