Geneology Week 7

Discovery Exercise:

Create a blog posting discussing the following questions and other observations you have about Ancestry Library, Heritage Quest and Sanborn Maps. All resources can be accessed via this alphabetical list.

1. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to be dead to be listed in Ancestry Library and can frequently find useful information in the U.S. Phone and Address Directories, 1993-2002. You may even find your marriage license. Search for your own name in Ancestry Library and report the results.

2.  In Ancestry Library, search for a grandparent or great-grandparent and see if you can locate them in the census.  Report your findings.

3.  In Ancestry Library, perform a search under the “Photos and Maps” tab for “Maine” as the keyword.  Report your findings.

I listened to the tutorials and found myself a little bit disappointed yet excited. I am a school teacher and do not have a local library open on a regular basis. So listening to the tutorials was very informative. It seems very intuitive to use Ancestry Library and I wish we had at our school library. My son in adopted and I have limited knowledge of his birthparents. I wold use this to search for him any information I could find. Ours is an open adoption in as much as it is agreed upon to allow him to search out his birthparents should he want to. I know names and location of birth and birthdates. It would enlighten him to have access to this more indepth database. I just may look into this option for him.

I know quite a bit about my own family tree and could verify much of the information. My sister compiled a scrapbook of family information for us one Christmas. I'd like to further investigate with possibly some updated information.

Learning Express to the Top!

1.  Set-up an account in LearningExpress and browse through the available exams.

Done: same login and passwords as MARVEL! 

2.  Choose one and answer a few questions. Then click "Score my test" in the top toolbar. Ignore the warnings and continue to have your test scored, so that you can see how the diagnostic page looks. Then click "View Answers" at the bottom of the page. What did you think about this test experience?

For pride's sake I took the Reading Practice Test 1 yet didn't spare my pride. I answered 8 questions and got 6 correct. Upon review, I need more work! I hurried because I knew there was a time limit and remembered that my students just took a test in class that was on computer and I agonized for them as some struggled to focus on the computer to answer grade appropriate reading questions. I feel their pain. 

3.  Job searching and resume writing are among the self-paced courses in LearningExpress.  Click on the "Job Search and Workplace Skills" learning center and add one of the courses to your center.  Take a few minutes to explore the course and note your observations.

I initially chose a 'course' that included only an ebook to download. Fortunately, I found some grammar review that I can use in my classroom. My next choice was a course that was Business Writing Basics Course 1: Organizing your writing. I found this information useful to help me teach my students. You teach best what you've learned to do yourself. I plan to use these sources yet again to enhance my writing instruction even though it applies to business writing skills. Not sure it will be much different because the basic rules apply. Good refresher.

4. Type a search term in the search box in the upper left of the home page for a skills improvement or career topic in which you are interested. Notice that results are sorted by tests, courses and eBooks (if all of those are available for your chosen topic). Please select an eBook and look through its pages.

As previously stated I mistakenly chose a 'course' that had an ebook. I did infact browse and found a ton of grammar improvement to include a pretest and skills lessons I could use. Students always need to know grammar is useful and will always be there to be improved upon as needed.

OR

From the home page, bottom right, click the link for eBooks. The list will open in a new window. Browse the titles and take a look at one that interests you.

Health be to thee....

1. In Health Source – Consumer Edition, click on the Publications link at the top of the page and explore the types of magazines and journals indexed in the database.
There is virtually anything one would want to research in this database.. A-Z every age, gender, interest group or need is represented. I explored ADHD and adolescence since that is a population both at home and at work I am affected by. I especially liked the fact that I found an entire book I could reference easily. I read a few chapters and will go back to read again.2. Search for a disease or condition, such as diabetes. Sort your results by the most current publication date by clicking on the ‘Relevance Sort’ option.

Options available went 'all the way 'back to 1985. I would like to explore changes in medical research over time I wondered to myself what would I find about diabetes and women that has changed of the 27 years. For example what advice was given to pregnant moms in 1989 as compared to 2012? When I specified my search the number of results decreased tremendously making it a more manageable list to maneuver. Very useful.
3. Pick one of the articles you found and read through the full text. Was the article written in terms you could understand without consulting a medical dictionary?
I chose a journal article, which probably wasn't the best place to start. I had to enlarge the font, because it was no where near large enough to read. No, I could not understand most of the article. Then I revised my search to include pamphlets which I thought would be more for the general public and found nothing. May have been my search techniques, but concluded that it might be only for the scholarly and I hoped I would find it more useful when I were to actually need resources.

1. Go to Medline Plus 

2. Look at a few of the links on the main page. What’s in the news column on the right side? Indicate in your blog post what some of the top searches are as listed on the left side of the page

First of all, I couldn't find MedlinePlus on the alphabetical list.I had to return to the email to click on the link to find this link. Once here, very useful. The news on the right column are the latest findings of top articles for today's date on certain topics. For today the 25th topics such as kids and diabetes, soy rich diets may not help post menopausal, and teen smoking has fallen. These tops hit a wide variety of groups who may benefit from the latest information at first glance. Good topical information.

Top searches of the day (from the left column) are aspirin, cholera, diabetes and hypertension. They are the largest in size therefore I assume in this form these would be the most often searched of the day.

3. Click on tab “Drugs and Supplements” and search for a medication you take or you have seen ads about recently such as Prilosec or Cymbalta. Note the kind of information available.

I searched Pristiq and found that it says to see  Desvenlafaxine and I did. It gave an initial warning for those taking this drug. (Nothing I didn't already know.) There is a huge amount of information present that answers FAQ of someone taking or investigating this drug. I found it to be very informative and easy to understand. It is very similar to the inserts Rite Aid includes that I read the first time I filled my prescription. I wonder if things ever change and how I would be notified.

4. Click on “Health Topics” and search for the same disease or condition you looked at in Health Source. How does the information in MedlinePlus differ from that in Health Source?

This is a much better (user friendly) It is also available in Spanish easy to read? lol There is a limited amount of information, but much more usable.

5. Look at the list of videos available by clicking on “Videos and Cool Tools” tab. Pick one video and launch it so you have an idea of what a patron would experience. What did you think of the video?

I watched a video of a knee surgery and got a little queasy thinking this is what I am about to encounter myself. I hope my damage isn't as bad as the patient's but bad enough to have fixed. I'll check for these videos once I find out!

Business Resources? If you say so....

Business Source Complete:
"Available information on FM radio"
Trade publications, academic journals, magazines, product reviews, and newspapers
Searching through a visual search made it more difficult since no results were found? I don't know, maybe lets me go to another source.
EconLit:
There were only 8 sources found when I did a search for resources for small business owners. I would think there would be more. Maybe too vague a search. 6 were journal articles which might be beneficial. I chose 'financial resources available to small business owners' only returned 1 source. I also searched 'legal resourcs available to small business owners' which again found only 1 source. Disappointing should I be small business owner, which I'm not.
Regional Business News:
I searched the company my husband works for Sherwin-Williams and found 272 resources and since he is invested in the business I searched Sherwin WIlliams and stocks which in turn narrowed the 200+ down to 59 resources. I could narrow these down by most recent --2011 and 2012 which I found very useful. If a business person were interested in the progress of stocks with Sherwin williams by year then  it would be very beneficial. At least I could steer anyone to research options related to several regional companies. I am not that thrilled with the limited resources that came up for me. Maybe I'm not using the correct division of MARVEL EBSCOhost???
As far as a Maine company I tried The Bouchard Family Farm Buckwheat Ployes and found nothing. Then I searched LLBean and only found 6 resources from 2011 and 2012. I would have expected more results.
Value Line: It's all GREEK to me and due to lack of interest I am not a financial whiz nor intend to be in the future.
Wall Street Journal:
Again the search topic makes a huge difference. There were several suggestions which help me assess which options might be best for a small business owner. And yet again most of this is GREEK and of no interest to someone like me who has no use for such topics. No disrespect as I'm sure a public librarian would find this much more useful to his/her  clientele. Just not good for 8th graders. Thanks for this experience. I can definitely use this, but probably won't beyond the literature or research based portions of the database.

What a novel idea!

1. As an 8th grade teacher I found this an informative way to help my students who struggle to select a single book to say nothing about a series. I fill by classroom bookshelves with current top choices, yet I still have reluctant readers. I think this aspect of MARVEL has many opportunities for me to help those who have very little idea of what type book they might enjoy.

When I did a search on the Gone series, I did not find the 'view' nor 'sort by' options, so I cannot report on how this might help me assist my readers. I did search a non series topic. I have a student who ONLY enjoys outdoor survivor-ish novels. He's read everything I've suggested including all of the Gary Paulsen books. I was successful in finding 20 titles which I gave to our school librarian to use to search for title for him. I plan on using his recommendations of those he chooses to read to supplement my classroom library. This is a huge challenge for this age and interest level and MARVEL will help me with various choices.

2. tell us

how using this tool could make your job easier and promote better customer service in your library.

In finding a read-alike to the many authors my students choose has always been a challenge for me. This one resource will definitely solve that consternation when a student asks me for a book by the same author. I can go to MARVEL and find read-alikes based on author style which in fact may be just what my student liked about the book. They may be unaware of this attachment to his/her formerly favorite book. It doesn't always have to be the similar story line that has made the positive impact. Although looking myself through MARVEL may be helpful, this aspect of this database just might me develop a plan for instruction in my classroom so each one can find the best choice for themselves using this tool!

3. I've explored and have decided that I will use this tool to help weed out some of my books based on this tool's aspects. I never know if what I have is worth saving because now I only base it on whether I have had students read the titles. This way I can research the books I have and possibly be able to recommend more and throw away less. It will now be based on solid information I trust and may help me save money replacing books. Levels are also important for me. MARVEL lets me have access to lists used and developed by 'book people.' This I like.

4. Looking at what others have said and have found that some expound on the praises of this tool and others just list "just the facts ma'am". I look to the others' blogs for writing styles not so much content value. I found nothing from others that I did not find myself. I often hope to learn from my fellow bloggers so I will continue to investigate. All in all, my students will ultimately benefit from my recent learning tools and I hope it will also increase their love of reading!