Lesson 6

               When in the table of contents various important pages are shown such as cover, title page, etc. There are tabs for different subjects. I clicked lifestyle and social trends which gave me a chapter number and breakdown of the main topics in the chapter. The page number jumps you to the section that you select. The multi-volume one I selected was “novels for students”.  The table of contents lists the book title, author biography, plot summary, characters, themes, style, historical context, critical overview, and criticism. These are very good tools for teaching/ learning about a book. When on a book, the left side bar provides the user related subjects. It would be a good way to start a book report or an in-depth paper on a book.

                I searched for why is melatonin important for sleep, it didn’t bring up anything. I had to just search for the term melatonin. It brought up several articles about melatonin and several more where it is mentioned. I tried the listen feature, turned it way up on the box and on my computer, but nothing worked. I could tell that it highlights the text being played. The second term I searched for was insomnia. The search brought up articles about it, specifically, drugs associated, diseases, disorders, and medical conditions. The articles look good but again, the listen feature did not work. I could limit my search by document type, publication type and subject.

Lesson 5

My search for Langston Hughes brought up numerous results. To the right of the screen the options allow the user to narrow by full text, peer reviewed, source type (scholarly journals, magazines, trade journals and newspapers), publication title (for a specific publisher), document type, subject (related to searches like his poetry or literary criticism), classification, company/organization, location, person (people he is compared to), tags and other languages, databases and publication date.  In the publication date graph it is interesting to see the changing opinion over time and how many articles are published over time. There is a choice of citation/abstract, full text, PDF, images, title, author and highlights of some of the search terms in the article. The articles appear to be well written. I was impressed. Of course, there is the usual option to save for later tools for research, email, print, save and export.

I searched “library” and twenty-nine different publications popped up.  I selected “The Electronic Library,” selected year, issue and so on to get to an issue and eventually to a list of articles. I selected from 2014 and it only gave me an abstract for the article. The full text is unavailable for a year, which disappointed me. It does, however, make sense so the publisher can make money from the article. It was very easy to navigate.

Lesson 4

In SIRS Discover, I typed in otter and the results page pulled up many articles in a range of reading levels. The little colored book icon indicates the level. The icons next to the article might also include a camera for graphics, and an “a” for activities (ones that would be helpful in preparing a good lesson plan), the small apple if clicked on will display what subjects are discussed in the article. The “f” is for fiction and when I clicked on one, it brought up a cute story about what otters do in winter. The “p” is for people, and a PDF icon is for things in this format.  The “country facts” allow you to find a country by region or alphabetically. There is a breakdown of basic facts, capital, language and major historical events; the essential details about a country.

SIRS Issues Researcher provides a pro and con table with links to the articles, newspapers, magazines, references, graphics and multimedia sources, all have ways to narrow the search results. The research tools, topic overview, timeline, global impact, and stats all took me to a wider view of the subject. It went from antibiotic resistance to medical reform and other related topics.  The pro and con organizer lists- reason one and reason two along with supporting evidence which makes notes easier to organize. The “my analysis” tab links to resources that help one organize and write a paper or power point. It’s a good guide for students. The course subjects under “curriculum pathfinders” were pretty standard subject divisions; math, science, social studies etc.  I selected American Literature as my subject after flicking though the various subjects. The search brought up newspapers, magazines, government documents, references, and a graphics/ multimedia selection.  There was a summary of resource and the subjects discussed in the article, there were also links to other related subjects like culture in literature.

Lesson 3

The test wasn’t bad and the set up was okay.  I like how it showed you an explanation for the questions you got wrong, the topic and subtopic. I like the straightforward study plan with simple visuals for “more study is needed, practice and review your weak areas, more study is recommended,” etc. It broke down the topic that needed improvement. It seems easy to get around, uncomplicated, and self paced.  I explored the resume course and was impressed with the different lessons about resumes. It walked you through a resume, creating and formatting one, details of what should be in it, key words to include and the need for action words. If I want to beef up my resume in the future I would use this course. This section provided good information. The e-books looks like your average e-book, a good educational book, access to the educational books here would cost the library or person a good amount of money. It contains good educational books that I would recommend to others. I think it would be good for high school to adult and those wanting to improve their English or become a citizen.