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.