Resources: New & Not So New

The New York Times in the First Year site is going to be closed in January, and replaced with The New York Times in Education. You’ll need to set up a new account for this site.  Here is a link to a libguide with very basic information about our New York Times subscription. Look for the Special Features for Education box, then find the link to sign up for access to the New York Times in Education.  

I had the opportunity to work with a teacher from the Charlotte Engineering Early College today -- she brought her students over to the library to do research. When I was planning the class, I conducted several database searches on the topic she gave me (nuclear energy) and found tons and tons of resources through the library website, but I was concerned that the students would have a difficult time reading the academic articles I found. Instead of relying on our resources alone, I looked to NCLive.org for articles that are more geared towards high school students. After the class, one of the teachers came up to talk to me about NCLive -- he had never heard of it! 

For those of you who don’t know, NCLive is a free resource provided to North Carolinians of all ages by the state of North Carolina. There are several databases on NCLive.org that are geared towards K12 students. InfoTrac Newsstand and SIRS Researcher are just two of the databases high school students can (and should) master.  

Take a moment to look at the resources available on NCLive.org. Don’t forget to encourage your pre-service and in-service teachers to use this free and excellent resource.  

Keeping up with the Institute of Education Sciences

Most of you are familiar with and probably use on a regular basis the information from the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), which is part of the US Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences (IES). You may not be as familiar with the other centers associated with IES - National Center for Education Research (NCER), National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance (NCEE), and National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER). Even if you are aware of these centers it can be difficult to keep up with their activities.


To help you stay abreast of what is being published by these centers IES has developed IES Newsflash. This is an e-mail-based alert service designed to inform you about all new content posted to the IES website including news from its four Centers and programs within Centers such as the Regional Educational Laboratory Program. Simply enter your e-mail address to receive alerts in the areas of interest you select.

Alerts from NCEE include updates from the What Works Clearinghouse, Regional Education Laboratory Program and ERIC. Recent evaluation postings included reports on intervention practices for elementary reading, the striving readers program for struggling adolescent readers, and implementation of recovery act reforms. You can even drill down to and only receive alerts from specific data products within NCES such as early childhood surveys or international comparisons. 

I realize this means more incoming mail to be sorted through, but you can set up a fold to receive these alerts and peruse them at your leisure. The alerts themselves are brief, providing only a quick summary and a link to the complete report. 

Sage Research Methods Videos & Tutorials

Yesterday, Judy sent an email to COE-L that detailed information about our trial of Sage Research Methods.  If you missed that email, I’ll repost it:

Here are the links:

Research Methods:  http://srmo.sagepub.com.

Cases: You will find access to the content at http://srmo.sagepub.com/cases  

Datasets: http://srmo.sagepub.com/datasets

The trial ends 12/4/15

Benefits and Features of SAGE Research Methods

• Over 200,000 pages of book, journal and reference content from leading SAGE authors are easily accessible online.
• The Methods Map visualizes relationships between methods terms.
• Your patrons can create Methods Lists that include selected book chapters and journal articles to share through the site with their students, co-authors, and colleagues.
• Over 800 books, encyclopedias, dictionaries, and  major works containing journal articles
• Complete Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences (the “Little Green Books”)
• Specially commissioned videos about research methods with some of SAGE’s top authors

Since I don’t know exactly what Sage Research Methods is or what it does, I looked for some video tutorials online.  

For an introduction to the database, click here.

For the Datasets overview, click here.

For a brief intro to Cases, click here.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, email me at amoor164@uncc.edu or Judy at jwalker@uncc.edu.

Plickers: Assessment without Clickers

Some of you have probably used the clicker technology available on campus. It can be very helpful in getting instant feedback and doing formative assessment. But what happens when not all your students have a clicker, or you are in an environment that doesn't have a reliable connection to the internet? There is of course Poll Everywhere but still it's dependent on students having a device of some kind and an internet connection. 

Wouldn't it be great to have a system that relied on only one device and could be use a wifi or cellular connection? That's exactly what Plickers is. It's a app available for iOS and Android devices that allows you to take clicker technology anywhere. All you need is a mobile device that can connect to wifi or has cellular capability and some old fashion flashcards. Actually the flashcards are a type of QR code the device reads with its camera. Here's how it works:

Here's what it looks like in action:

I love using this in workshops to get feedback about participants and peak their interest on a topic. It's really easy to use and very portable. Just remember that you use your mobile device to control what is seen on the screen if you are using one.

Try it, I think you will really like it.

The Learning Network

Now that you all have access to the New York Times, you also have access to The Learning Network: Teaching and Learning with the New York Times.  This blog is a tool for teachers that includes lesson plans, vocabulary, streaming videos, and up-to-date news articles to integrate into your classes in real time.  Check out this Skills & Strategies lesson on evaluating what is real and what is fake in the news.  Access to The Learning Network comes with access to the New York Times.  To find the blog, go to newyorktimes.com, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on Education.  There is a link to the Learning Network blog from the Education page.  

ERIC Update

Sorry about the delay in posting this week. It's been pretty chaotic in the library with the recarpeting and painting.

Most of you use the ERIC database via the EBSCO interface on a regular basis, which provides direct access to all of our journals. But are you aware of some of the major changes to the database content that have occurred in the past two years? The last reauthorization of ERIC updated its mission to concentrate on research related documents, which has lead to an updating of the list of journals. Some titles such are the Chronicle of Higher Education, Education Digest and Instructor are no longer being indexed because they do not include research based articles. 

ERIC has also raised the bar for ERIC documents with a new, more rigorous selection policy. They are currently asking for feedback on proposed changes to how they indicate peer reviewed for these documents. They are also working on how to incorporate grey literature such as Pew Reports and other 'think tank' reports into the database since they often include significant data. The submission process for those who have documents they wish to be included in the database has also been simplified. 

These changes do have an impact on the results you now receive when searching. ERIC is still the go to database for high quality, research based resources. However, if you or your students are looking for more practical, hands-on and/or news related articles, I suggest you go to Education Research Complete. 

Money Talks

Grants, Grants, and more Grants

Just last week I was doing some research on finding ways to fund a project I'm planning.  As we all know, funding, or the lack of funding, can be problematic for all teachers.  In this day & age, budgets are tight and focus is directed at training for technology integration and incorporating the Common Core State Standards into school curriculum.  It's common knowledge that teachers are encouraged to be creative in their classrooms, but unfortunately, creativity costs money.

Have you ever heard of Edutopia? It's a great resource for all things education -- the tag line reads, What Works in Education. Another interesting fact about Edutopia is that it is a George Lucas Educational Foundation. Yeah, that guy.  Anyway, I receive regular emails from Edutopia and last week they sent out a great article entitled The Big List of Educational Grants and Resources.  Some of the grant submission deadlines have passed, but some are still live and some have rolling submission which means you or your students have lots of time to submit a proposal.  Take a look at the list.  Sign up to receive emails from Edutopia.  It's win/win for you and for your students.