Check out the great visual for 40 years of ebook history.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
40 Years of E-books [Infographic]
Surprising that Project Gutenberg has digitized only 33,000 books.
Check out the great visual for 40 years of ebook history.
Check out the great visual for 40 years of ebook history.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Google Search screened by reading levels
I am currently teaching an ESL class and we were talking about using Google Advanced Search . One of the students showed me that a user can now sort results by reading level.
After a little more research, I found that "the breakdown isn't grade- or age-specific, but reflects the judgments of teachers as to overall level of difficulty. Roughly speaking, "Basic" is elementary level texts, while "Intermediate" is anything above that level up to technical and scholarly articles, a la the articles you'd find in Scholar."
Try this new option and see what you think -- it's exciting, especially the idea that a student brought the feature to our attention!
After a little more research, I found that "the breakdown isn't grade- or age-specific, but reflects the judgments of teachers as to overall level of difficulty. Roughly speaking, "Basic" is elementary level texts, while "Intermediate" is anything above that level up to technical and scholarly articles, a la the articles you'd find in Scholar."
Try this new option and see what you think -- it's exciting, especially the idea that a student brought the feature to our attention!
Friday, April 08, 2011
National Library Week and Gale
Gale, part of Cengage Learning, is celebrating National Library Week by offering free access to six highly-praised online resources for use by any library during National Library Week. Free access runs through National Library Week, from April 10 to April 24, 2010. Librarians can download the widget to their homepage by visiting www.gale.cengage.com/NLW starting on April 10. Gale is offering access to six resources:
Gale NewsVault – a specially designed online platform that enables cross-searching of Gale’s enormous range of historical newspaper and periodical collections from a single interface
Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive, Part I – a historical archive that embraces the scholarly study of slavery in a comprehensive, conceptual and global way
Science in Context: an online learning and research portal that covers everything from earth science and life science, to space, technology, mathematics and science history and biography
GREENR – an electronic resource offering authoritative reference content on the environment, energy, economic development and natural resources
Global Issues in Context – an online learning and research portal that offers global news and perspectives on issues and events of international importance
Powerspeak Languages – a world language learning product that uses the research-driven powerspeaK12 language learning methodology
Originally seen at Sue Polanka's blog: No Shelf Required - Thank you!
Thursday, April 07, 2011
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
Recent find: Classtools.net
Classtools.net was shared on Twitter today by Steve Anderson, posted on Michael Gorman's blog which highlights 20 free tools that require no login developed by educator, Russel Tarr, Head of History at the International School of Toulouse, France.
Two Tools that seem relevant to library research:
The tool I examined Keyword Checker - helps students to check their essays to see if they have used the most important key terms for a topic. Just PASTE a list of keywords/phrases into the box on the left; PASTE the essay in the box to the right; then click “check”. Students are given feedback that can be used to provide focus for further redrafting if necessary.
Source Analyser helps students to look critically at a source and reflect on how useful it is. Seems like a great way to think about how to write thoughtful annotated bibliographies.
What is exciting to me is how quickly these tools and ideas are spread through social media and how easily educators can't put them to the test right away.
Two Tools that seem relevant to library research:
The tool I examined Keyword Checker - helps students to check their essays to see if they have used the most important key terms for a topic. Just PASTE a list of keywords/phrases into the box on the left; PASTE the essay in the box to the right; then click “check”. Students are given feedback that can be used to provide focus for further redrafting if necessary.
Source Analyser helps students to look critically at a source and reflect on how useful it is. Seems like a great way to think about how to write thoughtful annotated bibliographies.
What is exciting to me is how quickly these tools and ideas are spread through social media and how easily educators can't put them to the test right away.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)