Thing #17 Research and Reference Tools

Writing a research report is one of our third grade GLCE's and finding suitable sites to use has been a chore throughout the years.  My partner teacher sent me to Kid InfoBits last year and it has certainly filled a major void in materials that are valid and appropriate for the younger elementary school student.  I chose to compare Kid InfoBits and E Library Elementary.
Both sites had an elementary feel to them and were relatively user friendly, but Kid InfoBits  was a hands down favorite.  I chose to search "manatees".  Both offered articles and pictures and E Library offered a video of a manatee that was famous for moving up north every year.  The trouble with E Library was, I had to go to the 22nd hit to find even an article that was as low as 7th grade readability.  Most of my little guys wouldn't be still on task if they had to look through that many citations.  What I like about Kids InfoBits, is that the information starts with the easiest to read and has a legend that shows which articles are easy and which are difficult.   The listen function is also clearly present on the page, so if the child is unable to read the selection, they can easily have it read to them.  Also, E Library didn't have a lot of introductory basic information about what a manatee is.  Most of the articles were geared toward 10th through 12th grade.  Here is a screenshot of Kids InfoBits:

 and one of eLibrary:

The second part of the assignment asked us to analyze one of the other databases on MEL.  I chose to take a look at the General One File.  I looked up information on teaching money skills to elementary school children.  The search produced entries from 163 magazines, 56 educational journals, 1 book, 326 news articles and 7 multimedia offerings.  I perused a few of the articles--I had to sort out those that weren't aimed toward elementary school kids--and found them fairly interesting.  I watched one of the news casted interviews with a teacher advocating for starting teaching money skills to preschoolers and giving several examples of activities that families could engage in toward the goal of giving their kids money sense.  I found there to be a huge amount of resources available, but they tended to be more in the realm of theory rather than practical applications.  As for their appropriateness --well, I could see myself using the materials I found in newletters or on my blog to communicate with and educate parents in ways that they might assist their child's learning at home.  As for content--well, many of my searches prior to "teaching money" were fruitless and once again, I found this to be extremely frustrating.  I attempted to look for something on the Holocaust and several other content areas and came up empty handed.  Reliability isn't an issue since this is all part of MEL, which has already been researched for reliability. 

Here's a screenshot of the General One File database:

The third portion of the assignment is to use the MEL citation maker to cite the website of an article I researched.  Here is the article:

and here is the citation, including the website information: 

 Bohi, Heidi. "Teaching children money skills: start early with savings accounts." Alaska Business Monthly 26.4 (April 2010): 134(4). General OneFile. Gale. Library of Michigan. 5 Dec. 2010
http://find.galegroup.com/gtx/start.do?prodId=ITOF&userGroupName=lom_accessmich

The next part of the assignment was to use one of the other citation makers to make a citation of a book or magazine article.  I chose to use Landmark's Son of Citation Machine.  Here's the screenshot:

And here is the citation: 

And here is the citation:  Polacco,Patricia. Meteor!. New York, NY: Putnam Penguin Books for Young Readers, 1996.

 Polacco, P. (1994). Pink and say. New York, N.Y.: Philomel Books.