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More INFOhio Resources - Part 2
Let’s look at some additional INFOhio resources that students and parents can access from home to help with school assignments and for researching topics of personal interest. As you may remember from the last news item we posted about resources, you can access the resources of the Information Network For Ohio Schools at
www.infohio.org. Passwords are available from your school librarian. Remember, your tax dollars provided the funding for these resources, so you may as well take advantage of all they have to offer.
As you look at the list of resources behind each of the grade level buttons or the complete list behind the CORE button, you’ll see that several resources are subject specific. These subscription databases have print counterparts that have been purchased by libraries for years as part of a basic reference collection. Many school libraries have never been able to afford these products in print, so being able to access them electronically is a real bonus for our collections.
When using online resources, you’ll often see links that allow you to e-mail an article or print the information. Don’t forget to look for tutorials, also, since those often point out timesaving tips or aspects that might otherwise be missed. Look for links that tell you how to properly cite the electronic resources when creating bibliographies.
Biography Reference Bank contains articles about more
than a half-million people, most in full text, from around the world, both
living and dead. Biography
Reference Bank aims to
satisfy every inquiry—whether with one of
Wilson’s original in-depth profiles, a licensed profile from another respected
source, articles from today’s leading
magazines and journals, or all three! Biography
Reference Bank is the perfect
resource for complete, well-rounded and
up-to-date biographical research.
A tremendous resource for elementary and middle school students is the SIRS Discoverer product. Students will find magazine articles, maps, country facts, photos, web sites, biographies, a dictionary, thesaurus, encyclopedia and almanac articles. Best of all, each entry is identified as being of an easy, moderate or challenging reading level. There’s something for everyone. Unlike many databases that include magazine articles, SIRS Discoverer selects the articles that it contains instead of simply taking all the articles from specific magazines. For instance, an age-inappropriate article in Time would not be included, but an age appropriate one would. Our students love the photo gallery in this resource and we highly recommend SIRS Discoverer when you are looking for a picture for a report or project.
Remember, you can always get to the district online resources and the resources offered through INFOhio through Your Virtual IMC portal at
http://genoaschools.net/Staff/pscline/HS%20Online%20Resources%20Page.htm.
Look for the INFOhio icon in the upper left-hand corner of the page. Or you can go directly to
www.infohio.org and click on the CORE RESOURCES button to access those mentioned above and many more that will be highlighted in the weeks to come. Students are given bookmarks with the address and password on it for the INFOhio resources. We are not allowed to give passwords out over the web, so please request passwords from your building librarian. If you want to teach yourself how to effectively use these resources, look for help menus or tutorials within the products. For an overview of INFOhio, check out the video at
www.infohio.org/Parent/OutreachKit/Video2005.html.
It’s short but gives you the big picture. You’ll find other valuable information for parents by clicking on the Parents link at the top.
Also, please feel free to use me, Paula Cline, as a resource to learn about any of our district or state online resources. You can contact me at 855-7735, ext. 13 and if you are by your computer with a question about the resources, I might be able to walk you through the answer. Or, you can e-mail me at
pscline@genoaschools.com.