I created an online reference bibliography using databases and pathfinders that can be used by teachers and students as well as parents. Element 1.1 of AASL states that Library Media Specialists must be “knowledgeable of learning styles, stages of human growth and development, cultural influences on learning” with an online reference bibliography students and teachers will be able to use this to effectively teach to students’ diverse learning styles. I included resources for primary grade to high school students to effectively conduct a research assignment.
Completing this assignment opened my classroom teacher eyes to what kind of technology and information teachers and students have available to them in their schools. Before compiling and studying the databases for this bibliography, I really did not know the extent as to what kind of databases we have available or how useful they would be for our teachers and students. Upon completing this assignment and navigating through them on my own, I found that I had been missing this all along. These databases are what my students need to be learning to effectively conduct research. I think this bibliography could be distributed to teachers through email or a shared file on their computers as a reference document for planning purposes.
The Internet can be a great resource, but with that comes the importance to protect our students while they are perusing online sites for information. I understand that a librarian cannot do all of the instruction on safety standards, but that means there still has to be an in-service or some training for teachers to teach our students about the safeguards our schools try to place within the technology standards. By teaching our students to use databases this helps to avoid any unwanted or questionable material that may be found when using a commercial search engine. For the younger grades there are quite a few search engines that help with keeping our students safe like, Yippy, Mamma, Yahoo!Kids, Fact Monster. These are some of the search and metasearch engines that organize information in a kid-friendly manner by only brining up what the student search for and takes away many of the pop-up advertisements, making the searches more streamlined. For middle to high school students searching databases like Ebscoe and Student Research Center.
It is evident that building an online reference library will take a lot of research of my own to find the right databases for my students, as well as determining the best information literacy model, but in my search for the right ones, I hope to follow my county’s guidelines and MSDE’s criterion. I feel that the strengths of this assignment were the variety of sources I was able to find that were focused for a specific age group or ability level. In my research it became clear to me that there is a database or resource for just about any student or teacher. In the future, I will certainly communicate this resource to classroom teachers, students, and parents. Using resources like these and sharing them with teachers will become a valuable source for all.