SIRS Discoverer

When I teach the use of the online databases to our middle school students, I find myself often telling them that SIRS Discoverer is my favorite online database!  I think it is an attractive and easy to use database for the students.  I like the little summary that comes up for each of the hits in the results list.  This is so helpful to the students because they can quickly read to find out if the article might be helpful in their research.  Of course, you can immediately see which articles have pictures and what type of informational source it is by using the tabs at the top of the screen.  I usually introduce the tabs to my students by asking how many magazines articles come up when they do a search.  They love being the first one to discover the tabs and tell how many magazine articles were found in their search.  I find that the lexile levels are really not helpful to the students, so I teach them to look at the green, blue and red book icons that indicate the reading levels of the articles.  I also teach them to use the Descriptors to give them added key word searches for more information.

The "Country Facts" and "Maps of the World" are great features that I could use more with our 7th grade social studies classes.  I didn't realize that teacher resources came up when you did a search for a country in the "Country Facts" feature.  I must share this with my teachers!

I was excited to see the "Science Fair Explorer" feature because all of our 7th and 8th graders are expected to do a science project every year.  I like the way this feature is set up, but the few experiments that I looked at were way too easy to be considered acceptable by our science teachers which was disappointing.

In SIRS Issues Researcher I looked at the topic, Cell Phones in Schools.  I am very impressed by the setup of this database.  I like the Pro/Con, Perspectives, and the Critical Thinking and Analysis features.  They truly provide the information the student need, but also guides them through the debate process.  The Additional Resources are great features to help guide the students through the whole process of gathering information and delivering their debate topics.

Under the "Curriculum Pathfinders" I chose Medical Science under the Science tab.  The information that comes up is very broad.  You can narrow your results by the type of resource or the type of medical science.  I will have to play with this feature a little more to decide if this feature would be that helpful to our students and teachers.