ELM Interactives for Grades K-8

Welcome to our website full of fun online activities! ELM Interactives for Grades K-8 is designed to help young students develop and practice computer, online literacy and research skills. ELM Interactives for Students is a collection of instructional activities on the Electronic Library for Minnesota (ELM) databases created by librarians in the Reference Outreach and Instruction unit of Minitex utilizing the Student Interactives hosted on the ReadWriteThink site and provided by the International Reading Association, National Council of Teachers of English, and the Verizon Foundation's Thinkfinity. Each set of ELM instructional activities and Student Interactives are organized by activity and grade level and intended to be teacher initiated and guided. However, any of the activities can be modified to fit any grade, student, or assignment. The Student Interactives highlighted on this website require Flash and are best used on a desktop or laptop computer. These instructional activities can be viewed and used on-demand, whenever they're needed.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Diagram/Illustration, Homework/Assignment, Interactive, Lesson Plan, Teaching/Learning Strategy

Authors: Jennifer Hootman, Minitex Reference Outreach & Instruction

Mapping Your Research Ideas

This quick, interactive tutorial will help students develop a general topic or idea into a set of exploratory research questions, as well as giving them some next steps in the process of developing a research question. Make sure there is a blank sheet of paper and a pen or pencil handy, and let's get started!

Material Type: Interactive, Teaching/Learning Strategy

Author: UCLA Library

A World of Readers: Libraries Around the World

Bookworms will enjoy the bytes they find in this lesson as they research and share information about online library services in places around the world.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan

Mark Twain Project Online

Mark Twain Project Online applies innovative technology to more than four decades' worth of archival research by expert editors at the Mark Twain Project. It offers unfettered, intuitive access to reliable texts, accurate and exhaustive notes, and the most recently discovered letters and documents.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Diagram/Illustration, Interactive, Lesson Plan, Simulation

PLoS One

PLoS ONE will be a high-volume, efficient and economical system for the publication of peer-reviewed research in all areas of science and medicine. It will provide a unique forum for community dialogue using the full potential of the web to accelerate scientific progress.

Material Type: Reading

Internet Archive

The Internet Archive was founded to build an ‘Internet library,’ with the purpose of offering permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format. Founded in 1996 and located in the Presidio of San Francisco, the Archive has been receiving data donations from Alexa Internet and others. In late 1999, the organization started to grow to include more well-rounded collections. Now the Internet Archive includes texts, audio, moving images and software, as well as archived web pages in our collections.

Material Type: Diagram/Illustration, Primary Source

History Engine

The History Engine is an educational tool that gives students the opportunity to learn history by doing the work—researching, writing, and publishing—of an historian. The result is an ever-growing collection of historical articles or "episodes" that paint a wide-ranging portrait of life in the United States throughout its history, available in our online database to scholars, teachers, and the general public.The History Engine project aims to enhance historical education and research for teachers, students, and scholars alike. It allows undergraduate professors to introduce a more collaborative and creative approach to history into their classrooms, while maintaining rigorous academic standards. The History Engine gives students a more intimate experience with the process of history. Participants who work with the History Engine project learn the craft of an historian: they examine primary documents, place these documents in a larger historical context using secondary sources, and prepare cogent analysis of their sources for the public eye. Finally, the History Engine provides a way for professors to take advantage of digital technology in their classrooms while maintaining rigorous academic standards. The cumulative database provides all the easy-access and searchability of other websites, but also subjects its contents to a careful academic screening process on the part of library staff, archivists, professors, and teaching assistants.

Material Type: Diagram/Illustration, Lesson Plan, Primary Source, Teaching/Learning Strategy

Indomitable Spirits: Prohibition in the United States

December 2013 marks the 80th anniversary of the end of Prohibition, the period between 1920 – 1933 when the manufacture, transport and sale of intoxicating liquors was illegal in the United States. The 18th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1919, was the crowning achievement of a temperance movement that had been building in this country since the late 1700s. Alcohol consumption had peaked to a high of about 7 gallons per person in the early 1800s (compared to less than 3 gallons today), with recognized health and societal consequences. But the new laws were difficult to enforce, due to general unpopularity and the profits that could be made through circumventing the law. Demand for alcohol remained high, and organized crime and corruption flourished. Loopholes and exemptions also allowed home wine production, and prescriptions for medical alcohol rose dramatically. Enforcement difficulties, popular resistance, and economic pressures associated with the Great Depression all contributed to efforts to repeal Prohibition. In 1933, the 21st Amendment ended national prohibition and returned responsibility for alcohol regulation to the states. The Kentucky Digital Library and DPLA would like to thank the contributing institutions for providing the unique content and metadata featured in Indomitable Spirits: Prohibition in the United States. Texts, research, and compilation by University of Kentucky Libraries employees Sarah Dorpinghaus, Beth Kraemer, Kathryn Lybarger, Mary Molinaro, Judy Sackett, and Stacy Yelton. Repository and curation support provided by Tom Blake, Kate Boyd, Crystal Heis, Shelia McAlister, Sandra McIntyre, Danielle Pucci, Jason Roy, and Christopher Vinson.

Material Type: Diagram/Illustration, Primary Source, Unit of Study

A Science Fair Makeover in Your School Library!

School librarian Marcia Mardis describes what the library can offer to teachers and students who want to produce a focused, engaging, and effective science fair. This article appears in the free online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle, which explores the seven essential principles of the climate sciences for K-grade 5 classrooms.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Diagram/Illustration, Teaching/Learning Strategy

Author: National Science Foundation

Public Speaking

The purpose of this course is to systematically examine the elements and factors which result in an effective speech. Tying these together are the themes of information and ethics, emphasized in each resource because they are becoming increasingly important to all communicators. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to: resolve ethical issues involving speech preparation and presentation; recommend techniques for resolving issues, which may interfere with active listening; identify the most effective speech topics, qualities, content, and delivery techniques based on the specific characteristics of an audience; evaluate the effectiveness of speeches for different types of audiences; use online and library-based research to find and critique the credibility of sources of information; cite sources of information appropriately, accurately, and clearly in both spoken and written contexts; choose the most effective pattern of organization for presenting different types of information to a listening audience; evaluate the effectiveness of supporting details or evidence based on the main ideas or arguments they are used to support; choose the most appropriate pattern for organizing a persuasive speech, based on the relationship between arguments and evidence or the relationship between the topic and the audience; identify whether the functions of an introduction or conclusion have been fulfilled and will be effective when presented to a specific type of audience; create keyword and sentence outlines for informative and persuasive speeches; revise a passage written for readers so that it can be delivered effectively and engagingly to listeners; identify and use techniques to improve the fluidity and clarity of verbal delivery; recognize non-verbal techniques that communicate the speakerĺÎĺ_ĺĚĺ_s confidence and credibility in a sample speech; demonstrate comprehensive knowledge of effective, ethical public speaking by accurately and thoroughly assessing the qualities of entire informative, persuasive, and special occasion speeches. This free course may be completed online at any time. (Communication 101)

Material Type: Assessment, Full Course, Homework/Assignment, Lecture, Reading, Syllabus, Textbook

Adding Fractions with Unlike Denominators

This resource from the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives shows students how to rename fractions to have a common denominator and then add them. It is appealing because it visually engages the students by showing them what happens to a unit (a rectangle is used here) as the denominator increases or decreases. As the denominator increases or decreases, the partitions are shown accordingly, and the effect on the numerator is shown as well. This is a convenient, visual way to show students how to manipulate fractions for adding.

Material Type: Interactive, Teaching/Learning Strategy

Author: National Library of Virtual Manipulatives

"Istory" / "Foto Galatasaray" Interpretation Pack

This SALT Interpretation Pack has been designed as a resource for educators and students as they explore the themes of Hrair Sarkissian's "Istory" and Tayfun Serttaş's "Foto Galatasaray" exhibitions at SALT Beyoğlu and SALT Galata in Istanbul, Turkey. Designed for use in high school classrooms, its contents include activities, multimedia resources, terminology and opportunities for discussion. Educators are encouraged to adapt, shape and build upon these materials to best meet the needs of their students and teaching curricula. The "Foto Galatasaray" project is based on the re-visualization of the complete professional archive of Maryam Şahinyan (Sivas, 1911 – Istanbul, 1996), who worked as a photographer at her studio in Galatasaray, Beyoğlu from 1935-1985. The archive is a unique inventory of the demographic transformations occurring on the socio-cultural map of Istanbul after the declaration of the Republic and the historical period it witnessed; it is also a chronological record of a female Istanbulite studio photographer’s professional career. Consisting entirely of black-and-white and glass negatives, the physical archive of Foto Galatasaray is a rare surviving example of the classical photography studios of Istanbul’s recent past. After Şahinyan left the studio in 1985, the archive was transferred to a storehouse belonging to Yetvart Tomasyan, owner of Aras Publishing. Twenty-five years later, approximately 200,000 negatives in the archive were, over the course of two years, sorted, cleaned, digitized, digitally restored, categorized and protected by a team under the direction of artist/researcher Tayfun Serttaş. In 2010, Hrair Sarkissian spent two months in İstanbul documenting the history sections of various semi-private and public libraries and archives in the city, from the Archaeological Museum and Topkapı Palace libraries to the Atatürk Library in Taksim, the Ottoman Archives of the Prime Ministry General Directorate of State, and the Ottoman Bank Archives and Research Centre. The second exhibition in the "Modern Essays" series, Sarkissian’s photographs of rows of shelving caught in time and racks of files that appear rarely opened - of dark and oppressive spaces shot with only the light available - express the complexity of information these archives contain, and their role in denying or confirming the artist’s inherited history and existence within the present.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Homework/Assignment, Lesson Plan

Lunch Poems: Kick Off 2004

A range of Berkeley luminaries read and discuss their favorite Poems. This year's line-up: Barbara Ertter (Jepson Herbarium), H. Mack Horton (East Asian Languages), Amy Kautzman (Doe Library), Elaine Kim (Ethnic Studies), Ray Lifchez (Architecture), Cam Nguyet Nguyen (Southeast Asian Studies), Bob Osserman (Mathematical Science Research Center), Laura Perez (Chicano Studies), John Prausnitz (Chemical Engineering), and Frank Worrell (Education). (59 minutes)

Material Type: Lecture

Using Social Media as a Research Tool to Explore Scientific Data

This module is part of the Foundations of School Librarianship on using web resources to enhance learning and build collections. It describes a process by which the school librarian and teacher will collaborate on a high school-level project to explore how researchers are using social media to promote and distribute their research findings. This presents a great opportunity for science teachers and school librarians to tap into high school students' enthusiasm for social media in a constructive and educational way. It also provides opportunities for school librarians to collaborate with teachers on developing or enhancing students information evaluation skills. And finally, the days of speaking of collection development as a library activity that means adding physical volumes to the collection may be over. Rather, we speak of developing access to quality resources that enhance learning. Social media sites that provide free access to quality research data supports the concept of promoting Open Educational Resources (OERs).

Material Type: Module

Author: Patricia Erwin-Ploog

Students as Creators: Exploring Multimedia

Students are introduced to the genre of multimedia presentations through a review and analysis of online presentations. They then apply what they have learned to create their own multimedia presentations.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Unit of Study

The Media Center: The Teacher's Support System

The Media Center: The Teachers’ Support SystemA Qualified Teacher-Librarian Every member of our school staff is well-qualified and properly credentialed. (Whole Child Tenet #4: Supported)Flexible Schedule Achievement is higher in schools where the library operates on a flexible schedule instead of a fixed rotation. (Library Media Programs and Student Achievement)A Diverse Collection of Up-to-date Books/Electronic Resources Getting the books off the shelves and into the hands of students (Teacher Librarians at the Heart of Student Learning-video); Teachers create and engage their students in literacy practices that develop awareness, understanding, respect, and valuing of differences in our society. (Standard 4: Diversity)Teacher Collaboration When library media specialists exhibit leadership in the school, it increases collaboration with other teachers. (Library Media Programs and Student Achievement)Assessment Assistance The Media Specialist can assist teachers with assessment by focusing on how students are assessed, focusing on the whole child, and having a well-rounded Media Center program. Teachers can develop their own checklists by identifying skills that are directly aligned to standards. (Assessment Toolkit)Literacy Center Reading and writing play a crucial role in the ability to “learn for understanding.” (Supporting Adolescent Literacy Across the Content Areas); students should have an opportunity to be able to write something meaningful to them, and to have a place where they can listen and learn through sharing ideas with other students.Introduction to Open Educational Resources or OER These are resources that are created to be used free of charge in a variety of subject areas, including youtube videos, websites, and even textbooks--all, AT NO COST!Examples  www.khanacademy.org, www.curriculumpathways.com.  Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 United States (CC BY-NC 3.0 US) 

Material Type: Module

Author: Carol Gilmore

User Centered School Library Design

If we take a constructivist approach to learning in libraries, then library spaces should be responsive to student needs. As Theodore Creighton points out in Setting the Stage for Staff Development,  "the teacher’s responsibilities involve creating classroom environments where students think, explore, and construct meaning, while including opportunities for students to have social interaction."  Similarly, library spaces, which allow support for both classes and "free-range" learning should do the same.  In a previous OER Commons module by this author on library space design, students studied methods for gathering student input into design. The next step is to begin incorporating that input into the actual design process and to apply input to the space as a whole.   Too often librarians start with furniture rather than starting with the purposes and mission of the program and space. As Malcolm Brown points out,"Creating a vision for learning and learning spaces is a powerful leverage point; it informs almost all other decisions about learning space design. A vision also allows us to effectively articulate to all constituents what we are trying to accomplish. The vision helps organize all participants in the design and implementation of these spaces as well as the activities they support. Simply installing wireless access points and fresh carpeting isn't enough if done in isolation; such improvements pay real dividends only if they are in concert with the institution's overall teaching and learning objectives."  (Learning Spaces)Prospective librarians may not have a current space to design, but they can begin envisioning space as a construct that incorporates user needs and wants and that drives program goals, and begin to think about spaces as a whole.   This module particularly focuses on ideas contained in the book Language of School Design(Nair and Fielding) and work by Ewan McIntosh (notosh.org).  Both works  ask library designers to think of spaces in terms of zones and how those zones make a variety of student learning possible.  A series of readings and recordings will provide an introduction to these concepts with examples.  School Librarian Competencies , 4, 5, and 10http://researchguides.austincc.edu/c.php?g=554360&p=3891603ISTE Educator Standards  2 and 5https://www.iste.org/standards/standards/for-educators

Material Type: Module

Author: Carolyn Foote

Introduction to Library and Information Science

Library and Information Science (LIS) is the academic and professional study of how information and information carriers are produced, disseminated, discovered, evaluated, selected, acquired, used, organized, maintained, and managed. This book intends to introduce the reader to fundamental concerns and emerging conversations in the field of library and information science. A secondary goal of this book is to introduce readers to prominent writers, articles, and books within the field of library science. The book originated as a collection of annotations of important LIS articles. Though these citations are being developed into a fuller text, we hope that this book remains firmly rooted in the literature of LIS and related fields, and helps direct readers toward important resources when a particular topic strikes their fancy.

Material Type: Textbook

Plagiarism Tutorial

This tutorial is designed to challenge your understanding of plagiarism and the ethical use of sources in academic writing. You will see ten samples of source material and ten corresponding examples of student writing. It is up to you to determine if the student has used each source responsibly. At the end of this exercise, you will be asked to list three best practices for using sources responsibly. These rules and your results can be shared with your professor.

Material Type: Interactive, Lesson

Authors: Kevin Gilbertson, Kyle Denlinger

Trigonometry via Mobile Device

Students investigate the relationships between angles and side lengths in right triangles with the help of materials found in the classroom and a mobile device. Using all or part of a meter stick or dowel and text books or other supplies, students build right triangles and measure the angles using a clinometer application on an Android® (phone or tablet) or iOS® device (iPhone® or iPad®). Then they are challenged to create a triangle with a given side length and one angle. The electronic device is used to measure the accuracy of their constructions.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: Scott Burns