Wikis in Plain English

A short introduction to wikis focused a group of people that plan a camping trip using a wiki.

Material Type: Lecture

Authors: Lee LeFever, Sachi LeFever

Rio Salado Essential Writing

This course has been designed to enable you to focus your learning on specific areas of improvement. Unlike a typical college course where you would complete lessons in chronological order, this course allows you to focus on just specific skills. Modules include: Grammer, Pre Writing, and Writing

Material Type: Full Course, Lecture, Reading

Life on the Ice (Cube)

This article describes daily life and work at the IceCube telescope at the South Pole, Antarctica, and links to informational text about them. Versions are available for students in grades K-1, 2-3 and 4-5. Related science and literacy activities are included.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Author: Stephen Whitt

Two Miles Below

This article describes robots that are helping scientists explore the Gakkel Ridge deep below the Arctic Ocean and links to informational text about them. Versions are available for students in grades K-1, 2-3 and 4-5. Related science and literacy activities are included.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Author: Stephen Whitt

Polar Festivals - Issue 8, November 2008

This issue of the free online magazine, Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears, provides resources for planning a "polar festival," or an informal learning event. The issue includes planning guides, suggested activities, and resources to integrate literacy into the science-themed event.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Author: The Ohio State University

A House of Snow and Ice

This article reprints and links to informational text about the art and science of igloos. Versions are available for students in grades K-1, 2-3 and 4-5. Related science and literacy activities are included.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Author: Stephen Whitt

Essential Principle 5: Correlation to Standards and Curriculum Connections

Each issue of the free, online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle explores an essential principle of climate science and climate literacy with background information, lessons, activities, original stories, and more for the K-5 classroom. This article shows the alignment of these materials with the content standards of the National Science Education Standards.

Material Type: Teaching/Learning Strategy

Authors: Kimberly Lightle, National Science Foundation

At Home in the Cold

This article reprints and links to informational text about the adaptations that allow mammals and fish to survive in polar oceans. Versions are available for students in grades K-1, 2-3 and 4-5. Related science and literacy activities are included.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Author: Stephen Whitt

Library support for your project

An information literacy resource designed to help students undertaking the extended project qualification or other pre HE project. It brings together several elearning modules tailored to the audience, covering subjects such as, plagiarism, searching, writing, proofreading and referencing. Use the following link to download the editable files: https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk/learning-objects/wp/download/

Material Type: Interactive

Authors: Carlene Barton, David Hirst

Elementary GLOBE: Earth System in a Bottle

A learning activity for the "All About Earth: Our World on Stage" book in the Elementary GLOBE series. In pairs, students will create experimental conditions in terrariums in order to study what plants need to live. Variables to study include the presence or absence of soil, water, and sunlight. Students will record the growth of radish plants as well as observations of "the water cycle" in their terrariums. At the conclusion of their experiments, students will share their results with the class and discuss how water, Earth materials, and air are all necessary to support living things. The purpose of the activity is to acquaint students with the hydrosphere, geosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere more closely, to have students use microcosms to study natural phenomena, and to introduce students to the concept of a "fair test" in a scientific investigation. After completing this activity, students will know about the importance of the hydrosphere, geosphere, and atmosphere in supporting the biosphere. They will learn how to set up "fair test", record detailed observations, use drawings as scientific records, make sense of experimental results, and share them publicly.

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

Library Employee Training

There are nine primary characteristics of what are considered the best library training programs. No one program fits every organization, but most training programs that are sucessful and show employees returning from them with marketable skills will have at least some of these qualities contained in them.1. Effective Management of the Training ProgramThe best programs will start with an individual who is the motivator behind the group. Irregardless of the title they hold, this is the person who organizes all the training sessions. The Training Librarian would be responsible for planning and executing all training innitiatives within the library system. the best person for the role would be someone who is innately curious, motivated, and have a vested interest in developing others' skills and to help them reach their potential within the library community. They must be committed to learning and want to help improve everyones skills, not just their own.In addition, the Training Librarian would have to market the program both internally and externally in order to make certain that people are aware of the opportunities that are available to them.2. Needs AssessmentThe Training Librarian would have to, periodically, perform an assessment of the organizational needs of both the employees and patrons/clients. Curiosity comes into play here. The Librarian must be interested enough in the past, present, AND future direction of the program to conduct a proper needs assessment through interviews, surveys, and research.Central to any training program is properly identifying the trining needs of each member of the community and on what topic(s). It is also imperative to remember that a "training need" is the gap between required performance and current performance.3. AlignmentOnce the Training Librarian identifies needs, then they must build a curriculum to address those needs based on supporting the library goals. This way, employees will understand why the training is occuring and managers will support the activity. After all, every activity needs a purpose.4. GoalsWhen the Training Librarian develops Goals for the program, they must make sure to look at the entire picture, including quality, quantity, time, cost, and effectiveness. They must develope a method for testing the progress towards the orginazational goals and ensure reports are easily readable for the needed information. It is best to schedule time to monitor and review progress toward the goals on a regular basis.5. Leadership ApprovalLeadership must be willing to approve of the program from the top down. Having leadership backing the program will reenforce the importance of a program and improve accountability while also assisting to establish expectations. the Training Librarian must always be ready to talk about how the program impacts the financial side of the library program when presenting new ideas as this will impact leadership approval.6. RelevancyThe training librarian must provide training content that is applicable in order to guarantee that the learners will return for more. Catering content to their needs is vital. Catering content to employee and client needs is vital so they can walk away from teh training with something that may be immediately applied.7. CreativityA creative hook is often something that gathers peoples' attention and deemed more valuable to an organization. Creativity can start as small as a theme, go as big as a new "Brand" for the training, or even become a library mascot. The level of fun and familiarity with creative ploys will continue to pull people to the training sessions just to see what is next.8. MarketingMarketing does not stop at the innitial launch of a program. It continues through ongoing efforts throughout the program to make it successful and is integral to making the development of a traing program a success. Any communicattion that is relayed to employees or clients should include an overvieview of the program and clear expectations while showing the individuals what is in it for them. Always remember to provide a why behind every part of the training. The ultimate goal is to increase the use of the training programs.9. ReinforcementIn order to overcome what is known as a "forgetting curve", it is imperative to offer employees and clients refreshers and additional training on new concepts. Without refresshing of their training, many employees will forget a majority of their training within a week. If employees receive refreshers, periodically, they will no only retain more of the information, they will most likely apply more of it to their everyday work habits.Kluczny, Shannon. "9 Characteristics of Top Employee Training Programs." BizLibrary. BizLibrary, 22 May 2017. Web. 07 June 2017. 

Material Type: Module

Author: Chad Kroll

Library Research Certificate: Modules to Help You Effectively Use Library Resources in All Formats

This resource consists of six modules each leading a student through various "how-to" concepts to ensure effective use of library resources in all formats.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: Tina Mesa

Buckets of Fun with Argument-Driven Inquiry in Your School Library!

A new instructional model, called Argument-Driven Inquiry (ADI), is introduced to elementary teachers in this article. The author shows how school librarians and classroom teachers can collaborate to help students construct and communicate evidence, or arguments. Evidence buckets, a collaborative activity, and related online resources are presented. The article appears in the free online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle, which is structured around the seven essential principles of climate literacy.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan, Teaching/Learning Strategy

Authors: Marcia Mardis, National Science Foundation

Information Literacy I

During your studies you will frequently be asked to write a paper. For such a paper you will need information, but how do you get it? What exactly do you need? Where can you find it? How do you go about it? Almost anyone can use Google, of course, but more is expected of a TU Delft student! We challenge you to go beyond using the popular search engines. This instruction will help you discover what there is to learn about information skills.

Material Type: Full Course

Author: Library TU Delft

Critical Thinking

Word Count: 23227 (Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

Material Type: Textbook

Author: Brian Kim

Animal Inquiry

Supporting inquiry-based research projects, the Animal Inquiry interactive invites elementary students to explore animal facts and habitats using writing prompts to guide and record their findings.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Interactive

Reading Library Call Numbers

This activity was created to assist students in identifying various locations in the library by reading library call numbers. Understanding is demonstrated by investing the library organization and creation of their own riddle search with answer key utilizing Google Doc or Sheets.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: Shelley Rath