Finding feature films on Medianet (TDSB)

As eveyone knows, TDSB has an extensive central collection of DVDs, videos, and kits, located at  the Tippett Centre.  The collection includes resources for K-12 classrooms, and they all have public performance rights (PPR) so you don have to worry about copyright.

TDSB teachers search and book media using the catalogue Medianet. 

Did you know that there is a simple way to find feature films in the Medianet catalogue?  Follow these steps:

• Open Medianet
• Click on “Mediagraphies by Curriculum Subject and Grade Levels” (on right hand side)
• Click on heading  ”General and Special Bibliographies”
• Click on “Feature Films”, about midway down the alphy list under “General and special”…

Use the Mediagraphy lists to find new media pertaining to  the subject that you teach.

Rowan

Getting ready for September

Whew! September is so close; the new school year is around the corner.  Here are some new book titles to jump start the brain:

• Never work harder that your students (Robyn Jackson,  371.102 Jac). Great title, hmm?
• How to plan differentiated reading instruction…K-3. (Walpole and McKenna, 372.417 Wal)
• More tools for teaching social skills in schools , grades 3-12. (Mugey, Dillon and Pratt, 302.14071 Mor)
• Text structures: Teaching patterns in reading and writing. (Dillabough, 372.623044 Dil)

The courier gets going next week . You can come and pick  up the books from the Library or we can send them out to you next week.  Call for more information at (416) 395-8289.

Rowan

Gone for a week

It has been an interesting couple of weeks responding to questions from teachers taking AQ courses. Yes we’ve had a few from Reading, ESL, but most have been from teachers taking PhysEd courses. Go figure!

I’m off on vacation for a week.  If any TDSB teachers have requests for books and informtion, please phone the library at (416) 395 – 8289 or email us at professionallibrary@tdsb.on.a.

Rowan

Library Patrons

Please note that use of the TDSB Professional Library is for TDSB teachers only.  Most teachers in urban areas outside of Toronto have a professional library associated with their respective Boards as well as online privileges to access the catalogue and databases. Our library does not have the resources to compile and provide information to teachers from outside the TDSB system.

Photo of Tippett’s main entrance.

Just in case you visit Tippett, below is a photo of the front entrance.  Notice the FABULOUS garden,  maintained by Library & Learning Resources staff.

Tippett Front Door

Digitized versions of TO newspapers.

Finding articles from Toronto newspapers has always been challenging at best. Articles current to one week, you can usually search through their respective web pages,  but if you want older materials,  you’ve got to pay or visit your local library. 

Using databases available via TDSB school library websites, your best bet for The Globe and Mail is through Gale Cengage in CPIQ and for The Toronto Star try Canadian Reference Centre in Ebsco. These databases index most -but not all- articles and when you find what you are looking for it is basically a text dump.

Sometimes you might like to look at a complete reproduction, like a photocopy. Perhaps you want to read the whole front page from the day you were born, or the sports page when the Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup (did they ever?) or compare ads of cars/home appliances over the decades; read headlines from the World Wars.

Both the Globe and Star have created full image databases; they have digitized their archives. The Toronto Star Pages of the Past goes back to 1894; The Globe and Mail: Canada’s Heritage goes back to 1844. You can access these at TPL under their database page.  The Pages of the Past is currently available on the school library web page.

If this has totally confused you, talk to your school librarian or contact the Professional Library for assistance.

Rowan

Holiday Schedule

The Professional Library is closed from December 24th through January 2nd. We reopen for business on the 5th.

Happy Holidays

Rowan

Searching for Journal Articles

The Professional Library provides 2 professional education databases for TDSB teachers and administrators: Proquest and Ebsco.  These are absolutely fabulous for any teacher taking AQ courses.

These databases index and make available in full text format gazillions of journal articles pertaining to education and teaching. If you need articles on reading, ADHD, ESL (and lots more); if you want articles by Michael Fullan (anyone), if you want to see the latest issues from specific journals; you can search for all of them in these databases.  Once you have found what you want, you can choose to read the articles online, you can print them, or you can email them (great for group or committee work).

To use them, you must first of all be a TDSB teacher. Second, you need to get to the Library TEL conference or TDSBweb page.  On TEL, the path is: TDSB Conferences ->Resource Centre.TEL -> Prof.Library.TEL. To find us on TDSB go to the TDSB Internet page and select About Us menu ->Staff Login ->TDSBweb -> Services drop down menu-> Professional Library. In TEL and TDSBweb, look for the page that says something like “Search for Articles”.

As ever, call us if you get stuck.

Rowan

Reading assessment by any other name

Any teacher taking Reading AQ courses may end up needing information on the topic of reading assessment, and there are scads of books and articles on this topic. When you search the journal databases, the term “reading assessment” tends to give you articlespertaining to standardarized and high-stakes tests and this is not what teachers want. Teachers are looking for articles that discuss informal assessment that can be used in the classroom.

So, how do you search for articles that assess reading informally in the classroom? You need to search the journal databases using specific assessment strategies. The popular ones include: anecdotal records, cloze, miscue, observation/observations logs, portfolios, questioning for comprehension and meaning, response journals, retells, rubrics, running records, student-led conferences, surveys (eg student interests, habits and parental role).

Try using the strategies listed above as stand-alone search terms. If you get too many hits do an advanced seach and link them with reading as a subject (remember that many of the search fields are drop-down menus and you can link a word to the subject or title or author).

Easy, right?  Call the library if  you get stuck. Even better if you can do it from a networked computer and one of the Librarians can work you though it.

Rowan

Summer Hours

A reminder to everyone that the Professional Library is open during July and August to assist TDSB teachers with AQ courses or to prep for next school year. Give us a call if you need directions or have questions. Remember that you can access our book catalogue and journal databases from home.  Go to the TDSB Internet home  page www.tdsb.on.ca. Follow this path: About Us Menu -> Staff Login -> (you complete the necessary information to login) ->TDSBweb ->Services drop down menu ->Professional Library.

Have a great summer,

Rowan