Can you guess which version of World Book Foreign Language Edition I chose to play with? :)
Well, other than if a French child needed to do some homework while traveling in the U.S., I'm not sure how this would really benefit the average library user. I got excited by the guinea pigs, but then backtracked to antelope. It's conceivable that children could discern what other types of antelope exist across the ocean, which this article seem to feature. However, I then did a search in the PL Research version and got tons more information than in the French version.
While listening to an article in the Spanish language version it was nice to have whatever section or feature highlighted as it was read aloud.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Lesson 1B
So I decided to knock it off with the wombats and porcupines, to check out coyotes. In World Book Online for Kids (PL version), the information is simple but effective for the age group. I do wish they would use real photos for this age group though. I don't really see the point of using drawings for little kids. I also listened to the coyote sound...not impressed really. Let's see what we have in Info Finder...
Ahh, much more information on coyotes in Info Finder, and once again a real photograph and Latin as well. I also just noticed the "double click on a word to define it" feature. Pretty neat. It's also interesting to me that there is no mention of the articles for the K-5 grades being aligned with the SD content standards. I wonder why that is? Hmmm....
Okay, so when I went into World Book Reference Center I totally got distracted by a picture of Mount Raupehu on the North Island of New Zealand - I'm a huge LOR fan. Then I thought I might as well look up New Zealand as my country. I like the feature on the left that just gives a bunch of pictures. I would think this would be very helpful for a student doing research on a country. The e-book feature on the right is also interesting. Also, primary sources are also very helpful to many people doing research. I think people will like the general layout and graphic nature of the articles. It's laid out very nicely.
Ahh, much more information on coyotes in Info Finder, and once again a real photograph and Latin as well. I also just noticed the "double click on a word to define it" feature. Pretty neat. It's also interesting to me that there is no mention of the articles for the K-5 grades being aligned with the SD content standards. I wonder why that is? Hmmm....
Okay, so when I went into World Book Reference Center I totally got distracted by a picture of Mount Raupehu on the North Island of New Zealand - I'm a huge LOR fan. Then I thought I might as well look up New Zealand as my country. I like the feature on the left that just gives a bunch of pictures. I would think this would be very helpful for a student doing research on a country. The e-book feature on the right is also interesting. Also, primary sources are also very helpful to many people doing research. I think people will like the general layout and graphic nature of the articles. It's laid out very nicely.
Lesson 1A
World Book Kids...Well, I wanted to learn some more about wombats but they are only briefly mentioned in an article about Australia. I know wombats aren't the most popular mammal in the world, but they are really interesting! So picking up the pieces of my disappointed heart I looked up porcupines instead. I've always been tempted to stop on the highway when I see one that has been hit to take a few of its quills, but I've never had the guts to follow through. I was actually a bit disappointed in the article on porcupines though. The picture was an old, faded drawing and other than mentioning they spend a lot of time in trees, that's all the habitat information that was given.
World Book Student pulls it out! I found an article on wombats! Hey, wait a minute...they're marsupials! I didn't know that! I'd always read they were a lot like a large badger. The information in the article was much more thorough than the "Kids" edition. So onto porcupines...also a much more detailed article with a real photograph this time. They even threw a little scientific classification (Latin!) in there for good measure!
World Book Advanced didn't disappoint with information on Luxembourg! I especially like the way the article is outlined on the left side of the page for easy navigation. The "Facts in Brief" table was very nice. I think this would be very useful for someone doing a report. Also interesting is that Reagan and JFK seem to have the most presidential papers mentioning Luxembourg.
In World Book Explorer I browsed until I got to an article on the National Park system. I did notice that you can translate the article into many different languages. While it notes that the translation won't be perfect, a general sense of the information will be intact. I tried translating the article I found into Arabic...I think some of the text gets cut off on the right side of the screen. I don' t know if this is a big problem. Not having the ability to read Arabic but knowing it's reads from right to left, it looks abrupt to me.
World Book Student pulls it out! I found an article on wombats! Hey, wait a minute...they're marsupials! I didn't know that! I'd always read they were a lot like a large badger. The information in the article was much more thorough than the "Kids" edition. So onto porcupines...also a much more detailed article with a real photograph this time. They even threw a little scientific classification (Latin!) in there for good measure!
World Book Advanced didn't disappoint with information on Luxembourg! I especially like the way the article is outlined on the left side of the page for easy navigation. The "Facts in Brief" table was very nice. I think this would be very useful for someone doing a report. Also interesting is that Reagan and JFK seem to have the most presidential papers mentioning Luxembourg.
In World Book Explorer I browsed until I got to an article on the National Park system. I did notice that you can translate the article into many different languages. While it notes that the translation won't be perfect, a general sense of the information will be intact. I tried translating the article I found into Arabic...I think some of the text gets cut off on the right side of the screen. I don' t know if this is a big problem. Not having the ability to read Arabic but knowing it's reads from right to left, it looks abrupt to me.
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