Whenever I help a school librarian determine what books should be culled from a collection, the biography selection usually takes a large hit. When a book is written after a person passes away (Daniel Boone, George Washington Carver, Ronald Reagan, etc.), the content is still relevant.  Popular books featuring teen idols, celebrities and athletes encourage students to check out a book to learn more but the shelf life for these books is limited because idols and celebrities change in appearance and careers, and athletes get traded and eventually retire. Now that webpages and social media can easily be accessed to find the latest news, biography sections have become reduced in size. When a teacher’s objective is to have students learn about an individual’s achievements and contributions to society, WorldBook offers a great alternative to print books and the Internet.
 
Free to all CA BOCES component school districts, WorldBook is easily accessed through the school library website or resources.caboces.org.  Using the generic username and password for the school (check with your school librarian or Cecelia_Fuoco@caboces.org if you don’t know it), students can search biographies by Nationality/Ethnicity, Area of Work/Interest, Gender, or Time Period.  For students with IEPs, text size may be increased and voice choices for reading the article aloud are options. Build vocabulary skills by double-clicking any word to have it defined.  For ELLs, the text may be translated too. Students will find the interface easy to use and images may be printed for projects. 
 
Teachers wishing to introduce students to research will appreciate WorldBooks’s How To Do Research guide which includes an introduction to research skills, planning research, conducting research, evaluating resources, organizing data, and presenting a project.  Citations for articles are provided for WorldBook articles but a citation builder is included to help students cite work from other resources. If you are looking for articles that connect to curriculum standards, the tab is easy to locate.  With this being the month of March, type in St. Patrick to learn about his writings and popular legends associated with him.

​By: Cece Fuoco, CA BOCES Learning Resources

The Library of Congress (http://www.loc.gov/teachers/ ) has and continues to expand resources that present United States' history to students and teachers. It provides comprehensive yet easily used tools and lesson plans for analyzing primary sources whether print, map, cartoon, photo, manuscript, music or political cartoon. The wealth and volume of material found in person and online grows exponentially every year and has since Thomas Jefferson donated his library. Our history is accessible freely to all whether citizen or not.

Newer sources of local primary source material are now available to teacher and student. This allows them to focus on their history at a more personal level in conjunction with the materials provided by the Library of Congress. New York Heritage (http://newyorkheritage.org/) is a digital collection which provides a consolidated access to historical, scholarly, and cultural materials that reflect New York State history at a local level. Digitization of historical media has been a priority in our state as time, cost of preservation and ignorance are rapidly destroying our print history. Local towns, libraries and historical museums are now finding a way to share their story throughout New York State and  thanks to  recent partnerships a much larger audience.

The Digital Public Library( http://dp.la/) was launched last year in response to a recognized need for a national digital library focused on local history. This idea for a digital library has been circulating among librarians, scholars, educators, and private industry representatives since the early 1990s. America has come late to this digital format.  The World Digital Library (http://www.wdl.org/en/ ) was first proposed in June 2005 by  Librarian of Congress James H. Billington. He proposed establishing a World Digital Library to UNESCO and by 2009 was launched to the international public, with content from every UNESCO member state. This site provides primary source material in the languages of its members.

What does this mean for our students? It means that if they start with a historical hypothesis, they will have the ability to trace its roots first globally, than nationally, than statewide and finally to the local historical society that has digitized pictures of the student's ancestor. 

By MaryAnn Hebert, CA BOCES and the School Library System

The motto at Delevan Elementary is “We are in this together and better collectively than we are separately.”  The Common Core Learning standards have been a guiding force in instruction as well as a learning process for ALL K-4 teachers including special area teachers, who have made a significant contribution to the movement.  “Common Core and the six instructional shifts methodology does not silence the creative voice; it enhances the aesthetic process and provides opportunity for higher level thinking skills” (engageny.org).

The special area teachers at Delevan have seamlessly and consistently integrated both the Common Core ELA and Mathematics standards into their curriculum.  In both art and music classes, students create, explore, build vocabulary, and complete written reflections/self-assessments aligned to the CCLS Writing standards.   To hook the students into a new unit, visuals and technology resources are used along with historical background that aligns to the CCLS Informational Reading standards.  Students are provided with weekly experiences that provide Career and College Readiness skills along with the 4 C’s in 21st Century Learning; critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity.  “The Common Core Learning standards act as a thread that helps knit together a well-rounded learning experience for every student while supporting colleagues cross- curricular” (www.engageny.org).

In the library media center, lessons are aligned to appropriate grade level Common Core Reading and Writing Learning standards.  Students in Grades K-4 are exposed to reading and writing across a variety of genres including narrative, expository, and persuasive text.  Students learn about author’s purpose, characteristics of nonfiction and fiction, text features and text structures.   Students in the class learn how to collect information from multiple sources and compile it into a short research paper.

Physical Education is a place where students bodies are participating in physical activities, while their minds are critically thinking at the same time.   Students participating in physical education classes are engaged in literacy infused lessons on a daily basis.  Students are responsible for problem solving  and peer collaboration.  Thematic units that align with school wide literacy efforts are implemented.  For example, K-4 students participated in an Olympic games unit that correlated with the school’s reading celebration, titled “Go For the Gold”.   Also, students in K-4 had a reading competition.  For each book read and Accelerated Reading quiz completed, students earned a gold, silver or bronze medal.   Each grade level chose a country and created a flag to display in the gymnasium.  All medals earned were displayed near the flag.  The physical education teachers were instrumental in making this school wide literacy effort fall into place. 

When students attend special area classes, they are” rocking the Common Core” by participating in the arts as readers, writers and thinkers!


By Colleen Root, CA BOCES and Pioneer Central School

Students and teachers (of COSER 501 member districts) can access hundreds of thousands of digital resources using CABOCES Digital Kids.  

www.cabocesdigitalkids.org

Users may login to CABOCES DIGITAL KIDS to search clips and images or pass through to:
Brain Pop (Jr., ESL, Espanol),Discovery, Learn 360, Sylvan Dell eBooks, Teaching Books, Tumblebooks, Soundszabound, Gale Cengage, Regents Review