Teen Health and Wellness

This resource is also available through AEA 11 http://www.aea11.k12.ia.us/ under the “Resources and Research Tools.”
What is it: as it sounds topics are related to teen health and wellness. Topics are listed and then are narrowed down into smaller topics (tree search). Also some article have related topics listed on the left part of the page.
The major topics include: Body basics; Developmental disabilities and disorders; diseases, infections and conditions; diversity; drugs and alcohol; eating disorders; family life; friendship and dating; green living; grief and loss; mind, mood, and emotions; nutrition, fitness, and appearance; safety; sexuality and sexual health; skills for school, work and life.
There also is a glossary that students can use and refer to. Lastly if you are reading an article, resources (both fiction and nonfiction) are included. If you want to incorporate fiction titles in with units, this could be one possible way to do this. This resource is also great in that it gives the “how to cite this article” at the bottom of each page. Additionally there is a link for how to cite this article that will bring up a new window with just the citation.

Nettrekker

This excellent resource is also available through our AEA website http://www.aea11.k12.ia.us/ under the “Resource and Research Tools”.
This searchers for websites that other teachers have recommended for being age appropriate and having good content. This is a great place to have students start in their research. While this is good for more broad and common topics, it is not as good for more specific and unusual topics. This is especially useful as students want to “use the internet” but making sure that the first information that they find is useful, helpful, accurate, appropriate, and at their reading level. I also have pointed out to students that with Nettrekker, you get 1-10 hits with Google you get 1,000,000. There is quite a difference there.
You can search for a topic two ways. First you can type the subject in the search box. You can also do a tree search by clicking on one of the topics listed on the page. It will then bring up another page and help you narrow down your topic. When you get a list of websites on the right it will indicate the recommended grade level. It also will list features that that website has. You can also toggle between the Middle School, Elementary, and HS level. Even if you log in as one, you can go to a higher or lower level. This is a great feature for special education students or TAG students.
On the right there also is an additional features box which can also be helpful in providing additional resources, while these features may not be available or connected with every topic, the ones that are included, there is great information available.

Living Green Digital Library

This resoruce is also available through AEA http://www.aea11.k12.ia.us/ under the "Resource and Research tools." What is it: This resource, also like the Early People and Inventions and Inventors is also available through Worldbook providing basic encyclopedia information on “Living Green.” It includes how climate change is affecting different areas and how people can better use things in the environment. Additionally there is information on choice people can make in what they choose to buy to use renewable resources and leave less of a carbon footprint.
Areas that are included: consumable goods, durable goods, forests and wetlands, green buildings, green transportation, mountains, deserts, and grasslands, oceans, islands, and polar regions, pollution, and producing and obtaining food.
Other features include- interactive features, activities, lesson plans, videos and animations, glossary, index, and dictionary.
Also like the other World book sites you can toggle between them. There are also links for other related articles.

Early People's Digital Library

This resoruce is also available through AEA http://www.aea11.k12.ia.us/ under the "Resource and Research tools."What it is: This is about ancient and early civilizations. This is great for Social Studies classes. Some of the civilizantions that are included are: African (Ghana, Mali, and Songhai), Ancient Egyptians, Ancient Greek, Ancient Romans, Australian Aborigionies, Aztecs, Chinesse (Shang, Zhou, and Quin Dynasisty), Inca, Indians of Notrh America (Eastern, Northwest, Southwest, and Great Plains), The Maori, Maya, Artic, and Polynesians. There are activities, websites, articles, videos and more related to each of the main topics. Like the invetions and discoveries digital library this is also through world book. You can toggle between the different parts of world book so even if you go to a World book Student article you can then go to a worldbook advanced article (high school level). Worldbook also has a dictionary, additional websites and videos that can be searched.

If you click on one of the main topics in the Center, you then get a list of smaller articles related to the topic (i.e. food, clothing, traditions, women, farming, traditions, rise and fall of the civilizations). Many of the articles include pictures.

Points of View Reference

This resource is also available through AEA (http://www.aea11.k12.ia.us/ ) under the “Resources and Research tools.” As always use the AEA username and password.
Points of view reference is part of Ebscohost [this is the main database for newspapers and magazines].
After you log in you will be prompted to click on the points of view search.
Search capability: You can do a tree search by the listed topics or areas that are listed. You also can type in the categories and topics in the search box. The topics are listed by “browse by category” and “view all topics”
If you click on the topic in the “view category” you can then narrow down your topic.
Students will then be presented with articles. Specifically they will be presented with articles from the books “points of view” that are specifically designed to present opposing view points of current controversial topics. Students can also click on the tabs for periodicals, newspaper, radio or news transcripts, primary documents, books, biographies, images, and videos.
Additionally if you click on the article, it will offer that point of view and off to the right it will include a link to the counterpoint article (which should already be included in the other list of articles under the points of view tab).
There are also numerous research guides of how to write a research paper, how do an oral report, debate, create a bibliography and more.
This resource is comparable to and would compliment SIRS issue researcher which is offered as a part of Iowa AEA online (and can be found on the list of resource on Heartland AEA’s website). In doing a search for “endangered animals” both have a wealth of information. Both provide newspaper and magazine articles for research on speech or paper topics. They help students to include the counterpoint and multiple arguments for a topic. SIRS at this point seems to possibly have more topics, but if you have a topic that is found on both, the combination of these two resources together can help students with presenting both sides of a topic in a paper. Additionally SIRS seems to try to form a thesis more for students that a student could argue in favor for or against. Points of view does not offer a thesis but simply compiles the articles for the students.

Teaching books.net

Teaching books.net
This is also offered through AEA’s website http://www.aea11.k12.ia.us/. Like the previous resources it is under the “Resources and Research Tool” and has the same login.
This is an additional resource for teachers k-12. This is not just for reading or English teachers, this could effectively be used by all teachers. There are various resources available through the site. Many of these you could find through a Google search, but it is all in one convenient place here.
Ideas how to use it- This is great in trying to incorporating fiction in content areas (historical fiction, books that present themes or content[ global warming, war, math or computer science]- i.e. science fiction authors from a time period)
Author Programs- “virtually meet authors and illustrators” actual programs/excerpts (radio) that people have done, or ideas if you are doing an author unit

Book guides- “stimulate informative discussions about books” lessons related to a book, written by authors, illustrators, publishers and teachers
Book readings- “add a new voice to titles” Audio eceprts, some have audio books where the book is read to you available; list of possible books
Author websites- “Official websites for authors” websites about the author and other additional resources
Educator Area- additional materials and resources to more effectively use teaching books.net
Thematic booklists, booklists, and award books.

BookFLIX

This is also one of the resources that is just through Heartland AEA http://www.aea11.k12.ia.us/ . Like the other resources I have highlighted it is also under the Resources and Research Tools. The log in is the same username and password for all AEA things.
What is it? – This is geared toward lower elementary. Books are divided into categories. For example one of the categories is “People and Places.” Book are paired into fiction and nonfiction. The fiction book typically is able to be watched and is animated and is read aloud. The nonfiction book typically is just able to be read, but included the color illustrations. For example “The Man Who Walked Between the Tower” and a nonfiction book “New York City” are paired together. Besides the paired books there are also games that are related to the books. There are also website links that go along with the book themes. There also is meet the author feature.
This could be used in the classroom for a shared reading. It also could help with themed units or to have some additional information and go deeper with a theme besides what you already do. This site also seems very easy to use that students could read books with the computer on their own. This could be great differentiation for high or low students.
Additionally on the home page of BookFLIX there also is a “resources” link. With the resources link there is additional ideas and information on paired readings as well as the ability to browse the titles.