Information Literacy

Tips:

Pioneer Library
"Support Materials" at the top - Everything from brochures and one page guides to 52 page documents and 6 week courses to help you effectively use Pioneer and other search tools.

Don't Buy It - talks about tricks used by advertisers, television and music producers, etc. Info. on smart buying and sorting through what's real and not real. Click on all banner advertisements too and it will show the kids that the banner ads are not what they seem.

Information Literacy Power Point - on module 9 on the left hand side of the page.

The Big 6 Website - How to solve an information problem. This site goes through all the steps. A game at the end to test you on what you have learned. This is the library media state curriculum.

Culture Grams - You have to enter through Pioneer because it's a paid resource. Recipe collection. Photo Gallery. Videos. Graphs and tables compare different countries.

Utah Digital Newspapers - Primary source documents. Old newspaper, ie. 1911 Park City newspaper. Learn history the way historians do. Social Studies, Language Arts, etc. Check out the article and the ads: gender issues, writing style, agriculture, etc.

World Book Encyclopedia on Pioneer - atlas, dictionary, encyclopedia, UK website links, Spanish language encyclopedia, "Surf the Ages" and "Back in Time" links show what info. would have been available at that time.

SIRS Knowledge Source - Tons of information and articles updated constantly. Check out the TOP 10 LEADING ISSUES which shows articles about the issues and gives the pro and con debates about the issue. Click on "Database Resources" to get a snapshot of everything available on SIRS.

Wikis - Webpages where everyone in your group can add to the page. Better than email for coordinating information from various people. Try wikispaces, pbwiki, or wetpaint.

SIRS Discoverer - articles about various topics, some with pictures. Sorted by reading level as well as subject area.

EBSCO - All sorts of research article data bases. Try "Add to folder" to keep track of the articles you are considering using, then "Sign In" and create a user account that you can access later with all your articles. Very current information. Try the "Visual Search" tab.

EBSCO Auto Repair Reference Center - Recall notices, repair manuals, etc. for cars sorted by year, make, model.

Counties of Utah - Information about every county. Good for reports, traveling, etc.

MWDL - Mountain West Digital Library - A portal to all the university digital libraries in the mountain west. One example: Check out the Dee Family Letters on the Weber State website.

Search Tips for Pioneer - video on module 9 - use precise terms, use NOT, AND, OR, ADJ, "", etc. to help narrow your search. (Copies of this and others are on the Support Materials link on Pioneer.)

Visual Thesaurus - A visual thesaurus showing relationships between words. It has sound, various languages, etc. You can link to other words. It is color coded by part of speech. It can show you antonyms. It can go 3-D. You can also buy your own visual thesaurus products! Use it to help the kids do their writing or vocabulary homework.

Soundzabound - Royalty free music. Use the guided search on the left hand side. You can sort by style, clip length, etc.


Searching on Google
subject filetype:ppt - End your search in filetype:ppt to find only power points

Find out who has linked to a certain website.
link: url of the site
ex. link: disney.com

Find a webpage that is related to a certain webpage.
related: url
ex. related: disney.com

Get information that Google has about a certain page
info: url
info: disney.com

Google Phonebook
phonebook:first name, last name, area code (no dashes)
phonebook:phone number with area code (no dashes)

Stocks
stocks: Symbol1 Symbol2

Dictionary
define: word

Calculator
Type in a formula
Roman Numerals - type a number, then "in english" ex. IV in english
Math Problems
Look at "More about calculator" to find more options, like a currency calculator

Weather
weather city
weather state
weather city state zip code

Movies
movie: city and state (or zip)
movie: keywords

Pizza
pizza: city state zip

Sports Scores

Text Google
In the text number field type "google"
Use the following phrases:
weather zip code
movies zip code
flights flight number
price product
translate word in language
sports score team
Q&A
currency
stock
define

iGoogle

Google More
Google Even More
Goog-411
Patent Search
Google Scholar
Google Labs - Still under development by google - Tons of great stuff!