by
Lauri Netz, Middle School Media SpecialistHeartland Area Education Agency has provided our schools with several online databases, which can be used both at school and at home. Each school has a special user name and password, which can be obtained from the school media specialists. A description of these valuable resources follows:
EBSCO (http://search.epnet.com)
is an online database of magazines, newspapers, speeches, historical documents, reference books, photos, images and maps. Students may access the EBSCO host web or Searchasaurus (elementary) from the main page. EBSCO also contains a Professional Development Collection of educational journals and ERIC (Educational Research Information Center). Heartland has also provided NoveList which is a database of fiction books which may be searched by title, author or plot.
World Book Online (http://www.worldbookonline.com)
includes all the articles from the 22 volume print set plus over 18,000 additional new and historic online-only articles, as well as pictures, maps, videos and animations.
AP Multimedia (http://ap.accuweather.com)
is a collection of over 750,000 photos, plus text, graphics, and audio files. Content goes back prior to the Civil War and runs through present days.
AccuWeather.com Premium (http://www.accuweather.com/iwxpage/adc/homepage/premiumlogin.htm)
is a comprehensive data source for worldwide weather information with authoritative discussions of weather events and weather forecasting. The AccuWeather site contains real data and 10 past years of weather data.
ClipArt.com (http://schools.clipart.com)
contains more than 2,500,000 clipart images, animations, photos, fonts and sounds. Images are copyright-free for student use in newsletters, posters or web sites.
SIRS http://ars.sirs.com/cgi-bin/denied?no-auth
This is a database of social issues and contains the full text of magazines and newspapers.
Google.com
is a popular website for searching for information and images. Sometimes the information or images found are not appropriate for students. It is easy to use the Preferences link on the Google main page to search only for content appropriate for students.