Our latest research guide is on colonial New York- we hope you find it useful for assignments and in the classroom.
It includes information on
This is just out from Apple, and yes we like iBooks Author because it’s so jolly easy to use. It’s designed for textbook writers, but we can see tons of potential for early childhood, special education, bilingual… gosh the list goes on. The hard bit will be writing texts, and collecting images, and thinking about all the amazing, interactive things you’ll be able to do.
OK, so what are the minuses. Commentators have said that if you publish your iBooks Author it has to be through Apples iTunes store, it’s basically an iPad book, and it’s in Apples proprietary “iba” format. If you are not worried about any of this, and you’re not interested in selling your book through iTunes Store, then things will go relatively smoothly for you. It’s possible to export and distribute your book as a pdf or as text.
Maybe you don’t want to use iBooks Author forever, but if you want to make something that looks fairly professional for an IMP (thesis), this seems like a good way to go especially in the light that all IMPs will be digital starting Summer 2012. If you have a mac give it a try (and if you are die-hard PC fan see our Making Picture Books post) – you have nothing to lose, and it’s free.
This app has been out for a while (October 2009), and now that iPhones and smartphones have become ubiquitous we thought it was time to look at how this little program works.
You have to be logged into an EBSCOhost database for this to work. If you’re not sure which databases Bank Street subscribes to visit the Library’s database page. You’ll find this link at the bottom of each page.
Clicking the link above generates a pop-up box where you write your email address. EBSCO then sends you the following email:
Dear EBSCOhost user, To begin using the EBSCOhost iPhone/iPod Touch application, follow the instructions below.
Step 1:
Download the app from iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ebscohost/id433269587?mt=8&ls=1 Step 2:
View this email on your iPhone/iPod Touch and tap the link below to activate app:ebscoeh://wa/de99be7b777a2b449e37dba2091d… (Note: You must access the link in Step 2 from your iPhone/iPod Touch mail app or cut and paste the link into a browser window. The activation link will expire in 24 hours.) Questions? Visit http://support.ebsco.com/downloads/iphone_help/ehostapp/toc.html or send an email to support@ebsco.com. Thank you! EBSCO Publishing
Once you’ve downloaded and activated the software, you’re now able to access EBSCOhost databases on your iPhone or iTouch. It’s surprisingly easy and works nicely on wifi and 3G – I used it last week on the No. 1 train passing through 125th Street. The screen shot below gives you some idea of the what the EBSCOhost iPhone app will look like. However, instead of seeing “courtesy of EBSCO Publishing” if you have done everything right you should see “courtesy of BANK ST COLLEGE OF EDUC…”
EBSCOhost’s website says that this mobile app will work on a number of different platforms. e.g., Android and Blackberry. There are also a number of presentation on how to use this app, e.g., YouTube, and a flash tutorial.
Summing up, this app is great if you have a few minutes to spare, there’s no need to boot up a PC and you’re good to go for nine months after you’ve activated the link above. It’s great for collecting articles but I’ll do most of my reading on a bigger screen, and for articles I know will be winners it’ll be Ctrl+P.
The answer is, it’s now on the Library’s homepage, and right in the middle of our brand new search box (thank you David)! There’s no need to click anywhere – there it is, just type away, hit go, and you’ll find out whether the journal you want is in print, online or both. In the example below we’ve typed the popular “Child Development.”
The results are as follows: four databases, and print holdings from 2005 to the present (i.e., we have this journal in back of the Library on the right-hand side). The better options are the three EBSCO databases (Academic Search Premiere, Education Research Complete, and Professional Development Collection) which do indeed start at 1930 but as is the case with most databases there’s a 12 month embargo. This means you have to wait a year before the full-text of a recent article is available for download. If you want to read the very latest issue you’ll have to locate the print edition.
It’s hard to believe but true, EBSCO’s databases do in fact go back to 1930 for “Child Development.” And to prove it, below is the record for the first “Child Development” article.
Rice, C. (1930). Excellence of Production and Types of Movements in Drawing. Child Development, 1(1), 1. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
A very useful feature of databases like Academic Search Premiere and Proquest is the RSS feed function. Setting one up will save you the bother of continually searching for updates on your favorite topics. It’s something faculty, and students starting a thesis, should consider.
RSS feeds are relatively easy to setup. Click the RSS feed icon above and copy the URL into the pop-up window below.
All you have to do is paste the feed’s URL into a news reader (in this example we paste it into the “Add a subscription” field), and then you let the reader do all the work of finding new items for you.
In the example above I’m using Google reader, but there are other other readers you can use, e.g., My Yahoo, and Adobe’s ReadAir.
To read articles at school all you have to do is click on the title, at home you will be directed to the database login page first.
Most libraries won’t let you check out magazines, but the children’s section of our library is different. We want you to take them out and “test” them out on your students. Here are some magazine titles we have on offer:
Magazines don’t hold up over time so you are going to find that we have to retire some older copies. The best way to deal with children’s magazines is to browse the stand opposite Lisa’s office. Once you’ve made your selection, take them to the circulation desk, where they’ll be placed in a barcoded plastic bag and checked out to you.
The following titles cannot be checked out but we think you’d be interested in them anyway, you can find them with other periodicals at the rear of the library:
You’ve probably already noticed that we have access to children’s magazines online through our database collection. Use Find a Journal on our website to see what other children’s magazines we carry.
Recently, a patron asked about “Time For Kids” although we don’t have a hard copy it is online as “Time for Kids (Teacher’s Edition)” and “Time for kids online (World report ed.).” The former is essentially a series of lesson-plans-come-guide for teachers using a hard copy in the classroom. The latter is also useful to the classroom teacher as items contain texts, information on reading levels (lexile), and word counts.
Special thanks to Debbie (acquisitions assistant) for helping with this post.
OK , so it’s late at night and you have an assignment due tomorrow. All you have to do is finish off that jolly reference list. Here are some quick, easy web ways to get that job done. They’re not perfect, and yes, you do have to tweek them, but they do take some of the hard work out of making a reference list. Here’s what to look for, when you’re using WilsonSelectPlus, and ERIC keep your eyes peeled for the “Cite This Item” link.
Cite This Item in ERIC
And, when you’re using EBSCO host products like Academic Search Premiere, Professional Development Collection, Education Research Complete look for the yellow paper icon.
Cite This in Academic Search Premiere
Proquest uses a “Cite this” link, see the screen shot below:
Cite This in Proquest
WorldCat also has a “Cite/Export” link that allows you to copy a citation (works with articles and books). If you’re a facebook user try the CiteMe application from WorldCat (books only).
Cite/Export in WorldCat
Once you have clicked one of the links above a pop-up page appears usually with several types of citation formats to choose from. Remember Bank Street is APA, all you have to do now is copy, paste (and tweek). Finally, if you have a book or article-in-hand, try the old standby Citation Machine, you can find a link on the library homepage. It’s a little clunky but it does get the job done. Other online applications you might want to look at are Bibme (student recommended), and OttoBib.
Something we see a lot of in the library are handmade picture books, nearly always as part of a thesis. They are often inserted without page numbering in the middle of a thesis, and are usually made on MS Word with photocopied images drawn by either the author or children, occasionally photographs are used. But, with the advent of digital cameras things are changing.
Bank Street student Roberta Koeppel made the picture books below as part of her thesis project to help prepare pediatric patients and their caregivers for a Video EEG (electroencephalogram) monitoring procedure. If you want to look at Roberta’s work the call number is T 2005 K89d.
Today, there are a number of options out there for making very professional looking picture books. Some are online websites where you upload images and write to a server – they can be a little slow, but for many people they are a good option because you can work on your book from any computer. Some online sites you might want to explore are:
Other options are to download a book making program to your computer and to work on the desktop. Examples of such programs are:
The good thing about these programs is that they are a little more stable. It’s only when you’ve finished creating your book that you have to deal with uploading to a site to get it printed.
No matter which program you use having a good camera counts – resolution is everything. There’s nothing worse than placing an image on a page and then to get the dreaded yellow triangle (poor resolution icon). One way of overcoming this is by making the image size smaller.
If you are thinking of making a book, but need a little help getting started, the library is planning some small group workshops next semester using blurb.
That’s right, we have two brand new black and white photocopiers. The new machines, Toshiba e-studio 455 are chocker-block full of features. One that we are excited about is being able to scan in color to a usb flash drive. As we learn more we will be sharing our knowledge with you – stay tuned.
Using Spanish or any other language is quite easy on a Mac, this is what you have to do:
Now start up MS Word. In the top right hand corner you’ll see a small American flag, click on it and select the small Spanish flag. Your keyboard is now set up to type in Spanish. Go back to the Spanish flag icon and click on “Show Keyboard Viewer” this will produce a pop-up window which will show you which keyboard strokes produce accented Spanish – experiment until you find the right combination of keys.
System Preferences' International window with Keyboard Viewer on top
If you want to activate a Spanish spellchecker, this is what you have to do:
Once you have exited MS Word it will return to the default language (English), so everytime you want to use the Spanish spellchecher you will have to re-select it as above.
