Upcoming Holidays & Observances w/ Teaching Resources - January 2022

February is African American History Month, also known as Black History Month. We honor and recognize African Americans' past and present -- people, events, and accomplishments -- during this time. 

The ERS Library has both circulating and online resources available for contracting school educators to support teaching Black History Month!

Learn360 on the ERS Portal:

Grades PreK-2: Corretta Scott King and the Martin Luther King Jr. Legacy

Grades 3-5: Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott

Grades 6-8, 9-12: Rosa Parks: African Americans Who Left Their Stamp on History

Reserve for delivery via Follett Destiny:

New Items in the ERS Library's Circulating Collection - January 2022

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2022 TCOE Tech Rodeo; Saturday, January 15

Greetings Educators!

The TCOE Educational Technology Department invites you to our 6th  Annual Tech Rodeo, a full day of virtual, choice-based learning for educators, administrators, and coaches to meet the needs of all grade levels, content areas, and devices. This dynamic learning experience focuses on effective digital learning and includes:

• Interactive breakouts - Join us for engaging experiences designed for the physical/virtual classrooms of today.
• Campfire EdChats - Gather around the virtual campfire for a guided discussion around hot topics for education in the modern world, facilitated by award-winning educators and authors.

Select from your choice of sessions facilitated by nationally recognized educators, authors, and leaders.

REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN!

Click here for registration and session info. 

Event Schedule

Morning
8:30 - 8:45        Welcome
9:00 - 10:00      Breakout Session 1
10:15 - 11:00    NEW! Campfire EdChats

11:00 - 12:00    LUNCH

Afternoon

12:00 - 1:00      Breakout Session 2

1:15 - 2:15        Breakout Session 3

2:30 - 3::30       Breakout Session 4

Visit http://commoncore.tcoe.org/edtech/tulare-county-tech-rodeo 

for more information regarding the 2022 Tech Rodeo.

Did You Know? - December 2021

ABC-CLIO is one of my favorite resources in the ERS Portal. It's a phenomenal place to start any journey into history on virtually any topic. Whether dealing with American Government, American History, or World History (Ancient to Modern), ABC-CLIO has the articles and resources your students will return to as they move through upper elementary grades, junior high, high school, and beyond.

Each reference article has a topic library, meaning anything you search for will return a selection of other topics to explore. Each topic library is further divided into sections such as Reference Articles, Biographies, Glossary Terms, Photos & Illustrations, Cultural Documents, and Video content. Researchers can also save, email, print, copy a link, create citations at the click of a button (in multiple citation styles), add to their Research Lists, Listen and even Translate.

Also included is an Academic Success Corner, highlighting various areas of information skills such as Researching, Writing, Reading, Critical Thinking, Working with Primary Sources, and Information Literacy. For example, when students click on Reading, they'll see videos on topics such as looking for meaning, active vs. passive voice, making and using inferences, and highlighting, annotating, and notetaking. That's just under Reading! The breadth of content is impressive.

We're proud to help make researching all history and social science content quick and easy by hosting ABC-CLIO in the ERS Portal. I guarantee that you'll learn something new if you log in yourself!

Upcoming Holidays & Observances with Teaching Resources - December 2021

December 15 is "Bill of Rights Day," commemorating the ratification of the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution. It's an important day to celebrate America's Constitution and the framework of our society. The Bill of Rights is displayed in The Rotunda of the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C., as a reminder to all Americans of their constitutional freedoms.

The ERS Library has books available for check out via the Follett Destiny Online Catalog: 

For streaming video content on this topic, visit Learn360:

Bill of Rights: Grades 6-8, 9-12

Constitutional Amendments 1-5, Grades 3-5

Constitutional Amendments 6-10, Grades 3-5

Technology Tip - November 2021

                                                                                                          by Doug Cairns, Instructional Technology Specialist

Productivity tips for Chrome users

Do you have websites you visit every day? Perhaps your email or calendar. Did you know that in the Chrome browser, you can "Pin" tabs? Pinning a tab will make that tab persistent even after closing your browser. Pinned tabs are grouped to the left side of the screen for easy access and can be rearranged for your specific needs. To "Pin" a tab, simply right-click it to bring up the context menu. You will find the "Pin" option toward the middle of the choices available. You can also "Un-Pin" tabs following the steps in reverse.

Do you work on multiple projects at once and end up with 10, 20, 30, or more tabs open at once? Chrome has a built-in feature called "Tab Groups." Right-click one of your open tabs and select "Add Tab to New Group." This will open a new menu and allow you to name the group, choose a color, open a new tab in the group, Ungroup the tabs, Close the Group, and move all the tabs in a group to a new window. You can right-click other open tabs and select to move them to your already created groups, or simply drag and drop tabs into the preferred group. Clicking on a group will expand or collapse the group so you can easily work with the sites you need to.

Maybe you don't have enough time to read through an entire article online, but you don't want to lose the tab. Chrome has a "Reading List" feature that will allow you to quickly access sites you want to get back to without leaving the tab open or bookmarking them. Right-click the tab you want to add to your reading list and select "Add Tab to Reading List." You can also click on the star found in the address bar and select "Add Tab to Reading List." To access your reading list, you need to have the bookmarks bar open. To open your bookmarks bar, press "Command+Shift+B" on Mac or Ctrl+Shift+B" on PC or go into Chrome Settings > Appearance and toggle the "Show Bookmarks Bar" switch.

One last tip...

Do you frequently have a website that automatically plays video or audio content (Think news or advertisements on a site)? You can quickly "Mute" an entire site so that all content and pages on the site will be muted. Right-click and select "Mute Site," and all pages and content on that site will be muted. You can reverse this action by right-clicking on the tab and selecting "Unmute Site." You will know if a site is muted if you see a speaker icon in the address bar with a red box.

Chrome has many more useful features. If you would like to learn more about what Chrome can do, check back again next month. I will be walking through the creation of profiles to keep personal content separate from work.

New Items in the ERS Library's Circulating Collection - November 2021

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	Click on any book cover to access additional resources via TeachingBooks!

Did You Know? - November 2021

Britannica School/Escolar is available through the ERS Portal and provided to all California schools by the California State Library. This is a fantastic opportunity for students and teachers alike because Britannica is packed with content!

 

Britannica School is the go-to site for K-12 research to build essential information literacy skills, differentiate instruction, and support STEM education. Students can toggle between 3 reading levels on each article, have articles read aloud, and use Merriam-Webster’s double click dictionary to hear words pronounced and read their definitions in English or Spanish. Each article can also be translated into over 80 other languages. In addition to articles, students have access to videos, images, primary source documents, and ebooks.

 

Britannica Escolar is the leading knowledge-building resource, universally trusted for accurate and age-appropriate content in Spanish, made for native Spanish speakers, bilingual students, and students learning Spanish. Spanish speakers write all Escolar articles, and when you click “Listen” on any Spanish article, the recording is by an actual Spanish speaker, not a robot.

 

Now Britannica also has its own free Google Chrome extension: Britannica Insights. Information pulled from Britannica School appears on the right side of the screen for every Google search, ensuring that students learn from a reliable and fact-checked source.

Log in to the ERS Portal, or visit britannicalearn.com, for tutorials and to sign up for their blog.

Free Virtual Event: Winter Book & Author Festival

Join Penguin Random House, Library Journal, and School Library Journal on December 9 for our second free, day-long virtual book and author festival as we celebrate librarians everywhere! Enjoy a day packed with author panels and interviews, book buzzes, virtual shelf browsing, and adding to your TBR pile. You’ll hear from many of your favorite authors, whose work runs the gamut from Picture Books to Young Adult titles to the best new Fiction and Nonfiction for adults. There is something of interest for every reader. Attendees will also have the opportunity to check out the virtual exhibit hall, chat directly with authors, access eGalleys, and enter to win prizes and giveaways.

For the program and a full list of speakers, CLICK HERE.  

Event Hours: 7:00AM PST - 2:00PM PST

 

Please note that the event environment and the sessions have attendance capacity limits. If on the day of the event you find that you are unable to access the environment or join a session, know that sessions will be available for on-demand viewing within 24 hours, and the entire event will be accessible for three months from the event date.

By registering for this event or webcast, you are agreeing to the Library Journal Privacy Policy and Code of Conduct Policy and agreeing that Library Journal may share your registration information with current and future sponsors of this event.

Upcoming Holidays & Observances with Teaching Resources - November 2021

November is Picture Book Month. During this month, we pay tribute to the importance of picture books in the classroom. Picture books are building blocks that promote literacy, vocabulary, sentence structure, comprehension, and many additional skills. The ERS Library has hundreds of picture books available for check out via the Follett Destiny Online Catalog, including:

The ERS Portal contains ebook and audiobooks versions of many picture books in multiple applications:

 

Sora     MackinVIA     Learn360 Audiobooks     TumblebookLibrary (K-6)