In life, we use physical tools to help us accomplish various tasks: hammers to pound nails, scissors to cut paper, and shovels to make holes. These tools are certainly helpful, but in today’s digital world, our students also need access to digital tools. According to the National Education Technology Standards (NETS), students need to develop the necessary skills to evaluate and select information sources and digital tools based on the appropriateness to specific tasks. The resources below are just a small sample of the tools we use with our students. These tools are subscription based and require a username and password. Students are encouraged to use these tools at school as well as at home to help them with their homework or to simply enjoy learning for the sake of learning!
BRITANNICA – an online encyclopedia with thousands of articles, images, videos, and web sites. http://www.britannica.com
EBOOKS - available via Cooper’s library card catalog, which can be accessed from the Media Center button on Cooper’s home page.
BRAINPOP - provides educational movies, activities, and games. To access this resource, go to http://www.brainpop.com.
DISCOVERY STREAMING - provides thousands of digital resources including instructional videos, skill builders, games, audio files and images. This research tool is only available via Cooper’s library card catalog, which can be accessed from the Media Center button on Cooper’s home page. Students then need to login using their school issued username and password. http://www.discoveryeducation.com
MeL - Michigan Electronic Library - provides all Michigan residents with free on-demand access to full-text articles, full-text books, images and other valuable research information. A Michigan driver’s license is required to login from home. No login is required if accessing this resource from a Michigan public library, school or university. To access this resource, go tohttp://mel.org.
