Follett Collections by Destiny® creates new, collaborative ways for librarians, teachers, and students to share resources across the district or school. We've created a number of collections with books on various topics, such as 9/11, LGBTQIA+, novels in verse, humor, immigrant voices, coming of age, first-person point of view, memoirs, and many others. Students and teachers can access district resources in Follett Destiny Discover®. Each Collection can include web pages, images, documents, eBooks, and more! Collections can also be shared publicly or kept private. With Collections, teachers can quickly pair content to instruction, and students can collect and curate resources for assignments, projects, and tasks. You do not need to be logged in to access our Collections when you are in the school building. If you would like to create your own Collection, please see a librarian and we will show you how to do it.
This year, as a librarian, I have been wondering, "Are we giving our students the skills to distinguish between fake news and real news in the world of social media? Do we have those skills ourselves?" You may remember that I recently posted about The CRAAP Test, which is a framework to help students decipher which information is reliable on the Internet. Is this enough in a post-truth world?
I have been collecting resources on this very topic for lesson plans across the curriculum, when I came across this TED-Ed video (You all know how much I love TED-Ed). "With the advent of the Internet and social media, news is distributed at an incredible rate by an unprecedented number of different media outlets. How do we choose which news to consume? Damon Brown gives the inside scoop on how the opinions and facts (and sometimes non-facts) make their way into the news and how the smart reader can tell them apart."
TED-Ed Original lessons feature the words and ideas of educators brought to life by professional animators. This lesson by Damon Brown, animation by Augenblick Studios.
When you are finished watching the video above, take a look at this one on How False News Can Spread.
When you search for information, you’re going to find lots of it… but is it good information? How can we tell if a source is a source that we would want to take information from? These are questions that our students are having trouble answering. According to this article from NPR reporter, Camila Domonoske, states that "if the children are the future, the future might be very ill-informed." This article by the Huffington Post, states that, "what we have now is not only uninformed but misinformed masses."
In light of all the misleading, biased, and plain wrong information that is out there on the Internet, we need a way to decipher which information is reliable. Thanks to a BMCHSD curriculum writing project from the summer of 2015, we have resources to help us. In comes, the CRAAP test - a clever acronym and a framework for evaluating online resources. See info-graphic below.
Created by Maddie Clybourn
When we do research, websites are useful because they provide easy access to information. However, not all websites are reliable. In order to check for reliability, we must consider, currency, relevance, authority, accuracy, and purpose. Otherwise, we might be misinformed.
The video below was curated by our Principal, Mr. Harrington, and shown at a recent faculty meeting. It demonstrates the consequences when we do not use the CRAAP test!
The Mepham High School Library Catalog has a whole new look! It's called Destiny Quest. Teachers can now create resource lists for their projects. Resource lists can include books we have right here in the library, teacher-approved Websites, and even articles from databases we subscribe to. Students can log in and create their own book lists too. Anyone can view the 10 Ten Books that circulate in our library and check out our new arrivals. You can also view what books are available in Calhoun, Kennedy, Merrick and Grand libraries. What is your "destiny"?
Current Issues: Health (H. W. Wilson) From eating disorders to food safety, from alternative medicine to cloning, from euthanasia to travel and health. This is a resource to enrich your understanding of issues at the leading edge of health and medicine.
We have updated the usernames and passwords for using online resources (databases) for the 2007-2008 school year. Stop into the library and pick up a new password handout today!
We also have a few new databases this year. If you are looking for current information about any of the countries of the world--check out CountyWatch! If you need critical commentary on your favorite authors or novels, you'll want to look at Galenet's Contemporary LiteraryCriticism! Of course, we still have your old favorites like, Opposing Viewpoints, NoodleTools, and Britannica Online.
Many of our students have already begun to work on their final English projects. We have many online resources that can be accessed in the school library or at home. Some of these online databases include Britannica Online, Galenet: Opposing Viewpoints, ProQuest (magazine and periodical database) and NoodleBib(use this database to help create a works cited page). Click here for a complete list of the databases that Mepham High School subscribes to. See Ms. Schneiderman or Ms. Sereno for a list of the usernames and passwords.
Don't forget about those wonderful old-fashioned print resources! We have books, newspapers, and magazines as well. Need help finding information on your topic? Just ask. We are here to help.
Just like our Website, this is a place to showcase information about upcoming events, resources, authors, research, and the Internet. As always, I look forward to seeing you in the library and sharing your ideas.
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