Maine Newsstand Proquest Discovery Exercise

           The tutorial was very helpful to learn how to navigate through the newsstand search. It was simple and easy to follow and understand. After watching the tutorial, I jumped right into the basic search. I searched for the full text articles about apitherapy (bee venom therapy) first and received 4 results. The newest article was from 2009, but it was still very informative. I noticed that the ones from the same year basically had the same information just through a different writer. My second search, bee venom and arthritis, produced almost the exact same results with the exception of one different article about a beekeeper from New Portland, who used bee venom to treat his aches and pains. I liked the ability to sort the articles from the most to least recent. It made it easier for me to find the latest news about apitherapy.

Saving the search was easy once I made an account. I was able to save my search so I can go back to it later. I was able to preview my articles and print right from the preview page. It was very easy to use. I tried to create an alert, but I was not able to do that. It kept telling me that there was a server error and to contact the tech support if it kept happening, which I did do.

To date I have used the K-12 Britannica Online School Edition and K-2 Britannica Learning Zone. My fourth graders are researching mammals to be able to write a report and we used the Britannica Online School Edition for the Elementary level. The kids had no problem using the site and really enjoyed that it read to them. My teachers, however, were amazed that such a resource was available to us for free. My second graders used the learning zone for their continent research. They were able to watch and learn new facts about each continent and write down those facts. It was easy to use, however, we seemed to have problems using Internet Explorer while watching those videos. My Firefox browser worked great. Next week, they will revisit this topic using the K-12 online school edition. They will be able to easily search the continents within the subcategory of the continent section. Also they will be able to use the speaker and have the entire page of information read to them.