MMI Lesson 2

Week two of the MMI sure opened my eyes to what was available in Britannica.  I looked up bison on Tyler's recommendation and we learned that there are only two types, the American and European which is called a wisent.  For the second part of the lesson I went to the Middle School area and found a lot more history of the bison, rather than just easy information about the animal itself.  The information was much more in depth and provided a more complete picture of what had happend with the destruction of the species, something that wasn't touched on in the elementary article.  Part three took me to Barbados where I saw that I could hear the nation anthem, see the flag, go to related articles (President Obama was invited to speak there in 2008), and got a very interesting list of "primary sources and ebooks"...some wild choices there.  I don't get a lot of questions about countries revolving around encyclopedia articles in our public library children's room.  Most of my requests are for books in the library.  However, if someone wants to find info on a country we don't have a book about, I know I can use Britannica online as a quick resource.  Part four really got me thinking.  I read about how to use workspace and thought about how I might use it as part of our Summer Reading Program.  I set up a workspace, called it SRP 2013, and decided to see what would come up if I just entered the word "dig" because the theme next summer for the Collaborative Summer Reading Program is "Dig Deep Read".  I found 44 articles that came up in the elementary section.  To my delight two children's book authors were included.  Maurice Sendak for Where the Wild Things Are and Louis Sachar for Holes.  There were nice pictures of both of them.  That exercise got me thnking about how many things relate to the word dig.  This was a great exercise to play with and I sure learned a lot about what Britannica can do to support learning.

The Marvelous Maine Invitational has begun.  So, here's my newly created blog.  I wasn't sure what to use as a name so I googled how to name a bolg and came up with the three steps.  That was the key to unlocking what I chose as a name.  Kept it simple, related it to what it was, and I've already forgotten the third step. 

I hope that folks who were at the Friends of Maine Libraries 20th Annual Meeting at the Senator Inn yesterday enjoyed the day.  Many thanks to Nancy McGinnis who chaired the day and kept everything on track.