Technology Tidbits » Useful Stuff

NoveList

Katrina Gormley — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 01:18:37 +0000

NoveList is basically a reader’s advisory site — it’s purpose is to help readers find things to read. This site will be useful if you are trying to give students ideas for books they might like to read and useful for yourself if you enjoy reading and need some ideas.

Right at the top of the page users will find a search box, where they can do a basic search of the site. You can also limit your searches a bit in this basic search box by: author, title, series, or describe a plot, and you can limit searches by age level: adults, teens, older kids, younger kids. After entering your search term and clicking the search button, your results will be brought up on a page with various tabs breaking the information up into categories. The tabs will vary based on your search term — one of my favorites is “series”. This tab will appear for authors who write books in series and will tell you the names of the series they have written and the books (and their order) that belong in each series.

The center of the NoveList page is a spotlight section that changes on a regular basis. The right hand side of the screen has 2 main boxes: “My NoveList” and “Reader’s Advisory”. The “My NoveList” section has links to an online tour, an informational page and a “My Folders and Alerts” page where you can access information you have saved from your searches. The “Reader’s Advisory” section is mainly for librarians and others specifically in the business of reader’s advisory.

The right hand side of the page includes links for you to browse through for various articles. These links are arranged by age group (Younger=Birth-8, Older=9-12, Teens=13-18, Adult=19+). Articles include things like: Author Read-alikes, Author Biographies, Award Winners, Book Talks, Recommended Reads and much much more.

At the bottom of the left side there is a “Working with Kids” section which is designed specifically for teachers, librarians and parents.

As an avid reader I find this to be a very useful site!
~Happy Computing!

Learning Express Library

Katrina Gormley — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:42:15 +0000

The first resource I am going to cover in our series about the online databases available through MeL is Learning Express Library. Learning Express Library is for the general user. It offers interactive practice tests and tutorial courses in the following “Learning Centers”: Elementary School, Middle School, High School, College Preparation, College Students, GED Preparation, Job Search and Workplace Skills, Jobs and Careers, Skill Building for Adults, and U.S. Citizenship.

The elementary through high school categories include math, reading, vocabulary, writing, spelling and grammar improvement practice activities. The college preparation category includes practice test for many major tests, including: ACT, SAT, PSAT/NMQST, and AP Prep. The Jobs and Careers area offers practice tests for many different careers which require a test for licensing such as: civil service, cosmetology, emergency medical services, firefighter, law enforcement, military, nursing and allied health, real estate, and teaching.

Users get immediate scoring, complete answer explanations, and an individualized analysis of their results.

To begin, visit our webpage (http://www.montabella.com/MEDIA_PAGES/hs_media_main.htm) OR visit http://mel.org, click on ”MeL Databases” and then click on the “LearningExpress Library” link. Please note that if you access this from home you will have to type in a MI driver’s license or state ID number, Users do have to sign up for a free account in order to take the tests. This allows you to keep track of tests you have taken, and to stop a test and pick it up at a later date.

~Happy Computing,
Katrina

MeL – Michigan Electronic Library

Katrina Gormley — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:41:08 +0000

What is MeL?? MeL is short for “Michigan eLibrary” (http://mel.org). It provides all Michigan residents with free access to online full-text articles, full-text books, digital images, and other research information at any time on the Internet. Databases are available for kids, adults, and on specialized topics such as car repair, practice tests and art images. It also provides an easy-to-use interlibrary loan system allowing Michigan residents to borrow books and other library materials for free from participating Michigan libraries.

MeL has recently unveiled a new resource — MORE: Michigan Online Resources for Educators, which allows teachers and parents to find lesson plans and curriculum aids searchable by subject and aligned to state standards.

“MeL is a project of the Library of Michigan, an agency of the Department of History, Arts and Libraries. The Library of Michigan contracts with the Michigan Library Consortium and partners with a number of Michigan organizations and institutions to provide the MeL service.” (From MeL website)

For the next couple of months the Technology Tidbits posts will be focusing on the different databases available through MeL. I will be “introducing” a different MeL database in each post — explaining what kinds of information can be found in each database and some of the different search features offered in each particular database.

~Happy Computing,
Katrina

Opening MS Word 2007 documents with older versions of Word

Katrina Gormley — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:16:18 +0000

If you have recently purchased a new computer with MS Office, or have been sent a document by someone who has, you may have seen some files that look to be Microsoft Office documents, but their file extensions were different from what you are used to. The new Microsoft Office 2007 saves documents with different file extensions — the Word files are most commonly save with the .docx file extension. Older versions of Word (like what we have here at school) won’t open the newer documents unless you load a converter on your computer. The converter can be downloaded for free from Microsoft by visiting this webpage http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=941B3470-3AE9-4AEE-8F43-C6BB74CD1466&displaylang=en

Also remember, you can always save a file as an older version or even in a version compatible with another program such as WordPerfect or MS Works, by changing the “Save As Type” at the bottom of the Save As dialog box.

~Happy Computing,
Katrina

Automobile Recall Notices

Katrina Gormley — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:50:22 +0000

The Office of Defects Investigation (ODI), an office within the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), is now offering the option to have recall notices for vehicles sent to your email. By visiting the ODI’s webpage and choosing the E-Mail Recall Notifications link, you can sign up to receive email notifications whenever a recall notice is posted for your vehicle(s). You can choose to receive all vehicular recall notices or you can specify up to 5 make and model year combinations (unfortunately you can’t get as specific as your actual model). You can also receive recall notices concerning motorcycles, buses and trailers (including RV trailers).