February 2012 Newsletter

Welcome to the February edition of the JCS newsletter...

In this month's edition:

Enjoy the newsletter, and feel free to get in touch with comments or suggestions for new features.

Northern Ireland schools pool their purchasing power...

More than 24,500 pupils and their teachers in Belfast and South Eastern Education and Library Board schools can now access a range of reliable reference information, high-quality copyright cleared images, subject reviews, and powerful interactive resources – round the clock and from wherever they are.

Coordinated by the Belfast and South Eastern Education Library Service (BASE), 17 secondary schools in the area have taken out a total of 26 subscriptions. Each school made an individual selection of resources from the full JCS portfolio following free trials and a JCS Publisher Day organised with the help of School Library Association of Northern Ireland (SLANI). By pooling their purchasing power the schools have secured affordable access to the resources and established a JCS consortium for Northern Ireland. Resources now on offer in the schools include the Bridgeman Education, eChalk, the EBSCO Reference Centers, History Study Centre, and the Philip Allan Magazines Online Archives.

After just a few weeks of starting their subscription to History Study Centre, Tanja Jennings, Librarian at Wellington College, Belfast has written to JCS to say:

“From Peasant Rebellions to Russian Revolutions to Irish Unionism- any topic I have searched is thoroughly covered and the information given is insightful for students. It is also useful for socio-historic background to A-Level English Literature texts like The Great Gatsby and The Catcher in the Rye.

“I think the key for the students is learning how to condense their search and having the patience to use the resource to its fullest extent and select the material most useful to them. The hyperlinks are a good feature because it allows them to specialise their search options. I'm hoping if they learn to use resources such as History Study Centre effectively they will be better prepared for online journal searches at university.”

Back to top

Win a free subscription...

National Libraries Day

If you haven’t already entered – don’t forget that the closing date for the JCS competition that is celebrating National Libraries Day is Friday 10th February. You don’t have to be a JCS subscriber to enter – all secondary schools and 6th Form Colleges in the UK and abroad are eligible. Just follow this link and complete the form!

Librarians, students and teachers can enter the competition for a chance to win one of six annual subscriptions to one of the following JCS resources:

Back to top

Forthcoming JCS publisher workshops...

JCS is pleased to announce two more of their extremely popular Publisher Days this time in the south west of England. Working in collaboration with the Devon and Bristol Schools Library Services the following events are now confirmed for April:

Tuesday 24 April (9am-2.30pm) hosted by King Edward VI College in Totnes, Devon

The programme is available on our events page.

Wednesday 25 April (times to be confirmed) hosted by the Bristol Schools Library Service in Bedminster, Bristol.

The programme for both events will combine presentations from publishers of several of the online resources available through JCS with discussion about the importance of schools investing in quality sources, the subscription costs and how JCS can help through their consortia discounts.

Both events are free to attend but places are limited so register your interest now to guarantee a place by emailing Sarah Rushworth (sarah@jcsonlineresources.org).

Back to top

Consortia update...

The latest flurry of subscriptions means that Credo Reference is now at consortia level in the North East and eChalk in the East of England.

If you would like a quote for any JCS resource, please contact Sarah at sarah@jcsonlineresources.org to see how you can benefit from the discounts available across the country.

For more consortia information, please see our consortia page.

Back to top

Topic study – Charles Dickens...

7th February 2012 marks the bicentenary of Charles Dickens’ birth. Many of the JCS resources have a wealth of materials to enable students to discover more about one of Britain’s most celebrated authors. For instance:

Literary Reference Center™

Literary Reference Center™

Literary Reference Center is the ultimate database for students and teachers of English. The resource offers cross-searchable access to the full text of thousands of texts, short stories and poems, author biographies and interviews, literary criticism, book reviews and literary journals. A search on Charles Dickens returns over 1600 results providing students access to:

  • 83 biographies
  • 334 pieces of literary criticism
  • 282 reviews, and
  • 426 full text classics.

The Times Digital Archive

The Times Digital Archive

The recently extended online archive of The Times provides invaluable primary source material including:

  • Letters from Dickens to the Editor of The Times such as the one pictured right from July 10th 1852 in which Dickens defends the magazine he edited, Household Words
  • Reviews of his fiction from the time it was published
  • Law suits that the author was involved in.


Philip Allan Online Magazines Archive

Philip Allan Online Magazines Archive

Entering the search term ‘Dickens’ into the Archive’s search bar returns 78 articles. In this article from The English Review, Sue Hemming looks at the way that Dickens portrayed the notions of damaged children and stolen childhoods in Great Expectations. (‘Children in chains: Great Expectations’: Volume 22, 1st September 2011). The article supports several aspects of the English curriculum including:

  • Victorian Literature (AQA (A) Literature)
  • Aspects of narrative (AQA (B) Literature)
  • Interpretations of prose and poetry (Edexcel Literature)
  • Prose Study (WJEC)

Bridgeman Education

Bridgeman Education

Bridgeman Education - a collection of over 380,000 images from museums, galleries, private collections and contemporary artists all copyright cleared for educational use – offers a wealth of high-quality and high-resolution material about Charles Dickens including:

  • Letters from the author
  • Portraits and photographs (the picture on the right is a portrait of Charles Dickens, by Lewis, E. Goodwyn from 1869)
  • Artists’ impressions of his work.

eChalk

eChalk

eChalk offers a fun interactive approach to learning with a number of resources to support the teaching of Great Expectations including:

  • A character quiz
  • A general knowledge test
  • A quotes game
  • And even a Pip and Magwitch Venn diagram! (pictured)

Back to top

New Scientist and History Today archives available through JCS resources...

Did you know that both Science in Context and Science Reference Center™ include the New Scientist?

The highly popular journals, History Today and History Review, are also available in History Study Centre and History Reference Center™

These are just a few of the journals available in the reference databases available through JCS.

Request a free 30 day trial here.

Back to top

Credo Reference is not only for students – it’s invaluable for teachers too...

Credo Reference

Credo Reference continues to expand with new titles added each month, and now offers nearly 600 general reference titles. There are general encyclopaedia titles – and bilinguals, quotations, animations, interactive maps, talking dictionaries, etc – all to help your students with their studies...

But Credo is also useful for teaching staff. One of the latest titles added to the database is Key Concepts in Teaching Primary Mathematics by Sage. This contains such entries as Anxiety about Mathematics which is appropriate for both primary and secondary level maths teaching. Please note that you must have a subscription or trial access login to access this link.

And not only mathematics. To find help in dealing with talk in the classroom, a search on classroom talk, for example, will bring up results which include articles such as:

  • A group activity promoting pupil–pupil talk (Key Concepts in Teaching Primary Mathematics)
  • Observing and Analyzing Classroom Talk (Concise Encyclopedia of Sociolinguistics)
  • Classroom interaction (The Cambridge Guide to Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages)
  • Assessment Frameworks for Teaching and Learning English Language Arts in a Digital Age (Handbook of Research on Teaching the English Language Arts)

To find out more request a trial of Credo Reference here.

Back to top

New from eChalk...

eChalk

eChalk continues to expand with this great electrical circuit activity where you can build, test and explore electric circuits. It is so intuitive that it can be mastered by the youngest pupil and is powerful enough to challenge the most advanced students.

Request a trial of eChalk here.

Back to top

Bridgeman Education Olympics teaching resource…

Bridgeman Education

Bridgeman Education has a new Olympic Games e-learning module which is available free to all subscribers and trial users.

Using a timeline of Olympic posters from the past century, the activity explores how art movements have influenced and informed their design by considering both historical and artistic context. Students are invited to journey back through the history of the Games and become inspired to create their own poster designs for London 2012.

Illustration from 'History of Greece' by Victor Duruy, 1890 © The Bridgeman Art Library.

Request a trial of Bridgeman Education here.

Back to top

Sector News...

World Book day

The 15th annual World Book day is on 1st March 2012 and schools and libraries all over the country will take part in marking the event. £1 book tokens will be sent to all children under the age of 18 for them to use on a book of their choice or a specially published World Book day books.

Find out more here.

500 WORDS competition

On 30th January Chris Evans launched a competition called 500 WORDS which invites children aged 13 and under to write a short story no longer than 500 words. The prize for students is a pile of books as tall as Chris Evans, and 500 books for their school library. The competition also calls for teachers and librarians to volunteer their time to help shortlist the entries. In return for marking a batch of stories, you will be entered into a draw for tickets to attend the Hay on Wye Literary Festival.

Find out more here.

Digital Literacy

‘Digital Literacy’ is The Guardian's campaign to upgrade computer science, IT and technology teaching in schools. The newspaper has published a number of articles outlining ways in which digital literacy can be improved in schools and encourages its readers to get involved with the debate. One article by Martha Lane Fox argues that ‘Teachers must think internet-first’ and that providing everyone with digital skills is a key factor in tackling long-term unemployment.

Find out more about the Guardian's campaign here.

Perceptions of Libraries

A report published by OCLC entitled ‘Perceptions of Libraries, 2010’ details the trends surrounding perceptions and practices of the information consumers in the United States. It explores the physical library, the online library, search engines, searching, internet privacy, trust, social networking, library funding and the concept of “library value” in the United States. This report will be of interest to all our readers.

Read the full report here.

Education Show

The Education Show will be held from 15th-17th March 2012 at Birmingham NEC and will feature a selection of free CPD seminars, workshops and training alongside over 400 leading suppliers and exclusive show special offers so you can pick up the latest resources for your learning environment.

Find out more here. Back to top