Jefferson Middle School

Jefferson Middle School faculty were recently invited to dip into a sampling of delicious new ways to integrate district-wide online databases with the NISD curriculum.  Monday, October 8 was a staff development day and in the afternoon Jefferson librarian, Lucy Podmore, held three training sessions in a computer lab. 

Each 45-minute session was designed around a particular grade level curriculum.  Sixth grade teachers were shown an upcoming unit, the Solar System, and how to find information in Facts on File and EBSCOhost databases.  Seventh grade teachers were shown an upcoming unit, Catastrophic Events, and how to find information in Thomson Gale and EBSCOhost databases.  Finally, eighth grade teachers explored Thomson Gale and World Book Online Advanced to find information for their upcoming unit, Weather and the Greenhouse Effect.  All sessions included an activity which introduced the newest database, Visual Thesaurus. 

The Jefferson faculty enjoyed having the time to investigate the databases. They also loved the dips and chips provided for a snack!