arts on CD-ROM, The

Teaching Pre K-8, Mar 1996 by Allen, Denise

SIRS (Social Issues Resources Series), a leader in research sources for libraries, has developed a CD-ROM research tool for elementary and middle school students. SIRS Discoverer features three databases: full-text articles, country facts and newsline.

The "full-text articles" database provides articles and graphics from over 450 magazines, newspapers and government documents that can be printed with bibliographic citations. Country facts provides information about the United States and Canada. Newsline has summaries of headline news.

Your students will find the main screen that illuminates the 15 research categories easy to use. Information can be accessed through a keyword search or by subject tree. Older users may want to truncate to expand their searches. Everyone will appreciate the on-screen dictionary, notepad, brief summaries, photographs, maps, charts and source information.

The articles that can be accessed are color-coded by reading levels, which include primary, upper-primary, middle and upper-middle. Many of them are actually written by students 18 and younger, and these are designated by a special symbol. (Your students may submit their entries to the Article & Artwork Contest by April 15, 1996. For information, write to SIRS at the address on page 23.)

I clicked on Arts and found interesting categories such as: Animation, Architecture, Careers in Art, Museums, Painting, Photography and Sculpture.

I selected Painting and looked up a primary-level article titled "Painting with India Ink," by Molly Bang. The text, written in a larger font for the first two reading levels, included simple step-by-step directions about getting ready, holding the brush, painting lines and cleaning up.

Young learners won't have difficulty learning how to conduct research with a tool like SIS Discoverer. In fact, research in my media center will never be the same again.

I also read an article for middle grade students titled "Walt Disney and His Influence on the Mass Media" by Paul Johnson. Students who choose to read this one will certainly learn how Disney changed the idea of family entertainment.

I was very impressed with the capabilities of this product and with the potential it has for teaching research procedures to younger students. In the primary school and middle school edition, student workbooks are provided and these serve as a tutorial. You can customize the program to fit students' needs and will appreciate the lesson ideas and worksheets in the Teacher's Guide. Updates for the program are offered twice a year.

SIRS Discoverer literature links: Celebrate America in Poetry and Art published in conjunction with the National Museum of Art represents 50 writers and 51 artists. (Hyperion, 1994). Webster's New World Dictionary for Young Adults. (Prentice Hall, 1992).

SIRS Discoverer on CD-ROM from SIRS, Inc. is available for Macintosh, Windows, and DOS (at) an initial subscription rate of $650. Updates are $475 per year. There is no additional charge for operating on a local area network.

A new friend for Millie, Sammy and Bailey. Just as I was about to wind up this month's column, a package arrived that I eagerly tore open from Edmark. The CD-ROM inside introduced Trudy, the newest member of the Early Learning House Series. Trudy's Time and Place House became an overnight success at Southwest Elementary.

As with the other Edmark programs, students are encouraged to explore and discover while learning about time and geography. The five areas in Trudy's Time and Place House are: Jellybean Hunt, Earth Scout, Symbol Sandbox, Calendar Clock and Time Twins.

In Time Twins, Analog Ann and Digital Dan help students distinguish between hour, half hour and quarter hour in a challenging format.

Calendar Clock explores the relationship between months, days, hours, minutes and seconds while students create scenes and watch events happen before their eyes.

Earth Scout builds awareness of the earth through kid-style map and globe explorations. My students enjoyed taking "photographs" of interesting places as they visited different landmarks in the space craft. They printed the pictures and the library came alive as students then researched their photos.

Jellybean Hunt was a hit, too. Students learned relative (left, right, forward, backward) and cardinal (north, south, east, west) directions while navigating an ant across a napkin. To the delight of the kids, the ant changes colors or shapes as it eats the jellybean.

My favorite section is the Symbol Sandbox where children place symbols on a map grid, which creates interesting artistic sandbox landscapes. Students were mesmerized when the chosen symbol caused a river, mountain, railroad or village to pop up in the sand. What an intuitive way to teach map skills]

As in all the Early Learning House Series programs, each activity has an explore-and-discover mode, along with a question-and-answer mode. Both provide challenging activities for young children. Even though this program is targeted for preschool to second grade, my third graders loved using it, too.