World Book Online

World Book School Edition
Although I have used this edition the most, it continues to surprise me! When I opened World Book Kids for this lesson I was immediately drawn to the World Of Animals video clip. Clicking enter and then filter I checked out the mammals and decided to pursue the black-tailed prairie dog. I found a few facts with the photo and then choices to go to the exhibit or article. The exhibit contained quick facts, related photos, and web links. But the best part was the Compare Animals feature. I selected guinea pig, clicked on Compare Now, and had an instant side-by-side chart. (Guinea pigs are actually raised to eat in parts of South America! Well, I've been told that prairie dog stew is very tasty too.) The article page included three paragraphs of text, related web links (same as the exhibit), a Lexile level, a Play It question, citation information, an illustration, a link to see the article in Spanish, a link to the article in World Book Student, and a toolbox of options (print, email, save, translate this text, hear text read aloud, double click to define a word).

So, on to the trail of the prairie dog in World Book Student... I knew I could arrive through the link in the Kids article, but headed to the home page and entered the term "black-tailed prairie dog" in the search box. My results came up with 1 article, 1 sound, 1 picture and 2 back in time items. In the article itself the amount of information is doubled and is written in more complex terms. The habitat info is about the same, however, Student gives details about the conflict with people and livestock. The related web link is different, a content standards link is included, and tools also include options to highlight the search term and save to My Research. I did the same search selecting the option to search Students and Kids at the same time and came up with the 2 articles, but no link to the cool exhibit stuff in the Kids' World of Animals. Searching just Media didn't find it so I tried Advanced Search and saw that Student is only searching the articles in Kids - too bad - the comparison feature would interest older kids as well.

Leaving the prairie dog behind, World Book Advanced took me to England. Wow - 3074 items, 180 primary sources, 27 e-books, 11 Supreme Court cases and the list goes on! In the article itself the outline on the left links to major topics covered, maps, flag, photos, a fact box, etc. On the right the Related Information links to other information in the encyclopedia as well as out on the web. Here I found an extensive list of biographies which would be great to help students select a topic they may never think of for those 8th grade biography assignments. Also, The World Remembers D-Day is found in Special Reports. I might use this as background reading for a U.S. History class and have them compare/contrast and/or interview relatives and/or neighbors about the Honor Flight program going on in SD right now. Depending on the project, all of this content-rich article would be helpful to students and teachers, plus the content standards link is an added perk for lesson planning.

Lastly, browsing World Book Discover allowed me to start at History and Government, Government, American Government, People, and end up at Coolidge, Calvin. I could then translate, save to My Research, read aloud, email, print, look at the photo, double-click to define a word, etc. All of these features would enable an ELL or IEP student to work independently and locate information needed. If more detail were needed the feature at the end of the article to go to Student would link them to further information there.