Free Database Resources
Internet Public Library 2 is an online library that has been managed for over 20 years by Drexel University with contributing partners from over 20 universities from across the US, including the University of Illinois- Urbana-Campaign! The website is no longer actively managed and some resources such as "ask a librarian" are no longer available. However, the 20 years of curated data, resources and collections are FANTASTIC and certainly worth visiting! The website also has sections for kids, teens, newspapers, magazines, specials collections and can be searched by subject.
Fact Monster includes an online almanac, thesaurus, dictionary, encyclopedia, atlas, and timelines. Student friendly and no logins are required to search. Great videos, subject areas as well - Science, Social Science, ELA, Math, etc. Does connect to educational games, so monitoring is essential.
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Ducksters is a simple, K-5 student friendly database option. Includes history, science, geography, economics and some fun topics as well, sports and fun facts. Resources pages are detailed but to the point making it easier for some students to maintain attention and not get frustrated in too much "text". Links to some educational games, so monitoring is essential.
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Safe Search Resources
Kiddle is a visual search engine that returns SAFE results. Sites appearing in Kiddle search results satisfy family friendly requirements, as they filter sites with explicit or deceptive content. They search result will include 1-3 sites that are hand picked by the editors that are written just for kids, 4-7 sites that may not be just for kids but are simple and easy to read, and 8 or more that have expert content but may be harder to read. All results include a large thumbnail or graphic beside the text, which is also in a large type font for easier readability.
KidRex is a fun and safe search for kids, by kids! KidRex searches emphasize kid-related webpages from across the entire web and are powered by Google Custom Search™ and use Google SafeSearch™ technology. Google's SafeSearch™ screens for sites that contain explicit sexual content and deletes them from your child’s search results. Google's filter uses advanced technology to check keywords, phrases, and URLs. No filter is 100 percent accurate, but SafeSearch™ should eliminate most inappropriate material. In addition to Google SafeSearch™, KidRex maintains its own database of inappropriate websites and keywords. KidRex researchers test KidRex daily to ensure that users and children have the best web experience possible.
Wolfram Alpha has been known for MATH assistance, but there is much more to this website. Math includes - Step by step directions, elementary math, algebra plotting & graphics, Calculus & Analysis, Geometry and more. Science & Technology includes - Unites & Measures, Physics, Chemistry, Engineering, Computational Sciences, Earth Sciences and more. There are also categories of Society & Culture and Everyday Life to allow research abilities for any topic.
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Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, users can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites. Google Scholar helps users find relevant work across the world of scholarly research.
Career OneStop Toolkits offer research into careers and educational pathways for academic and trade paths. Search by skills, career, industry or state. Includes job search skills, skills assessments and local training finder. Video library is extensive and includes career and career cluster videos in many fields such as architecture, education, law and public safety, health care, scientific research, and transportation just to name a few. Videos on skills help define skills such as perceptual ability, reaction time, spatial ability and thinking skills plus many more.
Memidex is a free online dictionary/thesaurus and more.... It has a simple interface when the page loads. Typing in a word and selecting go will return a page that has definitions from over 5 different online dictionaries.The top section is condensed and will be easy for the lower grades to use. Scrolling further down may cause some confusion with younger students. Upper grades can utilize the comparison factors of multiple texts definitions and many different pronunciations. (There are several dialects to choose from further down the page.)
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Tools For Research Organization
Citelighter is a toolbar that can be added to users browser that will allow the user to highlight text or pictures from any webpage and place them into an "outline" format on the users account within the platform. Users will need to create an account to use this service. There are both free and paid accounts within this platform. The free service allows for student content-capturing tools, outlining tools and google docs integration. Paid version allows for many teacher/student integration options and is based on users.
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EasyBib - Free citation and bibliography creation tool. This is a chrome extension that can be added to Google Chrome or an App that is available in iOS and Andriod. The user will need to create an account online in order to save any scans from the devices or "clips" using the extension online. The user can setup different projects within the account and save any scans or clips in the correct project. When the user is ready to create the bibliography all that is need is to sign in to the account online and generate the pages. Users can choose the format from many options...APA, MLA...etc.
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Citation Machine allows for inputting information to create the citation you need to cite the resources. Users can choose the style of citation from over 15 options. Inputting the title and author the website may be able to automatically complete the information. Results can be copied and pasted from the results to any document software. If users create accounts they can save the citations in collections by projects and print bibliographies when complete. No account is need to generate a simple citation for copy and pasting.
Create A Graph--Kidzone online graphing tool. Extremely kid friendly for elementary students to graph data online. Includes a tutorial to get started if students are new to graphing. Students can take data from any experiment or polling situation and create a visual representation of the information much easier than a spreadsheet creation.
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QuickCite - Citation website that will assist students in building the correct citation. Unlike the other citation services this one guides users to "how" and "what" to place in the citation. There are many "?" throughout the process where students can get more information about what goes in this section of the citation. Users first select the item to be cited...book, website, article...etc. Then the site populates the corresponding fields to be filled in. No account is needed to use this platform.
Dirt Directory is a registry of digital research tools for scholarly use. DiRT makes it easy for digital humanists and others conducting digital research to find and compare resources ranging from content management systems to music OCR, statistical analysis packages to mind mapping software. The website starts off with the question, "I need a digital research tool to....." With a list of over 20 items, like analyze data, publish, store data, collect data, communicate, create, find information, translate, etc. Users can also explore by choosing what kind of data they would like to work with.
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