Lesson 5--ProQuest

 

 

    1.

  In checking out ProQuest, I decided to do a little research on Teachscape.  Our principal just talked to us about needing to complete a course in this professional development software before the end of the school year.  We can't access it yet, but my curiosity has me wondering what it's all about.  ProQuest was perfect for my endeavor.  When I did a basic search, up popped 57 trade journals, 15 newspapers, 6 scholarly journals, 4 reports, and 3 magazines.  Also, on that first page, I had the option to look at a preview of each source presented without actually leaving the page I was on.  Furthermore, from that preview, I could "Save to My Research" if I had created such an account as well as cite it, print it, save it, or e-mail it.  I liked the fact that I could have my searched word highlighted in the text as some of the articles were quite lengthy and didn't deal completely with Teachscape.  Still on that first page, I could conduct a "search within" those findings already listed and have that highlighted as well.  I decided to look for Teachscape Learn since that is the portion of the program that we teachers are expected to complete.  Sure enough, it then showed me the findings for the more detailed search within those sources it had already located for me in my first search.

 

     In trying the advanced search, only 31 results were available.  Those results, as you probably guessed, were better suited to my purpose.  Again, I had all the options to save, cite, print, etc. as before.  A feature I really liked, which was also available in the basic search, was that I could click on a bar graph which indicated the year of publication of the results that were being shown, enabling me to get only the most recent data.

 

     1.a.

   I enjoyed going to cohorts' blogs where I found out that I have a LONG way to go in blogging if I want to attract anyone to my blog!  Stephanie's blog showed me that I missed the videos on the Chilton Manual site, which I would have been impressed with, because I agree with her that I need to see the real thing and not an artist's drawing of the parts.  Mike's blog opened my eyes to the world of voice activation for entering my blog posts.  There are a few bugs to be worked out, but some potential uses nonetheless!  Shayna confirmed what I had been thinking about Learning Express and how handy it would have been "back in the day." 

 

     2.

 

     Next, I went to the Publications tab where I could find all the publications catalogued (4803 of them!) in ProQuest in an alphabetical list.  I chose just one, "Tech and Learning," which was available from 1988 to present.  Within just this journal, I could conduct a search for Teachscape as well.  I could again narrow it by choosing the year of publication, the databases to search, etc.  To find what I think my principal is really looking for, I decided to search within the 24 articles about Teachscape that were found with this query for those that included the name of Charlotte Danielson, famous for teacher evaluation tools.  Eight of those 24 articles included Charlotte Danielson's name.  This was just too easy!  I never imagined all this could be done in such a short span of time and all from the comfort of my easy chair at home!