We depend on teacher librarians to promote Northwest AEA Online resources to their staff, teachers and students. On this page you'll find links to web sites and files that we hope will help you do that.

Iowa AEA Online Business Cards

First of all, the IEC (Iowa Educators Consortium)  printed new Iowa AEA Online business-sized cards this year. Every teacher librarian will be receiving information about that in the near future. Our target date to begin sending the cards in the van is the week of August 31st. Along with the business cards, I've created a cover letter highlighting all the online resources available from Northwest AEA. If you'd like a editable handout available in Word or as a PDF to distribute to your staff, you can download one here. There's a place for you to include your school or building's User ID.

Iowa AEA Online New Flyer

There's also a new Iowa AEA Online flyer highlighting each Iowa AEA resource and the changes that have happened since July 1 of this year. You can also download the 2009 Iowa AEA Online flyer  here.

Resource User Guides:

Most of the online databases have also provided guides that highlight the new features of their respective databases. I've provided some links below that might be of interest to you. Remember, too, that the Iowa AEA Online page also has educator resourses. Click on the educator's link found on the right side of the page. Notice the menu change on the left side of the page. You can locate lesson plans, tutorials, user guides and technical assistance information. 

• AP Images: I created a quickstart guide of sorts. You can download the AP Guide here.
• Atomic Learning: Atomic Learning will be changing their interface in the very near future. Iowa AEAs added the Assistive Technology Collection which is focused on helping educators, students and parents use and apply assistive technology. You can find a listing of the assistive technology movies under the training library tab. You can also click here.
• DE Streaming: DE Streaming has made some nice changes particularly to their searching capabilities. Their August newsletter did a great job of highlighting some of those changes. I'd suggest downloading the available overview from the newsletter.
• EBSCO made many changes last year. EBSCO provides all kinds of support materials. From EBSCOhost's main page, click on the EBSCO support site link found in the upper right corner of the page. On that page you can select the training tab and then tutorials.  The Promotion link is also helpful. Select, promote your online resources, and then find resources specifically for school libraries.
• iClipart replaces Clipart.com. Clipart.com was purchased by a large company and all the support staff were terminated. iClipart is similar to Clipart.com and will be adding more content throughout the year.  There's a place where you can suggest subject content and iClipart welcomes your comments. Download a user guide by clicking on the Need Help? link. An overview of iClipart and suggestions for using this resource is also available to download.
• Learn360 is new to Iowa AEA Online but not new to Northwest AEA. To learn more about Learn360, visit the help center (orange button located on the upper right corner of the home page).You can also download an overview of Learn360.
• SIRS Issues Researcher has added some Web 2.0 features. SIRS Researcher, like EBSCO, does a great job of providing support materials. Click on the Educator's Resource Link located in the upper right corner of the main page.  On the left side of the page, find SIRS Researcher. You can download a PDF quickstart guide, a PowerPoint or watch a Flash movie. ProQuest also has an additional support page with many good additional resources.
• World Book Web: A number of new resources were added to the World Book Web suite. Iowa AEA Online added World Book Discover, a Spanish and French encyclopedia, and three digital libraries: Living Green, Early Peoples and Inventions and Discoveries.  I'd like to just briefly  highlight one of the new World Book Web products: Discover. Discover is an encyclopedia written at a lower reading level. It would be great for struggling readers or ESL students. In addition, Discover will read articles and also translate articles from English to numerous languages. An overview of World Book Web's new features can also be downloaded.  For assistance learning about these new resources, you can go to World Book's Customer Training Site. World Book also has Web Video Tutorials.

Webinars:

Finally, webinars are also a great way to learn more about the Iowa AEA Online Resources. If your schedule permits, I would strongly encourage you to consider participating in a webinar.

• DE Streaming:  From Discovery's main page, click on the professional development link. On the right side of that page under what's new, you'll find a list of webinars. Discovery will be offereing a series of Back to School Enhancements webinars.
• EBSCO Webinars:
• ProQuest Training Courses (SIRS Issues Researcher)
• World Book Webinars

Medianet Resources:

I also created a new Medianet user's guide (Word). The user's guide is also available as a PDF.  Medianet updated their interface this past spring, so the new directions reflect those changes.