Ministry-Licensed Software Profiles

Jen Weening

Learn360

Video Streaming Service

Learn360

Overview

• Massive library of over 100,000 video resources for teacher and student use
• Searchable by state and provincial curriculum standards, including grade, subject area, and overall and specific expectations
• Browsable by topic �or subject

Learn360

Subjects supported

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• All
• Ability to search by Ontario (and other) Curriculum Standards:
• English Language Learners
• Health & PE
• Language Arts
• Mathematics
• Science
• Social Studies

Learn360

Grade Levels supported

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• All
• The “Search by Standard” feature allows teachers to find videos relating to specific or overall curriculum expectations for every grade from K-12 in a variety of subject areas
• I did not search every subject area for every grade level, but tried a variety of searches, including the following:
• Kindergarten > Mathematics
• Grade 3 > Science
• Grade 7 > Social Studies
• Grade 10 > Language Arts (English)
• Results were not found for every specific curriculum expectation I searched but there were certainly a variety of grade-specific, subject-specific results found

Learn360

Grade Levels supported

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Results from a search for Grade 7 > Social Studies > HIS.A

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(Note that not all video titles are specifically related to the curriculum expectation, so perhaps the “search by standard” feature is not all that accurate.)

Learn360

Curriculum Expectations

• As this is a content library, Learn360 houses lots of content to support subject-specific lessons in a variety of subject areas and grade levels.
• Learn360 is not particularly interactive, so it cannot really serve to get students to show their learning. Instead, it can be an enhancement to a teacher’s lesson or can be used to provide additional resources or to “flip” a lesson.

Learn360

Other features

Please note that I have not been able to test these features as I do not have access to the resource through my school.

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• New content is added regularly
• Videos are available in multiple formats for online streaming and/or downloading
• Districts/schools can customize their Learn360 site to provide access to additional previously owned media
• Ability to upload classes and create assignments directly on the site
• Administrators can push content directly to users or classes

Learn360

Drawbacks

• French content not available
• “Search by Standards” is not entirely accurate (perhaps video tags are not actually checked against provincial standards?)
• “Search by Standards” covers only core subjects, while other subjects such as Art or Careers are represented, but only when browsing or searching by subject
• Another Infobase database - Curriculum Video on Demand - which my school’s library subscribes to, contains a lot more content but with the exact same interface. It appears that Learn360 is a smaller version of the Curriculum Video on Demand database.

Learn360

Verdict & Application

• This could certainly be a useful extra resource for teachers. The ability to download videos would be valuable in a school where the internet connection may not always be reliable. The ability to link to videos on the site could make this an excellent extra source for content when flipping a class.

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• The lack of interactivity with the videos means that Learn360 is more of an “academic YouTube” minus the cute puppy videos. Students can watch the videos but any interaction with the videos must take place outside of the interface. I can see it being a useful resource for a “Hyperdoc”-type of assignment, although I do wonder about direct access to Learn360 via a hyperlink: if a school has this resource through the ministry, would every student need a login and password to access the database, or would it use IP authentication and students would have to access it on school networks only?

Britannica School

Online Encyclopedia

Britannica School

Overview

• Comprehensive collection of encyclopedia articles, magazine & newspaper articles, and multimedia resources
• User-friendly with tons of great features to help students do research more effectively
• Most articles are available at three reading levels: elementary, middle, & high school
• Each of the three sites (Elementary, Middle, High School) has its own unique age-appropriate look and feel

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Download a comprehensive overview of Britannica School here.

Britannica School

Subjects supported

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• All
• Ability to browse for content by Ontario (and other) Curriculum Standards:
• Health & PE
• Language Arts
• Mathematics
• Science
• Social Studies
• Particularly valuable as a the first source in a research-related task

Britannica School

Grade Levels supported

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• All
• The “Search by Standard” feature allows teachers to find content relating to specific or overall curriculum expectations for every grade from K-12 in a variety of subject areas
• Search by grade level for age-appropriate articles and resources
• Each site has its own unique age-appropriate interface with graphics, featured articles, and interactive activities

Britannica School

Grade Levels supported

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The Elementary interface

The High School interface

Britannica School

Curriculum Expectations

• As this is a content library, Britannica School houses lots of content to support subject-specific lessons and research tasks in a variety of subject areas and grade levels.

Results from a search for Grade 10 > Science

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(blue text in image are links to Britannica articles & lessons)

Britannica School

Curriculum Expectations

Example of curriculum expectations from the Grade 9 Inquiry & Research strand of the Information Studies (1998) “curriculum” (not an official curriculum document but the guiding scope and sequence for libraries)

By the end of grade 9, students will:

• locate a variety of appropriate resources from a variety of sources
• select information appropriate to needs using a variety of strategies

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Example of curriculum expectations from SNC2D (Grade 10 Science, Academic)

Throughout this course, students will:

• A1: Demonstrate scientific investigation skills (related to both inquiry and research) in the four areas of skills (initiating and planning, performing and recording, analysing and interpreting, and communicating)
• D2: Investigate various natural and human factors that influence Earth’s climate and climate change

Britannica School

Other features

• Article tools:
• Clickable table of contents for longer articles
• Citation assistance
• Accessibility tools: have the article read aloud to you; translate the article into one of 50 languages; adjust font size for ease of reading
• “Double Click Dictionary”: double-click on any word in an article to view a dictionary definition of the word and hear an audio recording of its pronunciation
• Links to “Related articles” and the “Web’s Best Sites” on the topic
• Internal hyperlinks within articles link to other Britannica School articles
• Tools for educators include the ability to create and save lessons, as well as search by curriculum standards

Britannica School

Other features

• Britannica Image Quest
• Millions of rights-cleared images for student and teacher use
• Ability to download, save, and cite images

“Access the most in-depth compilation of curriculum-relevant images right at your fingertips. Over three million searchable images are available from 59 leading collections, including The Bridgeman Art Gallery, Dorling Kindersley Images, Getty Images, the National Portrait Gallery of London, and the National Geographic Society—all are rights-cleared for educational, non-commercial use. ImageQuest supports any subject area without putting users at risk of infringing on copyrights or finding inappropriate images in their search results.”

Britannica School

Drawbacks

• French content not available

Britannica School

Verdict & Application

• As a teacher librarian, this is one of my “go-to” resources. Its ease of use and the relevance and authority of its information makes it a perfect alternative to Wikipedia to present to students, and they are quite open to it because it is so simple to use.
• Students love the “Cite” feature, which prepares their Works Cited entry for them.
• I have not used the Elementary interface before as I work primarily with Middle & High School students, but it too looks easy to use and fun for students.

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I highly recommend this resource to all teachers who are looking to have their students complete research. It provides an excellent, academic alternative to open Web browsing (i.e. Google search) and has many tools to make using it even easier than using a random web site or, worse still, Wikipedia! ☺

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