Library/Media Center
We are open for students:
Monday - Friday 8 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.
There may be some exceptions to the hours of operation due to staff meetings, testing schedules, or other circumstances beyond our control.
Contact:
Circulation Desk: 651-621-6807
- Aaron Blechert - Media Center Director, (651) 621-6967, aaron.blechert@mvpschools.org
- Jack Lee - Technology Paraprofessional (651) 621-6807, jack.lee@mvpschools.org
Access the CLASS SCHEDULE of the IMC instructional areas and Computer Labs during the school day.
Resources
- Find a Book
- Computer Lab
- Internet Databases
- Teacher Curriculum Resources
- Science Links
- Great, Fun (and educational) Links
- Headlines and News Stories
- Weather Links
- Information Literacy
- Best Search Engines
- Citations (MLA, APA)
- Must-Have Resources for the College Bound Student
- Other Helpful Resources
- Class Resources
Find a Book
Computer Lab
PC Lab - Room 340
Facilities in the lab: 37 workstations, a video projector, and printer.
Seating Chart
(to edit this chart make a copy in Google drive or download)
A schedule for Computer Labs is available here.
IMPORTANT: make sure to select the 'PC Lab (340)' tab at the bottom of the spreadsheet.
To sign-up for lab time, contact Aaron Blechert (x6967, x6807) in the IMC.
Computer logins
Student account passwords are reset at the beginning of each school year. To activate or change a student's Active Directory network password, visit http://password.moundsviewschools.org/ (see a staff member for the default password), or log onto a school PC and select the MV Password Portal shortcut on the desktop. After the initial login, you may need to answer security questions before you can change your password. If you are unable to successfully create your password on your first attempt, you may find your account disabled, which will require you to seek technical assistance from a staff member to reset your password.
Lab Tip
If the web page you are visiting does not load or work properly — try a different browser. Avoid MS Explorer, make it your last choice.
Links
Internet Databases
Destiny Library
EBSCO Host
- Use this database to search for scholarly or popular journal articles.
- Here's a 9-minute video on doing research well.
Gale Research
Today's Science
Homework Rescue
Google Scholar
ELM Portal
- ELibrary Minnesota Resources!
Britannica Original Sources
Proquest Newspapers
- Use this database to search for current articles from several hundred newspapers from around the U.S.
CIA World Factbook
- This is a great site to learn about World Geography with Maps, Governments, Flags, and much more.
Free E-Books! EbooksMN
- Get access to e-books for FREE!
EBooksMN - Indigenous Representations
- These titles are aligned to MN State Standards.
Free Ebooks! by category
Free eBooks! Manga
- This site offers 10 resources for reading Manga online (most are free).
World War II Atlantic-Mediterranean
- Click on the names of the countries to read more about its role during World War II.
Teacher Curriculum Resources
Irondale Teacher Resources
- Teacher and staff resources like TDAP, Calendars and other things specifically for Irondale!
Educational Videos, Resources
- Share My Lesson (by AFT)
- Members contribute content, share ideas, get educated on the topics that matter, online, 24/7. They issue Creative Commons licenses to share and give ideas for free.
- From the Smithsonian National Museum of American History - features tons of free classroom resources including history lessons, interactive activities, and more for all grade levels and historical time periods beginning in 1620 through present day.
- Free classroom resources, activities and games as well as media, maps and more.
- Providing educators, parents, and afterschool professionals with access to the highest quality practices in reading and language arts instruction by offering the very best in free materials.
- Influential videos from expert speakers on education, business, science, tech and creativity, with subtitles in 100+ languages. Ideas free to stream and download.
- Watch 4,000+ movies free online. Includes classics, indies, film noir, documentaries and other films. The collection is divided into the following categories: Comedy & Drama; Film Noir, Horror & Hitchcock; Westerns (many with John Wayne); Martial Arts Movies; Silent Films; Documentaries, and Animation. Some of the sites linked may be blocked by Mounds View Schools.
- Free online courses, lessons, and practice.
- A free community for sharing instructional videos and content for teachers and students.
Resources for Teaching News Literacy
Media Literacy & Fake News: A Syllabus
- Ten lessons from the past and steps we can take now to educate ourselves and our students about how to be a thoughtful consumer of information.
Stanford Civic Online Reasoning Curriculum
StonyBrook Center for News Literacy
Educational Games
- Students answer questions on their own device at their own pace. Throughout a Kit, each student will get exposure to the questions multiple times to ensure mastery.
- With Quizizz, it's really easy to create learning games. It’s simple to add audio, and easy to integrate with Google Classroom and, unlike Kahoot, it shows the question and answers in the same screen so students don’t have to split them.
- Fun, interactive quiz game.
- Interactive, multi-player drawing game, similar to pictionary.
- Fun vocab game app similar to "Heads Up" game where you tilt your smartphone for correct answers or to pass. Teacher creates the vocab list, then students have to define word correctly to move on to next.
Media Resources (Audio, Video, etc)
- Free, easy access to more than 4.5 million 2D and 3D digital items from Smithsonian's collections.
5 Best sites for FREE Public Domain Movies
- These are great ways to use Youtube for teaching more efficiently.
- A source of Public Domain media, the Moving Image Archive within the Internet Archive is an index of more than 1.7 million video clips.
- A website that features collections of images, books, essays, audio recordings, and films that are in the public domain.
Public Domain Education Images
- Free images that depict education-related themes.
- Public domain images.
- Offers a huge library of images that are either in the public domain or have a Creative Common license.
- Provides free, high-quality, music in a wide range of genres.
- A resource for finding and downloading free sound clips, sound effects, and sound bites.
- A name pronunciation tool. Might come in handy.
"Radical Care" to Let Black Boys Thrive
- From Educational Leadership: Educators can make a difference in the ways Black boys experience school.
Three Strategies for Better Online Discussions
- These strategies help to address challenges of having online (remote) discussions with students.
Two ways to encourage better note-taking
- Teaching students to use effective note-taking skills that increase their engagement.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) Resources
There are no resources or collections to display
Click the sick robot for AI tools
robotvomit.jpg
Science Links
- Today's Science - Database of articles having to do with everything science (username: irondalehs Password: facts)
- Science at NASA
- Space Imaging
- Digital Globe - Satellite images of Earth from space
- NASA Science Resources - Searchable database
- Top 100 Astronomy images - From the European Southern observatory
- Discovery Channel - Science using multimedia resources
- Climate Change - Risk for your area (NYTimes interactive map)
- Water Crisis in the U.S. - From May of 2019, research, data, statistics on water usage and crisis in the U.S.
- Rube Goldberg Machines - Great list of resources and videos for learning about these contraptions
- Gravity Points - Is this really science or just a fun website?
Great, Fun (and educational) Links
- Visual Thesaurus - This is a great, visual thesaurus tool.
- California Coastline - This website has over 12,000 images of the coast of California. Barbara Streisand sued the website for taking a picture of her house which is located on the coast.
- Webopedia - Online dictionary for computer and Internet terms.
- Tag Galaxy - Find beautiful photographs from flickr with this 3D app.
- How bridges are made and other interesting information including pictures, bridge disasters, what caused them and more.
- British Online newspaper archive. Digital images of the actual print publication going back to the early 1800s.
- Check out the amazing images from the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.
- Word Crimes - Funny video on grammar.
- 50 Very Bad Book Covers for Literary Classics
- How a Book Cover Gets Designed (video - John Green)
- Gravity Points - Click on the screen and watch what happens
- Zoom Quilt - Endless scenes your screen zooms into
- More evidence UFOs may be real - Popular Mechanics article
- Birdfinder - Enter a city anywhere in the world to see what kinds of birds you'd find during any given month
- Louvre - The famous Parisian art museum has digitized more than 482,000 pieces of art for you to see...for free!
- Museo - a visual search engine that connects you with the Art Institute of Chicago, the Rijksmuseum, the Harvard Art Museums, the Minneapolis Institute of Art and the New York Public Library Digital Collection
- Smithsonian Open Access - Free access to more than 4.5 million 2D and 3D digital items from Smithsonian collections.
Headlines and News Stories
Is your news source biased? Check this chart to find out. All the news sources listed below are rated as "Neutral, Fact-Reporting" agencies.
Weather Links
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Foreca: Weather data, trends and forecasts.
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Local Weather: Local weather and forcasts from Accuweather
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Worldwind: This is a VERY COOL interactive weather app from NASA. Manipulate the planet!
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Satellite Weather from NASA: What does our global weather look like from space?
Information Literacy
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Copyright in schools
There are several useful links on this site from the NFHS (National Federation of State High School Associations).
Best Search Engines
Citations (MLA, APA)
Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL)
- Learn how to do in-text citations and other MLA formatting.
- Create citations in various formats. Also has other writing resources.
- EasyBib has become one of the most useful web services for searching and creating citations in various formats.
Must-Have Resources for the College Bound Student
This list of resources should be used as a guide for those students who wish to be well-prepared for a successful academic life in a post-secondary environment.
Research
Research Project Calculator - Keep track of due dates, set reminders and more.
Web resource Evaluation Checklist - From Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab).
15 Steps to Good Research - From Georgetown University - includes links for more info.
How to Write a Thesis Statement - From Purdue OWL.
Recognizing and avoiding plagiarism - From Indiana University.
Topic Sentences and Paragraph Structure - Also from Indiana University - perfect your paragraphs!
Note-taking
Evernote - App that allows you to create or capture notes, organize them, and sync them across devices..
Tips and tricks for using Evernote
ColorNote (Android) - App that allows you to color-code notes. Sync w/ calendars and set task reminders.
OneNote - App that fully integrates with Microsoft Office suite.
SimpleNote - App that is very basic note-taking tool. No frills or extras.
Squid (formerly Papyrus) - App that uses stylus or finger to jot down notes or sketches.
Cornell Notes - A system designed for clear understanding while note-taking during lectures
Cornell Notes Video (13 min.)
Cornell Notes Template (Free, printable blank grid for Cornell Notes)
Cornell Notes Worksheet (Allows user to enter Title, keywords, grid style, or print a blank template)
2 Ways to Encourage Better Note-Taking
Communicating/Collaborating
Facebook - Used by teachers/professors for updates and sharing information.
Twitter - Used by teachers/professors for updates and sharing information.
Google Drive - Simultaneous collaboration, sharing, storage and more.
Prezi - Online collaborative presentation tool.
Slack - Good tool for teams wishing to keep in communication on a project.
Trello - Collaborative project management tool w/ customizable to-do list.
Cloze - (iOS only) Collects bits of messages from e-mail, Twitter, Facebook and prioritizes them.
Hootsuite - Dashboard for social media accounts
Schedules/Lists/Reminders
Google Calendar - Collaborative calendar.
Doodle - Simple scheduler; invites users to sign up for a time to meet.
Sign-up Genius - Organize groups for class projects, volunteering, sports, and more!
Calendly - Collaborative scheduling without a lot of e-mails.
Diversions/Fun/Take a Break
Tag Galaxy - Fun 3D interactive photo search tool. Searches photos on Flickr.
Lightbox - Time Magazine's news photo essays for the intellectually curious.
Ello - Social Network - similar to Tumblr but with a much more broad, global perspective.
Google’s Night Walk - Amazing! Almost as good as being there.
DevArt - Art made using computer code
UnSplash - FREE stock photos you can use for whatever you want (no copyrights).
All That is Interesting - Current, historical, short, fascinating articles with amazing photography.
Scroobly - Create a doodle using your camera and it will animate.
Other Helpful Resources
- These are great tools for teachers and students to use in education. Most of these have a free version
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Conducting research through an anti-racism lens
Be aware of the resources you use for research. -
21 Tips To Make Google Docs, Sheets And Slides Work For You
How many of these tips do you already know? -
How to use Canva
A simple guide to the graphic design platform. -
Free Books Online: 179 Places to Read and Download Free Ebooks
You could always use another ebook. -
5 of the Best Speed-Typing Games on the Internet
What's your WPM? -
Smartphone Camera Tricks That Will Make Your Life Easier
Need to create great photos for a project? You need this! -
How to Overcome 'Zoom Fatigue'
You know what this is, now you can do something about it! -
How to spot a fake video
A step-by-step guide. -
New tool makes students better at detecting fake imagery and videos
Test your detective skills here! -
Grammar and usage
The "Comma Queen" makes quick, interesting videos that teach about proper grammar and usage. -
How to Use Mind Maps to Unleash Your Brain's Creativity and Potential
Map what's on your mind.