Topic Search for Narrowing Down Topics and Finding Information
Lisa Read from Focused Ed was up last week and she showed us the Gale Topic Search. I had forgotten how awesome it is! Do you have students in your class who have a difficult time coming up with research topics for Inquiry projects? Perhaps you have students who say “I’m going to my project on Hockey”? Gale Power Search is a wonderful product that you can use to narrow down searches and come up with topics. It also instantly provides you with some articles to read about your newly narrowed down topic.
To find Gale Topic Search:
1. Go to Learn71.ca and click on Library Commons and then Research Database or just click on Research Databases.
2. Click on Database then choose one of the Gale databases (pick the one that is related the closest to the topic you are looking for).
3. You shouldn’t have to log in when you are at school but you can also use them at home. Log in using your school password (these can be found by logging in to the Destiny library search and then clicking on Passwords).
4. Click on Advanced Search
5. Click on Topic Finder
6. Now comes the cool part! Type in your topic in the Search spot at the top right and click to search.
Now you will see a wheel with other topics branching out of the original. Move your mouse around the circle to explore the other topic and click on ideas to see articles on the right.
