Databases

I'm a little embarrassed to say that databases are quite new to me. My school does not have any subscriptions to online databases. I was recently speaking to a Wordbook representative and I was trying to get some information on online resources. He wasn't able to give a fixed price because typically schools go through ERAC to purchase subscriptions. He made it sound like it's very difficult to purchase a subscription directly through Worldbook. Looking on the ERAC site I did find that many other schools in the Catholic School Board have subscriptions. In the Fall I plan on contacting the TLs at these schools to find out how much the subscriptions cost and whether or not they negotiated as a group or independently. The Worldbook representative did say that it would probably cost our school about $1.25 per student and that would include a few subscriptions and not only Worldbook. He seemed frustrated that the subscriptions had to go through ERAC. He did mention that one school district opted out of ERAC and negotiated with the companies directly and it was cheaper.

I think that having a subscription to some online resources are important. For my school, it's essential that I have an online subscription to an encyclopedia. This is my first priority. Being a French Immersion school it's hard to find things in French at an easy level for the students. I didn't see anything specifically in French on the EBSCO site or Gale Schools. I looked on the Montreal Public Libary webpage and they had some databases in French but it looked advanced. I wasn't able to access them since I needed a password but they didn't look like they were geared towards elementary schools. At this time, I don't think that having a subscription to online databases is important for our elementary school. If the students and staff at my school can learn to navigate the online encyclopedia and use it on a regular basis then I would be very happy.

I few colleagues posted about the importance of training TLs and teachers on how to use online databases.  I worked for almost 10 yrs for the VSB in a few schools and never once heard anything about databases. I was teaching primary classes so perhaps that is a possible reason but I still think that all teachers should have been made known about these resources. Having a rep or someone from the district come sounds like a great idea. The district can't spend so much money on something like databases and not provide the necessary training at different levels on a regular basis. It takes time to adapt to and use new tools.