Digital Learning CommonsDigital Learning Commons

Grolier Training Outline

Total Time: 45–75 minutes

Quick Intro (5 minutes)

Digital Learning Commons Homepage

  • Introduce staff to the website and show them how to access resources.
  • Point out the Search box (appears on every page) and the About section.
  • Explain differences between Students, Educators, and Parents sections.

Grolier Encyclopedias

Grolier is a set of seven different encyclopedias all in electronic format: Encyclopedia America, Multimedia Encyclopedia, The New Book of Knowledge, La Nueva Enciclopedia Cumbre, America the Beautiful, Lands and Peoples, and The New Book of Popular Science. Grolier Online includes Grolier Online Passport, designed for older students and adults, and Grolier Online Kids, designed for grades 3–5.

Intro Activities (15–30 minutes)

Point out the different encyclopedias. You may want to cover one in-depth, but be sure to give educators time to explore the others on their own.

Search: To search for a term use the Find It Fast! search box located near the top of the homepage (this search box is replicated within the encyclopedias).You may type in single or multiple terms; the search results are ordered by relevance and encyclopedia.

For Educators: This section contains Lesson Plans, User Guides, Teaching Resources, and other professional development content for educators and other users. For Educators includes lesson plans organized and searchable by grade or subject and a weekly Teaching the News feature, that can be a great companion to the encyclopedias.

  • To find lesson plans: Go to the For Educators section located at the bottom of the homepage.
    • Select a grade grouping in the Select a Grade box, and browse the lesson plans, which are organized by subject.
    • Select a subject in the Select a Subject box, and browse lesson plans, which are organized by grade-grouping levels for your chosen subject.
  • Grolier Online Kids: Access the Kids section by clicking on the purple button in the top right corner of the homepage. This portion of Grolier, for younger children, includes reading and research materials (which can also be used by ELL or special education students).
  • Dictionaries, Atlas, Help: Each of these resources can be accessed from the top right corner of the homepage.

Digging Deeper (15–30 minutes)

Today Is: A daily feature that highlights birthdays and historical events associated with each day of the year. View interesting information about the current date or search for other dates that are of interest to you. Simply click on the feature from the homepage and the main event, or story, will appear at the top of the page.

Feature Showcase: A visually and multimedia-rich interactive learning module that includes interesting text, photos, videos, and quizzes as well as additional links to related encyclopedia resources for further, in-depth study on special issues.

NewsNow Passport: Composed of five elements:

  • Daily News from the Associated Press: Three to five stories daily, Monday through Friday, drawn from the Associated Press live news feed.
  • Feature Stories: Three stories weekly on various topics of current interest.
  • International News Briefs: One paragraph summaries of news events from around the world.
  • World Newspapers: A searchable database of newspapers from countries worldwide.
  • From the Editor's Desk: An in-depth look at the news, featuring Editorial Opinion, Editors' Picks, and Pro/Con Debates, all of which are accompanied by lesson plans.

Additional Resources (5 minutes)

Both of these resources can be accessed from the For Educators section.

  • Tutorial: A good, basic, ten-minute introduction to Grolier's features and environments. While you must have Flash installed to play the video version, HTML and PDF versions also are available for viewing and printing.
  • Users Guide: Introduction and navigation for each database, plus activities to help students improve research, navigation, reading comprehension, and critical thinking skills.

Assessments (2–5 minutes)

Return to the Digital Learning Commons website. Click on the Training Evaluation link, which appears at bottom of every page on the site.