How To Use HISD Online Resources
Doing research—or just expanding your knowledge—used to require a trip to the library. Today, HISD enables students to access a wealth of materials at home or in their classrooms with the click of a mouse. The many online resources the district makes available range from encyclopedias to instructional videos and historic newspapers. Feel free to browse!
- Click on the icons on the right to access the resources from school or home.
- Contact your librarian for a handout containing logins and passwords for home use.
ABC-CLIO Schools provides resources for research in American History, World Geography, and World History, including articles, primary resources, and maps, all correlated with the curriculum.
Britannica Online Includes three encyclopedias: Britannica Elementary, Compton's, and Encyclopaedia Britannica. In addition to encyclopedias, Britannica also provides Enciclopedia Juvenil, Enciclopedia Universal en Español, Global Reference Center, Annal of American History, World Data Analyst, and Webster's Third International Dictionary, unabridged.
EBSCO This comprehensive online EBSCO package provides students and educators with access to multiple databases simultaneously though five interfaces: Searchasaurus, Kids Search, Student Research Center, EBSCO Host, and the new Grokker visual search tool.
Grolier is an educational portal providing access to information
from many electronic sources. This online suite consists of seven databases, with the foundation being three of the best-known encyclopedias:
- The New Book of Knowledge®: Reference and current events for elementary readers and up
- Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia™: Quick reference for middle school and high school
- Encyclopedia Americana®: In-depth research and worldwide current events for middle-school, high-school, and college-age students
- La Nueva Enciclopedia Cumbre: Complete encyclopedia for Spanish speakers and Spanish-language students
Nettrekker organizes Web sites around the K–12 curricula.
All sites are evaluated for academic integrity and age-appropriateness before they are considered. Users can search by grade level, subject directory, keyword, famous person, etc. Nettrekker categorizes Web sites by type: lesson plans, images, learning exercises, games, pictures, or maps and charts. Special content is provided for English-language learners. Resources are aligned with the state standards.
Proquest provides access to four products: E-Curriculum Library, History Study Center, Proquest: Literature, and Historical Newspapers. E-Curriculum Library provides answers from more than 2,000 full-text magazines, newspapers, reference books, and transcripts—plus thousands of pictures, maps, educator-approved Web sites, and audio/video content.
Teaching Books makes available original, in-studio movies of authors and illustrators, audio excerpts of professional book readings, guides to thousands of titles, and a wealth of multimedia resources on children's and young adult literature.
Thompson Gale provides access to three products: Literature Resource Center, Student Resource Center Gold and Testing and Education Reference Center. Literature Resource Center provides students with access to traditional literary reference works, critical information on authors and their works, and current journal articles. Student Reference Center Gold provides biographies, essays, full-text magazines, glossaries, historical overviews, photographs, and audio files to answer research needs.
Turnitin provides services for high-school teachers concerned with the academic integrity of student work. The primary focus of this service is to prevent plagiarism. This online service allows teacher to check to see that students are writing their own assignments. To obtain School ID#, password, and usage information, contact Deborah Hall.
United Streaming is a digital video-based learning resource from Discovery Education. Educators gain on-demand access to 50,000 content-specific segments from 5,000 full-length educational videos—including more than 1,000 new videos in subject areas such as foreign language, secondary math, science, and language arts. This resource requires a unique login for each user. You may obtain a login kit from your librarian or tech coordinator.
Wilson Web provides professional journals and entire articles on many subjects related to education.
