Encyclopedias

Encyclopedias
Not having much experience with on-line or print encyclopedias, this was an interesting section for me. I also have to decide whether to update the encyclopedias in our reference collection as the most current World book edition is 1999 so I was curious about the information.
I decided to look up the Canadian Encyclopedia since this is a free reference and one that I would like to incorporate in my teaching. It is also important to me that students use Canadian references and broaden their knowledgebase of things distinctly Canadian.
What I noticed:
The site home page is laid out well and contains links for the different collections: Canadian Encyclopedia, Youth Encyclopedia, and Encyclopedia of Music in Canada, Feature Articles and Maclean’s Magazine. The feature articles contain historical topics written by Historica staff and other guest columnists which appeared in CANWEST newspapers. The Maclean’s magazine has articles from 1995 to current issues. There are over 40 000 articles with also visual components, interactive activities such as Canucklehead which contains 60 quizzes on Canadian topics. It has been online since 1999 and is maintained by the Historica Foundation and Heritage Canada.
I also liked the links on the homepage at the bottom to quick facts like History by the Minute, On This Day in Canadian History, Quotes and How About That! These are designed to pique the student’s interest and to also encourage students to find out more about a specific topic.
There is also a section for teachers with access to lesson plans which I found helpful. When you look up articles you are also provided with a list of suggested readings and links to other sites.
In the Explore section, you can find a Gallery which features Canadian Art, History, and Nature, People and Science and Technology. There are interactive resources, quizzes and timelines of events from Canadian and World History.
In summary the Canadian Encyclopedia is an excellent reference source about Canada. It is only found on line with the last print copy published in 2000.
After looking up this site, I decided to look at the Encyclopedia of BC for the capstone activity and have also posted a copy to my blog: