Free Book, Free Article Access, and Other Ways to Get Information to Come to You

I am a self described research mole. I like digging into the research literature to address questions. Back in the eighties, I used the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature and card catalogs. The advent of microfiche made looking up articles faster than those reels that had to be fast forwarded through and then rewound. So by the time the nineties came around with the Internet searches and into the twenty-first century with PDF files, I was thrilled and at times amazed at how quickly I could pull sources, including refereed journals. I still do old fashion digging with paper journals, looking up studies referenced in articles. I do appreciate subscriber services that alert me to new articles, opportunities, and soon-to-be published studies. Some of my favorites are:

• EPAA (online publishing peer-reviewed studies and book reviews), 
• Public Education Network (weekly email of education policy and studies),
  
• Science Daily (refereed journal article highlights), and
• ASCD Smartbrief(summaries and links to education articles found in newspapers reporting studies or initiatives),
• and various journals that send me their table of contents with links to the article abstracts so I can determine if I want to look up the article.
  

Other information sources include twitter and using  the feed options on blogs I like to read such as Learning to Collaborate.

Below are three “nuggets” that came through my email in the last week or so that I wanted to share with you. Whether the free book from ASCD (ends 5/6/09), free article access on how sleep affects adolescent learning , or math research article summary is gold is up to you to decide. Click the item of interest to you.

 Articles and writings on this blog are an extension of:

• what SURN Superintendents identify as important focuses for their school systems
  
• research interests of SURN staff, and/or
  
• what sounds applicable, unique, or just plain piques our interest as ways education-related research or education-applicable research is going.
  

Use the comments in this blog to tell us what is of professional interest to you. By knowing what you are wandering about or working on we can keep you in mind as we read broadly.