We really hope that you’re enjoying your well-deserved summer vacation! Our 2007 Summer Guide is filled with ideas on how to spend your free time, but we can also help you get a head start on preparing for the upcoming school year.

In this newsletter, we’re reviewing some of our more popular features, as well as letting you know what’s new. Think of it as an Answers.com cheat sheet.

We’d also like to send a special thanks to all of you who took time to come and meet us at NECC in Atlanta. We really value the face time with educators using Answers.com “in the trenches,” and as always, invite you to share your thoughts on using Answers.com as an effective educational tool.

Sincerely,
Mimi, Gina and the Answers in Education Team  

Popular Tools and Features for Educators

• Free Tools — downloads and add-ons to get Answers the way you want them.
• 1-Click Answers — our most popular feature.
• Teacher's Toolkit — a collection of resources for today's wired educator.
• Free Poster Center — Order posters that will help your students with citations, etymology and the writing process.
• Research Right — Download and print free worksheets that will help your students research any topic.
• Active Reading — Download and print free worksheets that will help with reading comprehension.
• Mission Possible Movie — a classroom feature film focusing on successful online research.

Blogs and Websites

Summer is a great time to launch or update your classroom website or blog. It makes information available to students at any time and anywhere a computer is available. Of course, no classroom blog or website is complete without having Answers.com easily accessible. Our new Blogger Portal page will explain how to add AnswerTips, AnswerBoxes and AnswerLinks. Look at what some fellow teachers are doing with their web spaces:

• KPS Math Program
• English Experts Blog
• Cal Poly Kennedy Library

Creative Writing Contest
We’ve just launched our first Creative Writing Challenge! Now, we know vacation can be busier than the school year, but we are sure that you are creative enough to win $100! You may also want to share the contest with students as a fun summer writing project. While we will post the winners and new challenges throughout the summer, be sure to check back in the fall when we’ll have a new challenge to jump-start creative writing in your classroom.

What’s Inside?
Did you know that over the past year Answers.com has increased its topic count by over 1 million? Did you know that almost half of our reference titles are only available for free on Answers.com? Over the past month alone, we’ve added the following titles:

• British History: The domestic and military history of Britain from 55 BCE until the present (e.g., Alnwick Castle, Royal Naval Air Service, Botany Bay)
• Buddhism Dictionary: The history, doctrines and ceremonies of Buddhism, and issues of contemporary concern (e.g., chih-kuan, abhaya-mudra, Monk)
• English Folklore: Folklore, superstitions, customs and legendary characters (e.g., alien big cats, knives, English Folk Dance and Song Society)
• Food and Fitness: A dictionary of diet and exercise (e.g., food guide pyramid, blood doping, Ergometer)
• Food and Nutrition: A guide to terms found on food labels and advertisements (e.g., Dietary Reference Intake, Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, Philadelphia ice cream)
• Measures and Units: Definitions of measures and weights of the Systeme International (e.g., amagat density, golden number, Mercalli scale)
• Military History Companion: Military history and famous conflicts from classical times to the present (e.g., American independence war, battle of Khalkin-Gol, Punic Wars)
• Modern Design Dictionary: Biographies, movements and concepts of the past 150 years of design (e.g., Archizoom, Swiss Style, Kenneth Grange)
• Music Encyclopedia: Everything relating to music and musicians (e.g., Peter Abelard, Albeniz, Isaac, Thomas Augustine Arne)
• Photography Encyclopedia: Techniques and styles, along with biographies of photographers (e.g., Wedding photographs, phototherapy, Robert Adams)
• Political Dictionary: Major political institutions, leaders, thinkers and concepts (e.g., minimax, humanitarian intervention, Gulf War)
• Proverbs: Well-known proverbs with background information and quotes (e.g., A bad excuse is better than none, Live and let live, Truth will out)
• Sports Science and Medicine: Terms related to health and fitness, from anatomy to sports psychology (e.g., baseball finger, eccentric action, gender verification)
• US Military Dictionary: Terms, people and conflicts of the US Military from colonial times to the present (e.g., Agent Orange, AWACS, tactical air control group)
• World of the Body: The body and its growth, development, disorders and role in religion and culture (e.g., body language, breathing during exercise, alimentary system)

Needless to say, while this impressive list covers many of the subjects that you will cover in school next year, there’s still much more inside! To get a better feel for the resources we have that will help you, spend some time browsing through our library or our alphabetical list of reference titles. 

Talk Back

Ask and answer questions regarding education in the WikiAnswers Education section. Here are some of the most recent questions:

What is the academic grading system in Georgia High Schools?

What is the status of the Wellston School District in 2007?

How does class capture help students improve in class?

Share your ideas at the newly redesigned WikiAnswers, or search the latest questions and answers in education.

Heard About:

"I attended NECC several years ago and have used Answers.com in doing lessons. I am assisting in professional development with our librarians in a citywide meeting. We are doing a session on Answers.com and how librarians can us the site with students. I would like to have the posters to give to the librarians at the end of the session. Thanks for a great site. I just love it."

Saralee Bernstein
Librarian/Technology Coordinator, Baltimore Public School System

**If you or one of your colleagues will be including Answers.com in your professional development activities over the summer, please give us two weeks lead time if you would like us to send posters for you to distribute.

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