Invitational Week #3 - What's News?

Today I spent some time on Maine Newstand. I had used this database in the past but realized today I really did not use it the way it could be used to my advantage and that of my students. I decided to search for information related to the Dempsey Challenge since it has been in the news recently. Most of the articles were from the Lewiston Sun Journal and of course quite timely (I narrowed the search to articles published in 2012). I then decided to sort my search with most recent articles first.
Next I decided to "play" with the most recent article. I looked at the abstract with citation as well as full text with citation. I then checked out the citation information and was amazed. There are multiple formats for citation - more than I had ever heard of! If I was using this source with my students, I would have to be sure I specifically have them use only one format for citations. They and I could become very confused. However, having a citation already done certainly saves time and insures fewer headaches for students and teacher!
I think using this database would take lots of direct instruction with students. They would need to definitely have some help with using the page once a search has been done to narrow down information. I would be leery about having them just search key words due to the number of sources that might be found (in the thousands for some topics). I can see that if students are using Maine Newstand (or other newspaper/periodical databases), they would need to have a teacher's input as they work to help with their search.
I set up an alert but got the message that the server was having problems so I have to try again another time. I will try again later in the week to see what happens.
I do play to check out the Maine Memory Network as well as Windows on Maine. I think I would have some fun looking around on those sites. I can see how they could be really useful in the classroom!