Practicum Hours 17-21

So today was practicum day again. Veronica had to go to the doctor, so I spent a couple hours trying to find articles on the following topics:

1. Masterpiece or trash? Displaying children's art in a grade school setting.
2. Careers in secondary education art education (or something; this was phrased incredibly vaguely, and I wasn't sure if it was concerned with teacher's careers in art education, or using art to help the kids find careers of their own.)
3. What experiences do middle school children find most valuable in an art education environment?
4. Do two-dimensional representations of three-dimensional objects in digital archives help the process of education?

I swear, at one point I was actually pounding my head on the desk. The question I found the least information on was actually no. 3; I found exactly ONE article in ERIC, and nothing at all when I tried searching Proquest. No. 2 I found more on, but everything I found was from the 1980s, so it might as well not even exist. There was a reasonable amount of material for the first, and a suprising amount for the fourth question, although I'm confused as to what is needed for it. It's at times like that when you realize the importance of the reference interview.

I collated some study guides for Veronica, which I found sort of zen. When she returned, we headed out on the reference desk for the first time during this practicum. She explained to me where everything was, in between questions from patrons which more or less ammounted to: How do I find out whether this article I found in ERIC (they all seemed to be looking for education topics) is available online? There were a lot of questioners, as well; at one point, Veronica went to answer one patron, and I went to answer another. Thus, I have more or less answered my first reference question! Well, this wasn't actually a reference question, so much as it was a "how do I use ERIC?" question, but that is an answer that I feel quite confident I can field.

A woman did come up to the desk to ask where she could find out the proportion of light-skinned to dark-skinned Italians in Italy. Veronica searched for the answer a bit, but then had to admit that she really didn't think that they would be able to find that information.

I saw the older lady who came in late for the Excel class last week; she told me that she was able to find someone to help her learn it, and thanked me. I apologized again for not being available to help her last week.

As I left tonight, Veronica told me that I did a very good job on the Special Education resources matrix that I had helped her compile; the people in the class it was intended for had apparently been very pleased by it.

Tomorrow I will be on my own the entire day. Unfortunately, while I do have a computer at my desk now, I do not have a log-on to get onto the network. So if I'm to do more researching, I may be in the computer lab again.