Learning Objectives

• Identify characteristics of high-quality digital instructional materials.
• Explore INFOhio's tools for finding and developing high-quality instructional materials. 

INFOhio's Digital Content and Web Tools 

INFOhio receives funding from several entities to purchase and license premium resources on behalf of Ohio's PreK-12 students, educators, and parents. We receive funding from:

• The Ohio General Assembly through the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce.
• Federal IMLS Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant through the State Library of Ohio. Additional funding is provided by Libraries Connect Ohio partners: INFOhio, OhioLINK, and OPLIN.
• Future Forward Ohio. 

INFOhio enhanced or expanded current resources and added new resources  to support its mission and priorities through the Future Forward Ohio initiative. INFOhio has purchased eBooks and videos to support Ohio's Learning Standards and high-need topics, including financial literacy, STEM, and careers. 

You can browse or search for quality content such as eBooks or videos for students and educator professional development in Educator Tools. 

INFOhio's digital content and web tools are quality instructional materials. Using the Instructional Materials Rubric, your school or district can evaluate the digital content of resources to find the best supplemental materials to scaffold its curriculum. To learn more about INFOhio resources and tools, check out these INFOhio Learning Pathways:

• K-5 Digital Content Learning Pathway
• 6-8 Digital Content Learning Pathway
• 9-12 Digital Content Learning Pathway
• High-Quality Instructional Materials for Each Child Learning Pathway

Take a closer look at how INFOhio resources meet criteria of the Instructional Materials Rubric. As a reminder, the four main categories of the rubric are 

• Standards alignment.
• Research-based strategies.
• Usability.
• Flexibility.

Quality Instructional Materials

Standards Alignment 

One criterion for this category is "Instructional approaches used are reflective of best practices and research on what works in education."

This includes the indicators:

• Explicitly Aligned to Ohio Learning Standards

BookFlix is a Scholastic product with a collection of more than 140 pairs of fiction and nonfiction eBooks for grades PreK-3. Fiction stories take video form with text read aloud and highlighted, also known as bimodal text. Nonfiction books are digital text with the same bimodal text. Vocabulary words are highlighted and can be read aloud with the definition. These pairs are perfect not only to support literacy, but also to use for content-area knowledge. 

Each fiction and nonfiction pair have a lesson plan accessible from the apple and books icon in the upper right corner. Each lesson plan listed in the left menu contains the Curriculum Correlations or standards alignment for the lesson. 

Ohio Learning Standards alignment is available for each pair and its lesson plan. 

World Book resources also are aligned to Ohio Learning Standards. INFOhio provides access to World Book Early Learning, World Book Kids, World Book Student, and World Book Advanced. These digital encyclopedias have up-to-date articles, videos, games, and printables to expand student background knowledge and support inquiry and literacy.

World Book Advanced is suitable for grades 9-12. Click Research and Resources in the upper right corner then choose Educator Tools.

You can find articles in World Book that support Ohio's Learning Standards for ELA, math, science, and social studies. 

Research-based Strategies

One criterion for this category is "Content creates student experiences that enable all children to reach empowering and rigorous learning outcomes."

The indicators for this include:

• Uses students' real-life experiences to connect school learning to students' lives.
• Materials provide opportunities for learners to see examples of different perspectives, cultures, and customs in the text or examples (i.e., provides opportunities for learners to see themselves and/or groups in the content.)

Highlights Library is a collection of more than 2,500 fiction and nonfiction eBooks and videos. The quality content represents many cultures, abilities, religions, and races and will help children see themselves and others portrayed in situations. Highlights Library is appropriate for PreK-5 students.

Points of View Reference Source is a database that supports offers multiple perspectives. Students can browse by topics as pictured below.

Each topic has an overview, point, and counterpoint on current issues, providing opposing opinions and using facts to support them. 

Usability 

"The visual design of materials is clean and coherent, lending itself to ease of learning." This criterion for the Usability category in the Instructional Materials Rubric includes these indicators:

• Uses cues and prompts to draw attention to critical features and ideas.
• "Chunks" information into smaller elements where possible.
• Reduces or eliminates unnecessary distractions and extraneous information, unless they are essential to the instructional goal(s).
• Composition of materials effectively uses the principles of contrast, repetition, alignment, proximity, and white space to help convey information.

Capstone's PebbleGo Next is an excellent resource for grade 3-5 students, with information aligned to Ohio science and social studies content. Notice how the home page of the resource is uncluttered with key topics and clearly labeled for students. 

Capstone Interactive eBooks is another INFOhio resource that demonstrates alignment with the indicators listed above. These eBooks for students in elementary and middle grades are easy to access and navigate.

Using Capstone eBooks is intuitive with no unnecessary distractions. Icons and text direct students to important usablity features, such as an arrow for play and quotation marks for a citation.  

Flexibility 

One criterion for this category is "Materials are flexible to allow students to access and complete work online or offline as needed." The indicators for this are:

• The core content of the material can be saved to be accessed offline.
• Online and offline materials are comparable in rigor and alignment.

EBSCO databases are a great place to find resources with flexible materials educators can use both online and offline. EBSCO databases include Explora for Grades 9-12 and Points of View Reference Source. These databases include text that can be read online or printed to share with students who lack adequate connections. 

Articles can be printed, shared with students using Google Classroom, or saved to Google Drive. Share this article with students using any learning management system employing a permalink, which is a direct link to this article. If students are logged in to INFOhio, they can use the permalink to reach the article.

To read more about how INFOhio's resources align with the Instructional Materials Rubric, read the Teach With INFOhio blog series Quality Instructional Materials from INFOhio. Find additional resources in the Related Posts section at the bottom of each blog post.

Reflecting on Your Learning

1. Use the INFOhio Teach & Learn flyer to find the resources to support your grades/subjects. 
2. Apply the Instructional Materials Rubric to an INFOhio resource you would like to use to supplement a lesson. What are the resource's strong points? What could be improved? Post your reflection in the High-Quality Instructional Materials to Supplement Your Curriculum Open Space group in the Discussins tab. Find the post Instructional Materials Rubric Review.