Gardendale English 101

Self-paced tutorial on the features of the website of the JSCC Libraries. Includes an optional "Certificate of Completion" at the end.

View a tutorial on using the "Search everything" option of the tabbed search box.

This tutorial will assist students in locating critical articles [literary criticism] for English courses

Access a brief tutorial on searching Short Stories for Students.

This four-part streaming video series from Films On Demand helps college students improve their communication skills in four critical areas: listening, speaking, writing, and reading. Viewers are challenged to improve their habits and aim for several concrete goals—such as the ability to actively participate in discussions and meetings, to craft effective messages in speech or text, to process and understand workplace communication, and more.

TV and radio commercials, Web sites and banner ads, magazine ads, pop songs, photos, and even news articles and textbooks: all of them are sending messages to influence the reader/viewer/listener. How do they grab their attention? What are they selling—a product or service? a lifestyle? an ideology?—and why? Would a different media consumer interpret the message differently? This program raises more questions than it answers, which is the whole point: to prompt students to question, question, question the messages they are bombarded with daily. Savvy media consumers aren’t born—they’re made; and this program is an excellent tool for shaping the classroom dialogue. (35 minutes)

Information Literacy is a crucial skill in obtaining knowledge. In this episode, learn how to find credible sources on the internet, read and evaluate a topic critically, and notate your sources. Ethical issues are also addressed.

From Films On Demand, this video explores ways to identify bias and propaganda on the Internet and sift through the various influences, such as political or corporate interests, that may be behind some Web content.

Think of fake news as a disease. Without knowing how to identify and stop its spread, information literacy is at risk, especially among audiences whose critical thinking skills are vulnerable. This video series equips viewers with tools to spot the stories and images that are false, biased, altered or slanted, even those shared by trusted friends or family. Easy tips to detect and check fake news will encourage scrutinizing material for opinion, inaccuracy or misrepresentation. Target audiences learn how to avoid being duped by fake news and may be less quick to click until they know what’s real and what’s not.