Today in class, we learned the much needed research techniques that help to make our searching more effective, easier, and faster. Although to some who view this blog, the information presented today will not be as useful as to those who attend the University of Wisconsin- La Crosse, I hope to still give some small pointers in your searching.
Researching "Innovative Activities" on the internet can be a very rough task when not knowing where to begin or what to put into the search engine. When you google "innovative activities," you might come across innovation in buisnesses, farming, and teaching. "Innovative activities in Therapeutic Recreation" will bring up the Therapeutic Recreation website (http://www.recreationtherapy.com/), websites promoting books, and possibly a few new ideas to add to your store but probably not exactly what you are looking for. When searching on a search engine like google, perhapse the best place to start would be to think of things that you yourself wouldn't think that people for whatever population you are looking for would be able to do. Then type that activity into the broser with whatever disability it is you are searching for and see what comes up. Many times you will be surprised at what you find.
If you happen to be a student at the University of Wisconsin- La Crosse or even another UW school (your website might be very similar!) the best place to start is the Murphy Library's home page. Then, if you look to the left side of the screen, you want to click on "Library Guides." Now here is the cool part. If you scroll down until you find the RTH (Therapeutic Recreation) tab and you click on that, you will then be directed to a page that has three other pages designed specifically for this class and other classes in order to simplify your search! This class's number is RTH252 if you are looking for innovative activities :)
Once you decide on which class or tab best suits you (which will probably be RTH252 if you are looking at this blog which is about innovative activities), you will be taken to an amazing website put together by the
wonderful Galadriel 
who is our Electronic Resources Librarian here at UWL. The website is full of wonderful helps like lists of possible populations and activities to get you started. There are also quick links to questions that you might have and other facts about the website if you get stuck. If your main goal while on the site is research (which it probably is if you are there), then the next step would be to click on the "find articles" link. Here you will find a great list of helpful article databases that cover the topics of Therapeutic Recreation and other areas. Once you decided which database to use, the next best thing is to know what to write in the search area. I learned a few neat facts today from Galadriel that I will happily share with you. If you are searching for a topic in Therapeutic Recreation the best way to type this is: "Therapeutic Recreation" OR "Recreational Therapy." (You want to use the quotation marks so that the computer doesn't separate the two words.) Next, if you want to search for a specific activity or disability, you want to think of all the different synomyns for the activity or disability. When you have them, place them all in one search bar with the word OR inbetween each one. If you have a word like TEENAGER that can be used in many ways such as teen, teens, teenager, teenagers, instead of writing each of those terms, you can simply place an asceris (*) behind TEEN, and it will search for that part of the word even if it is within a longer word such as teenager. One last thing about this website that I would like to share is about the "UW-LGETTEXT" where if the PDF is unavalible, you can request for the university to buy it (no charge to you!). Super great!
who is our Electronic Resources Librarian here at UWL. The website is full of wonderful helps like lists of possible populations and activities to get you started. There are also quick links to questions that you might have and other facts about the website if you get stuck. If your main goal while on the site is research (which it probably is if you are there), then the next step would be to click on the "find articles" link. Here you will find a great list of helpful article databases that cover the topics of Therapeutic Recreation and other areas. Once you decided which database to use, the next best thing is to know what to write in the search area. I learned a few neat facts today from Galadriel that I will happily share with you. If you are searching for a topic in Therapeutic Recreation the best way to type this is: "Therapeutic Recreation" OR "Recreational Therapy." (You want to use the quotation marks so that the computer doesn't separate the two words.) Next, if you want to search for a specific activity or disability, you want to think of all the different synomyns for the activity or disability. When you have them, place them all in one search bar with the word OR inbetween each one. If you have a word like TEENAGER that can be used in many ways such as teen, teens, teenager, teenagers, instead of writing each of those terms, you can simply place an asceris (*) behind TEEN, and it will search for that part of the word even if it is within a longer word such as teenager. One last thing about this website that I would like to share is about the "UW-LGETTEXT" where if the PDF is unavalible, you can request for the university to buy it (no charge to you!). Super great!Well that was our class today. Sorry that we didn't have any fun innovative activities for you, but next week will definitely be lots of fun!
~Sarah
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