Cabrillo College Library

Dental Hygiene at Cabrillo College

What's on this page

Exercise 1: Find a specific document on the Web

Exercise 2: Find articles

Exercise 3: Find PowerPoints

Exercise 4: Explore Blogs

5: Find quality Web sites & find & transfer an image

6. Find videos

 7. More new stuff

Evaluate this exercise

How to get to these Exercises on the Web

1. Go to this Web page on the Internet: From the Cabrillo College Library homepage [http://libwww.cabrillo.edu], click on Internet Links, then on Dental Hygiene, then scroll to the bottom of the page and click on Dental Hygiene Research.

2. Make this page a Favorite -- Click on then on Add. When you want to come tback to this page in this class, you can find it easily by clicking on

3. Open a Word document. Put your name at the top and the date (right justified). Make Dental Hygiene Research your heading, bold and center it. Number the exercises. Click to see an example. As you do these exercises, you will be going back and forth between the Web and your Word document.

Pick one of these topics to research

Topic A -- People who use methamphatamines present distinctive challenges to dental hygienists.What do dental hygienists need to know about meth users and what's being called "meth mouth?" Topic B -- In working with immigrant communities, particularly those that are Latino, what does the dental hygienist need to know about oral health for Latino children?

EXERCISE 1 Find a specific document on the Web

Topic A: To get oriented to the topic, you'd like to find something at the American Dental Association Web site (ada.org) about dental problems associated with the use of methamphetamine. What are the oral effects of methamphetamine?

 Topic B: You have heard that there are disparities in dental care for Latino preschoolers compared to other ethnic groups. You're told this information is a pdf file on the Web. By what proportion do Latino preschoolers experience tooth decay compared to white children?

Having trouble? Check out the Hints page for Exercise 1!

EXERCISE 2 Find articles

Topic A: For a presentation to your fellow students, you would like to find some journal articles about dental problems associated with methamphetamine use. Using a health/medical database, identify some articles on this subject that are available full text. On your Word document, write a correctly formatted APA citation for one of the articles.

Topic B: For a presentation to your fellow students, you would like to find some periodical articles about dental care for children among groups that are low income. Using a medical database, identify some articles on this subject that are available full text online. On your Word document, write a correctly formatted APA citation for one of the articles.

Having trouble? Check out the Hints page for Exercise 2!

EXERCISE 3: Find PowerPoints

Topic A: You're a volunteer at a teen center. You want to create a presentation for a group at the center about methamphetamine and its effects on teeth. To get ideas, you'd like to find other PowerPoints on the subject. Search for some, and select two. On your Word document, give the titles of the PowerPoints and their URLs.

Topic B: You're a volunteer at an organization that gathers information about the dental care needs of Hispanic children in California. You want to create a presentation for this group. To get ideas, you'd like to find other PowerPoints on the subject. Search for some, and select two. On your Word document, give the titles of the PowerPoints and their URLs.

Having trouble? Check out the Hints page for Exercise 3!

EXERCISE 4: Blogs

Topic A: It's one thing to gather academic information about methamphetamine, but you would also like to sample what "ordinary" people say about it and its effects on teeth. Find some blogs where people write about their personal experiences. On your Word document, copy a quotation from one of the blogs and give the URL and the date.

Topic B: You have heard that there is discussion in Watsonville about adding fluoride to city water. You'd like to tap into the thoughts and opinions of a variety of people on the topic. Find some blogs where people write about fluoride and Watsonville. On your Word document, copy a quotation from one of the blogs and give the URL and the date.

Having trouble? Check out the Hints page for Exercise 4!

EXERCISE 5 : Quality Web sites

Topic A: Find two quality Web sites about methamphetamine and its effects on teeth. Find an image on the same topic. On your Word document, put the title of the two Web pages you select and their URLs. Transfer the image to your Word document.

Topic B: Find two quality Web sites about dental care in Watsonville for Latinos. Find an image about dental care and children (doesn't have to be in Watsonville). On your Word document, put the title of the two Web pages you select and their URLs. Transfer the image to your Word document.

Having trouble? Check out the Hints page for Exercise 5!

EXERCISE 6: Videos

Both Topic A and Topic B:

There is lots of new content on the Web, especially audio and video files.To find videos, one of the largest search tools is Blinkx.com

1. Go to Blinkx and search for videos about dental hygiene. The computers in the classroom block popups, so you have to hold down Ctrl when you click to actually watch a video.

2. Go to your Word document. Type the title of the video you sampled and say what you thought of it.

To find (non-music) podcasts, many people use PodcastAlley There isn't yet software on the computers here in the classroom for listening to podcasts. But, you should know that podcasts are out there! There are 20 (!!) currently on PodcastAlley that concern dental hygiene -- there is one called Pediatric Dental Health. MP3 files aren't just for music. ; -)

More newstuff

There is a lot of full text on the Web, and more coming everyday. Both Google and Microsoft Live have databases of journal articles, and databases of digitized books.

To illustrate, I am going to search The Journal of Periodontology using MEDLINE and pick up some words from an abstract of a recent article. [I understand that dental students in one of Rebecca Arnestry's classes have been reading abstracts of articles published in Journal of Periodontology.]

I pick up the phrase "controlled-release doxycycline" and want to see what full text resources on the Web might also use that phrase.

Book databases

Google's book database is at books.google.com. If I search for that phrase in Google books, I bring up information about 69 books that use that phrase.

Microsoft's book database is at  books.live.com. If I search for that phrase at Live Search, I get access to the insides of 35 books that include those words..

One of the neat things about Live search is that over on the right, there is a picture of the book with little green lines indicating where in the book that phrase occurs! Only in a few places, or??

Scholarly journal databases

Google's scholarly journal database is called Scholar at scholar.google.com.

If you go to the Advanced search mode, you can apply various limits; for example, search for articles only published in the last few years -- or click on Recent articles.

Microsoft is building a database of articles called Live Search Academic. Using this database I garner 17 articles.

So much is emerging on the Web. Stay tuned in!!

Please share your thoughts about how this session went for you. Thanks!!

How to get to this exercise on the Web

  1. Go to the Cabrillo College Library homepage <http://libwww.cabrillo.edu>
  2. Click on Internet Links (third icon down, on left)
  3. Click on Dental Hygiene
  4. Scroll down and under Course-Related Material, click on Dental Hygiene Research

J. Wylie and T. N. Smalley 3/08