Archive for the ‘Information Literacy’ Category

Following four months of discussion, Educause has issued their Top Teaching and Learning Challenges for 2009. They have set up a Ning network and a wiki to address these issues:

1. Creating learning environments that promote active learning, critical thinking, collaborative learning, and knowledge creation.
2. Developing 21st-century literacies among students and faculty (information, digital, and visual).
3. Reaching and engaging today’s learner.
4. Encouraging faculty adoption and innovation in teaching and learning with IT.
5. Advancing innovation in teaching and learning (with technology) in an era of budget cuts.

Andy Guess at Inside Higher Ed writes about using widgets for education with A Widget Onto the Future.

“Already, some instructors are using them in their own courses, and the idea is catching on as others consider the possibilities. While widgets aren’t nearly as ubiquitous in learning circles as are PowerPoint presentations or online quizzes, some educators hope the time is ripe for them to catch on. A meeting of the Northeast Regional Computing Program is already being planned on the topic for next year and professors are busy discussing and embedding widgets on their blogs.”

via Educause

Torley at the Mashable blog has put together a quick guide to How to Master Screencasts in Seven Steps. The author, who has created over 200 video tutorials, shares detailed tips and tricks organized into the following steps:

1. Understand audio engineering
2. Indulge in templates
3. Focus on using eye candy to enhance learning
4. Learn from the best screencasts in the world
5. Practice narrating and love your voice
6. Be codec-smart, context-aware
7. Continually explore delivery mediums

Ruth Reynard, Director of Faculty for Career Education Corp. writes about Avoiding the 5 Most Common Mistakes in Using Blogs with Students in the latest issue of Campus Technology. Anyone who is utilizing blogging for instruction will want to check out this article which discusses these five pitfalls:

1. Ineffective Contextualization
2. Unclear Learning Outcomes
3. Misuse of the environment
4. Illusive grading practices
5. Inadequate time allocation

Both Campus Technology and Inside Higher Ed discuss a new study conducted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s E-Business Institute which finds that undergraduates prefer classes which utilize lecture capture technology.

“According to new research released this week by the University of Wisconsin-Madison involving about 7,500 undergraduate and graduate students, an overwhelming 82 percent of students said they would prefer courses that offer online lectures over traditional classes that do not include an online lecture component. The researchers also pointed out the implications for these findings extend well beyond the classroom.”

Eduk8 has a guide to 100 Useful, Free Web Tools for Lifelong Learners which includes annotated lists of resources in the following areas:

• Open Courseware
• Books and Open Text
• Search Engines
• Public Access Libraries and Research Centers
• Podcasts
• Social Media and Online Communities
• Learning a New Language
• Government Sites
• Reference Guides and Dictionaries
• Videos
• Reference Sites

Alisa Miller at Smart Teaching has created a mega-list of 100 classroom videos to provide you with fresh perspective and inspiration to spice up your instructional sessions. Her recommended videos are divided into the following categories:

• The Basics
• The Arts
• Getting Physical
• Education and Technology
• Special Needs
• Creative Techniques
• Videos Made by Students
• Teachers Say
• Classrooms on the News
• Just for Fun

Christina Laun at CollegeDegrees.com has compiled The Ultimate Guide to Using Open Courseware: 70+ Apps, Search Engines and Resources for Free Learning. Her annotated list of resources are divided into the following categories:

• Search Engines and Directories
• Open Courseware Collections
• Podcasts
• Videos
• eBooks
• Educational TV
• Resources, Articles and Guides

The New York Times covers the latest trend in file-sharing in First It Was Song Downloads. Now It’s Organic Chemistry. Students who are angry about the cost of textbooks are turning not only to used books, but places like PirateBay.org where they can download scanned textbooks for free.

I have actually been looking into this topic for my upcoming course on Libraries and the Open Movement and have come across quite a few projects with Open Source books which have been made free by their copyright holders. If you are a student or a professor about to choose your readings for the fall semester, you may want to consider some of these choices:

• Make Textbooks Affordable Campaign
• Textbook Revolution
• O’Reilly’s Open Books Project
• Open Source Books from the Internet Archive
• Wikibooks
• Global Text Project
• Flat World Knowledge
• Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources Open Textbooks Project

If you know of any other open source textbook projects, please link to them in the comments!

The Sunday edition of The New York Times presents the first in a series of articles on the Future of Reading: Digital Versus Print titled Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading? The article looks at what it means to read in the digital age, taking into account the opinions of literacy experts and readers alike.

“Few who believe in the potential of the Web deny the value of books. But they argue that it is unrealistic to expect all children to read “To Kill a Mockingbird” or “Pride and Prejudice” for fun. And those who prefer staring at a television or mashing buttons on a game console, they say, can still benefit from reading on the Internet. In fact, some literacy experts say that online reading skills will help children fare better when they begin looking for digital-age jobs.”

A project of Duke University’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain, Tales from the Public Domain: Bound by Law presents the ins-and-outs of public domain, fair use, and copyright law in an easy-to-understand format. This 70-page, masterfully illustrated and incredibly detailed comic book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license, and offers free digital versions for download as well as makes individual pages accessible for remixing. If you’re interested in learning more about intellectual property law in an increasingly digitized and mashed-up culture, or you’re on the lookout for instructional materials, you’ll want to check this one out.

The ACRL Instruction Section’s Research & Scholarship Committee has started a “5 Things” series that will focus on topics of interest to instructional librarians. Their first publication in this series is titled 5 Things You Should Read about Copyright and Sharing Instructional Materials in which they recommend and review five useful resources to read and discuss - they even provide approximate reading times. These recommendations are right on track with the “open” course I’m building for the fall, so I’ll be sure to check these out:

1. Bissell, Ahrash and James Boyle. 2007. Towards a global learning commons: ccLearn. Educational Technology 47 (3): 5‐9.
2. Green, Cable. Developing a culture of sharing and receiving: Open educational resources. Bellingham Technical College elearning, Feb 2008.
3. Hobbs, Renee, Peter Jaszi, and Pat Aufderheide. 2007. The cost of copyright confusion for media literacy. Washington, DC: Center for Social Media.
4. Lehman, Rosemary. 2007. Learning object repositories. New Directions for Adult & Continuing Education 113 (Spring): 57‐66.
5. Lessig, Lawrence. How creativity is being strangled by the law. TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design), March 2007.

via Educause

Bryan Alexander, Director of Research at the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE) writes about Games for Education: 2008 in the July/August 2008 issue of Educause Review. Alexander discusses computer games as learning objects “from which both students and educational staff can learn”.

“Games can be learning objects. This assertion summons up two strands of thought concerning computer-mediated teaching and learning. First, many of the goals for the learning objects movement can be transferred to games: digital objects from which learners can learn and that can be repeated. Second, we now have two decades of practical experience in using and thinking about digital objects in teaching, even if we have not always applied learning objects as a term to describe them: CD-ROMs, podcasts, videos, assigned web pages, e-reserves, files on USB drives, GIF or Java applets. If we emphasize the replayability of learning objects, the idea of computer games as items to learn from is not a new thought at all.2″

The University College London (UCL), has launched an iTunes channel on which they will broadcast free lectures, seminars, interviews, and other news for download. According to The Guardian, UCL is the first mainstream UK university to make audio and video content available on iTunes U.

A UCL statement said: “UCL on iTunes U [will] enhance the university’s provision of information and extend its reach to new audiences around the world. It will also enhance learning and teaching, developing innovation through new technology and meeting the needs of today’s techno-literate students.”

Trinity College in Dublin and the Open University have also launched iTunes U channels.

Web conferencing applications which enable a presenter to host a Webinar or meeting with live video and audio, text chat, whiteboards, shared files, and even desktop sharing offer countless opportunities for collaboration, online training, and remote assistance. While many of these sophisticated programs are costly, a new crop of free Web conferencing applications has emerged which offer amazing alternatives to traditional online meeting programs such as WebEx and GoToMeeting.

Librarians could use these free applications for holding office hours, reference consultations, library instruction, hosting their own Webinars, conducting live interviews, or collaborating with remote team members on projects.

VRoom by Elluminate is “three for free Web conferencing”. Elluminate lets users sign up for their own virtual meeting room (vRoom) in which they can hold Web conferences with live Webcam, two-way audio, application sharing, IM chat, whiteboard, and file transfer with up to 3 simultaneous users.

Yugma is a Web conferencing application which allows a presenter to share their desktop with conference attendees in order to demonstrate, share, or collaborate on projects. The free, personal version of Yugma enables conferencing with up to 10 people along with an IM chat interface within sessions. Professional accounts can record sessions, share files, change presenters, and share mouse and keyboard controls. The Skype edition integrates with the VOIP application and includes the users’ Skype contact list.

WiZiQ is a completely Web-based education platform which lets teachers present to up to 25 students from within a virtual classroom through live video, audio, and text chat. WiZiQ allows content sharing, provides a whiteboard and records sessions. They have a module which integrates with the Moodle LMS.

Dimdim is a free, open source live meeting software which offers audio and video conferencing and lets hosts share their desktop with attendees. This application requires no download or installation for meeting participants and can be used with up to 20 people with the free version. Dimdim offers whiteboards and both public and private chat options.

PalBee enables members to conduct video conferencing sessions complete with whiteboards, text chat interface, file sharing capabilities, and free recording of sessions. Presenters can hold unlimited sessions with up to five people for up to one hour, and also can pre-record sessions and then share them

Vyew is a fully Web-based conferencing and collaboration application which features white boards, audio and video support, and an integrated chat client. Hosts can share their desktops, take screenshots, conduct conference calls with up to 150 others, and hold conference sessions with up to 20 participants with the free version.