Archive for the ‘Information Literacy’ Category

Marc Parry at The Chronicle of Higher Education reports on the advances in library search interfaces in After Losing Users in Catalogs, Libraries Find Better Search Software.

“The problem is that traditional online library catalogs don’t tend to order search results by ranked relevance, and they can befuddle users with clunky interfaces. Bauer, a graduate student specializing in early American history, once had such a hard time finding materials that she titled a bibliography “Meager Fruits of an Ongoing Fight With Virgo.”"

Be sure to also check out the follow-up article, The Library-Catalog Wars: ‘Chronicle’ Readers Weigh In, which sums up reader comments on the article such as:

“Unfortunately, instead of teaching students how to conduct a precise search with few relevant results, faculty and librarians have found an easy way out — googlize everything.”

The New York Times Bits Blog discusses a 93-page report on online education, conducted by SRI International for the Department of Education which concludes “On average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.” The report looks at comparative studies of traditional vs. online learning from 1996-2008, mainly in higher education settings.

“The real promise of online education, experts say, is providing learning experiences that are more tailored to individual students than is possible in classrooms. That enables more “learning by doing,” which many students find more engaging and useful.”

Ruth Reynard, Dean of Faculty Services for Career Education Corp, writes for Campus Technology about creating effective learning communities using social networking websites in Beyond Social Networking: Building Toward Learning Communities.

“Much has been written recently about the impact of social networking tools in teaching and learning and how educators can build on the skills of their students in using these tools. My discussion here does not negate that good work but introduces the idea that social networking is only the beginning of a longer and more complex process of socially constructed learning and ultimately collaboration and knowledge building. That is, if educators only integrate the ability of students to connect and socialize, deeper points of learning will be missed. While good teaching and learning rests on effective relationships (Cummins, 2000), in an active learning community, those relationships should evolve into actual idea exchange and knowledge construction.”

Dana Oshiro at ReadWriteWeb posts about Seven e-Learning and Teaching Resources. This useful list includes services such as Edmodo, the private microblogging application for schools, YouTube EDU which aggregates videos and channels from colleges and universities, and LearnHub, a network where schools can create their own virtual classrooms and students can complete assignments.

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.