This summer as a staff Tech Talk meeting (which we have once a month to just show up and chat about whatever new technology things we have found that we think are cool), several people raised the issue of not being able to keep up with learning new technologies.
Great discussion ensued and out of it we collectively decided to follow what many other libraries have done, which is to help guide our people through Web 2.0 technologies (for library purposes and otherwise) in the "15 minutes a day" concept: in other words, although none of us usually has a 3-4 hour chunk in any given day to dedicate to learning new stuff, we can take a little bit of time each day for this effort. That way at the end of a few months we will have learned a bunch of stuff.
We are using open source CMS Sakai (recently instituted by OHSU as its CMS) for this class as a way to test it out and familiarize ourselves with it, since we will have students using the system. We just launched the class, so we have yet to see how it will all pan out, but so far the discussion on the discussion forums have been very active and people seem to still be enthuasiastic about it, which is great.
Particular sites that we used to inform us about how to go about this were:
The grand experiment in putting our heads together for a collective learning experience continues!
Showing posts with label cool tools. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cool tools. Show all posts
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Thursday, June 21, 2007
New uses for Webcasting
Just when you thought you had seen all the uses for webcasting that were already out there, something new and fun!
There have recently been various reports of universities using webcasting to provide "remote graduation" broadcasts for friends and family who could not attend their loved one's graduation. I think this is such an awesome use of this technology!
Check it out at http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/devlin/11270.
There have recently been various reports of universities using webcasting to provide "remote graduation" broadcasts for friends and family who could not attend their loved one's graduation. I think this is such an awesome use of this technology!
Check it out at http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/devlin/11270.
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
I'll see you on Facebook
Power dynamics in a classroom setting are nothing new. Students can sometimes have anxiety about their performance, particularly in relation to teachers they may perceive as intimidating.
A recent study on the possible effects of student-teacher interaction from teacher "self-disclosure" on Facebook supports the notion that more (and appropriate) self-disclosure by teachers in Facebook can help reduce student anxiety, thus leading to more positive classroom interactions. The idea here is that if students can see their teachers as human beings (as well as teachers), then the students feel more comfortable interacting with the teachers and are thus more likely to learn.
None of this should be surprising, but the utilization of Facebook to provide such disclosure (i.e. the fact that we have technologies now that encourage these kinds of social networking), as well as the fact that someone did a study on it, is kind of fascinating.
From the blog posting referencing the article:
http://onlinesocialnetworks.blogspot.com/2007/06/ill-see-you-on-facebook.html.
The article itself:
"I'll See You On 'Facebook': The Effects of Computer-Mediated Teacher Self-Disclosure on Student Motivation, Affective Learning, and Classroom Climate," by Joseph P. Mazer, Richard E. Murphy, and Cheri J. Simonds [Communication Education, Volume 56, Issue 1 January 2007 , pages 1 - 17].
From the conclusion of the article:
"Self-disclosure is one approach that teachers may take to develop relationships with their students. However, as communication technology develops at an increasing rate, it is important for teachers to recognize how certain technologies, even those used largely by students, can positively affect student-teacher relationships. Facebook is a contemporary technological tool that can offer teachers and students a unique method to nurture the student-teacher relationship, which can ultimately create a positive learning experience for both parties."
A recent study on the possible effects of student-teacher interaction from teacher "self-disclosure" on Facebook supports the notion that more (and appropriate) self-disclosure by teachers in Facebook can help reduce student anxiety, thus leading to more positive classroom interactions. The idea here is that if students can see their teachers as human beings (as well as teachers), then the students feel more comfortable interacting with the teachers and are thus more likely to learn.
None of this should be surprising, but the utilization of Facebook to provide such disclosure (i.e. the fact that we have technologies now that encourage these kinds of social networking), as well as the fact that someone did a study on it, is kind of fascinating.
From the blog posting referencing the article:
http://onlinesocialnetworks.blogspot.com/2007/06/ill-see-you-on-facebook.html.
The article itself:
"I'll See You On 'Facebook': The Effects of Computer-Mediated Teacher Self-Disclosure on Student Motivation, Affective Learning, and Classroom Climate," by Joseph P. Mazer, Richard E. Murphy, and Cheri J. Simonds [Communication Education, Volume 56, Issue 1 January 2007 , pages 1 - 17].
From the conclusion of the article:
"Self-disclosure is one approach that teachers may take to develop relationships with their students. However, as communication technology develops at an increasing rate, it is important for teachers to recognize how certain technologies, even those used largely by students, can positively affect student-teacher relationships. Facebook is a contemporary technological tool that can offer teachers and students a unique method to nurture the student-teacher relationship, which can ultimately create a positive learning experience for both parties."
Monday, June 4, 2007
SecondLife and Information Island
I have so much mulling about in my brain that's its hard to know where to begin. I should probably start with the groovy SecondLife (3-D virtual world) demo I saw at a recent gathering of the Portland Area Information Literacy group.
Michael Brown (Portland State University) and Donna Cohen (Information Management Consultant) led the group through a tour of SecondLife, particularly focusing on an area called Information Island. Information Island is an "archipelago" of dozens of "islands" (aka interest areas). Some of the resources they pointed us to for learning more about SecondLife were:
I can see a lot of applications for SecondLife and InfoIsland in the K-12 realm - can you just imagine a teacher guiding students through a unit where they all have their avatars work together to build an Egyptian pyramid or the Great Wall of China? In this way, I can see this environment greatly enhancing the learning process. Similar projects, such as University of Virginia's virtual recreation of ancient Rome, officially titled Rome Reborn 1.0, show the possibilities when technology embraces the rich content in the humanities.
So, clearly virtual worlds have a strong educational benefit (not to mention total coolness factor!), but what about how virtual worlds could be applied to non-K-12 or liberal arts environments? Aside from being able to serve as a more multi-dimensional "webinar" (i.e. where everyone's avatars gather in a central place for a lecture and through SecondLife have a more interactive experience) what purpose could such an environment serve for an academic health sciences library? One of the islands in the "Info Island" archipelago, Health Info Island, may have some answers. Health Info Island, states as one of its goals to "Experiment and develop new ways of interaction between users and libraries" and to do more outreach in consumer health. It will be interesting to see how such a virtual environment could be used as a reference and learning tool for health information as this "Info Island" develops.
Michael Brown (Portland State University) and Donna Cohen (Information Management Consultant) led the group through a tour of SecondLife, particularly focusing on an area called Information Island. Information Island is an "archipelago" of dozens of "islands" (aka interest areas). Some of the resources they pointed us to for learning more about SecondLife were:
- A tour of the Library in Second Life on YouTube
- Second Life's Education Site
- Second Life Education Wiki
- An Annotated Bibliography of Second Life Online Resources.
I can see a lot of applications for SecondLife and InfoIsland in the K-12 realm - can you just imagine a teacher guiding students through a unit where they all have their avatars work together to build an Egyptian pyramid or the Great Wall of China? In this way, I can see this environment greatly enhancing the learning process. Similar projects, such as University of Virginia's virtual recreation of ancient Rome, officially titled Rome Reborn 1.0, show the possibilities when technology embraces the rich content in the humanities.
So, clearly virtual worlds have a strong educational benefit (not to mention total coolness factor!), but what about how virtual worlds could be applied to non-K-12 or liberal arts environments? Aside from being able to serve as a more multi-dimensional "webinar" (i.e. where everyone's avatars gather in a central place for a lecture and through SecondLife have a more interactive experience) what purpose could such an environment serve for an academic health sciences library? One of the islands in the "Info Island" archipelago, Health Info Island, may have some answers. Health Info Island, states as one of its goals to "Experiment and develop new ways of interaction between users and libraries" and to do more outreach in consumer health. It will be interesting to see how such a virtual environment could be used as a reference and learning tool for health information as this "Info Island" develops.
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Cool tool: Carmun
Cool tool I just heard about on the ILI (ALA Instruction Section) listserv is something called Carmun, which appears to be a tool that enables one to create bibliographies in short order (they claim "half the time") and organize bookmarks and online citations, including being able to make notations on them. I'll be interested to see how this stacks up to EndNote and RefWorks.
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