Sunday, December 28, 2008

Diigo Information Fluency Bookmarks


Feel free to join our social bookmarking group!

http://groups.diigo.com/groups/information-fluency


Posted from Diigo. The rest of Information Fluency group favorite links are here. Feel free to join our group!

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Tutorial & Game: Checking the Accuracy of a Website

This is the Accuracy MicroModule from the 21st Century Information Project. For more modules visit the website.


The accuracy of factual information can help you judge the credibility of the author. Accuracy of information can also provide clues to possible bias in the resource under investigation.

Most web pages are not reviewed or edited by professional editors or publishers. Anyone can post just about anything they want on the Internet. A second grader can claim to be a Nobel prize winner. A Russian professor can be mistaken for an American child due to lack of familiarity with the English language. Satirists or hoax perpetrators can build websites that present an alternate reality.


Don't rely on first impressions. Ask Questions!

A good way to check factual data is by asking probing questions.

Practice this critical thinking skill until it is second nature.

Ask yourself:

What claims is the author making?
What evidence does the author give to support those claims?
What evidence do I find elsewhere to support those claims?
What evidence do I find elsewhere to refute those claims?



How can you check the accuracy of information on a web page? Find the Evidence! Look for:

proper nouns
dates
essential keywords

Use these embedded information accuracy clues to check the facts by using a search engine to confirm or refute the facts under investigation.



Triangulation of Data: This is a standard for serious research. Find at least three sources that agree on the same data point. If you can't find three credible resources that confirm the data, be suspicious!

For example, the distance from the earth to the sun is 93 million miles, fluctuating up to 3 million miles due to its elliptical orbit. Some resources will just say 90 million miles, some 93 million miles and stop there. Until you have three sources that agree on a number, you don't really know for sure. Remember triangulation of data is crucial when checking accuracy.



Is it Accurate? Shall we play a game?

Test your skills at:

finding embedded evidence

checking evidence for accuracy
triangulation of data

Launch Game!

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Care to Moodle your Google (GDocs that is)?


Learn the basics of GDocs collaboration in ths week long fully facilitated online class. Learn a bit about G-Docs, get introduced to Moodle based online learning, and have some fun!

It's a simple search puzzle to find us: Use Google to search with these keywords:

information fluency

Follow the first link and you'll be on the path to an interesting and inexpensive online learning experience!

Questions, as always, will be cheerfully answered!

~ Dennis

Monday, November 10, 2008

Website Evaluation


In this podcast interview with Frances Jacobson Harris we uncover barriers and strategies for assessing the credibility of online resources.







Frances Jacobson Harris, University Laboratory High School librarian (UIUC) and author of a chapter in the book Digital Media, Youth, and Credibility, talks about Web page evaluation in this podcast from the 21st Century Information Fluency Project.

Friday, November 7, 2008

Information Fluency Resources


Rediscover the resources waiting for you on the 21st Century Information Fluency Project




Information Fluency Social Bookmarking Resources

These tools let you store and share your bookmarks online. Once you’ve configured your account and customized your browser it becomes easy to bookmark, describe and tag your Internet discoveries. Just click the toolbar icon and you will be prompted to save your bookmarks (including comments and tags) to the online service you have chosen.


Information Fluency Copyright Resources

  • Detailed 'webliography' of copyright and fair use resources. Includes links to micromodules and flash games. Annotations give you a solid idea of the content of each website. Prepared by 21st Century Information Fluency Staff

    tags: copyright, fair_use, annotated bibliography

Website Evaluation Wizard (21st Century Information Project

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Center for Social Media at American University

Will this group help educators redefine fair use and broaden the meaning to include use of coprrighted material to spark student's' critical thinking.  The stance: Stop being afraid;  fair use is your protection to use copyright materials as part of your teaching.
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

YouTube - The Cost of Copyright Confusion for Media Literacy



Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Fair Use: Protection for Transformative Thinking?


We all know that copyright & fair use are 'gray area' issues in this web 2.0 world of ours. It's difficult to teach these concepts without also considering the exceptions and 'what if' scenarios that we bump into daily on the open web. It's also fair to say that we now operate in a climate of fear that we'll some how transgress in the use of copyrighted materials and find ourselves dragged into some awful publicly accountable show down.

We now have a thought provoking article from Joyce Valenza that shifts the argument to the concept of 'transformativeness' while promoting the idea that fair use should ''preserve the ability of users to promote creativity and innovation."

I urge you all to read:

Fair use and transformativeness: It may shake your world

"As I watched the information and communication landscapes shift over the past few years, I secretly viewed fair use as a doctrine that guided what we couldn't do. Fear and guilt seemed regularly in the way of innovative teaching and creative expression. I was reluctant to use, or bless the use, of copyrighted materials--movies, television, advertising, popular music, etc.--in teaching and student projects, especially those that were broadcast or published online. To avoid danger, I guided teachers and learners to the use of copyright-friendly materials. As wonderful as these growing collections are, sometimes what you really need to use is commercial or more conservatively licensed materials.

Recently my Temple University colleague, Renee Hobbs shared, what was for me, a relatively foreign (but perhaps obvious) idea: copyright is designed not only to protect the rights of owners, but also to preserve the ability of users to promote creativity and innovation."

(Go to original article.)

(School Library Journal; the Never Ending Search. April 1, 2008)

Google Documents (Fully Facilitated 5 Day Online Class)


Moodle Based Fully Facilitated!

Login as guest:
Gdocs

FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
:

How much time will this take?

Plan for at least 5 hours of instruction (about an hour a day). It will be easy to put in more time than that. We hope you'll find the information so interesting that the time will fly by.

Do I have to login at a specific time each day?

The course is completely time shifted. It's designed so that participants can enter the online classroom 24/7 and still interact. This let's you fit the class to your schedule. We'll go Monday - Friday, with the following Saturday to wrap things up.

What will I learn how to do?

  • Create a Google account

  • Upload documents to Google docs

  • Share a Google document with a colleague

  • View the revision history of a shared document (a wiki like function of Gdocs)

  • Publish a shared document as a web page that automatically updates when the source document is edited.

  • We also have an optional independent study module on how to use Google Docs offline.

How is this course taught?

Instruction includes the use of illustrated webpages and video. Additionally Dennis O'Connor will be facilitating this class. (Dennis is a highly trained online teacher.) There are discussion forums where participants can share ideas. The instructor will also be monitoring the class for questions and be available for trouble shooting help.

What about teaching resources?

You will find many resources with ideas for teachers and librarians interested in using Google Docs in the classroom.

How long will I have access to this course?

The course remains open to you for at least three months so you can continue study and have access to the resources.

How do I register?

  • First establish an account on http://21cif.mrooms.net. Note the graphic on the course home page. (Each person taking the class should create their own account.)

  • Next login using your established username and password.

  • Click into the Gdocs online classroom.(Found in the Information Fluency Category.)

  • When you first enter you'll be presented with a PayPal registration page.

  • Click through to pay for the class by credit card.

  • You do not need a Pay Pal account to use this secure system. (We do not store your credit card information.)

  • Once you have paid you'll be returned to the Gdocs class.

  • The next course begins December 1, 2008
We hope to see you online!

Friday, October 3, 2008

Information Fluency: It's Elementary! Beta Testers needed!

Carl Heine is developing a series of online learning games to teach elementary students the essentials of search. We're looking for feedback and suggestions as we begin the development cycle.

We have an Information Fluency group on Joyce Valenza's Teacher Librarian Ning where we are asking for feedback on our new elementary age games.

Please join the Ning and our group so you can participate in our beta test?

Sunday, September 28, 2008

21CIF YouTube Channel

We created some short tutorial videos on Google power operators and uploaded them to YouTube.

Here's our channel:

http://www.youtube.com/21cif

Here's a sample video

Google Operators: filetype:





Tuesday, September 16, 2008

I came across a blog by Wes Freyer today in which he tells his story about searching for an elusive Apple iTunes commercial.


When he tried the query january 2007 itunes commercial he was able to locate it (#2 in the ranking). I commented in his blog that this is a good example of the power of proper nouns (january itunes), numbers (2007) and minimal operators in searches. Until he recalled the month and year when he'd first seen the video,

Wes couldn't retrieve the information.

Or could he?

If you've spent time around our resources, you might suspect there's a shorter query that could work. Here it is: itunes commercial. The two-word query retrieves the same page (#3 in the ranking) without having to remember the specific date information.

This illustrates nicely how reducing queries to the bare minimum is an efficient, effective means of finding information. One keyword is rarely enough, but two is often the most elegant solution, even if it comes in ranked #3 instead of #2.

~ Dennis 21cif

Knowing your Audience? Or I should say, knowing the audience of your audience?


In the first issue of our newsletter we begin a series about what the current crop of kids (i.e. digital natives) know and don’t know. Our research tells us they don’t know much about the formal strategies of searching. (See Five Things Digital Natives Cannot Do (and what you can do to help, coming soon!)

We as educators, do know a bit about this generation of students. I found this link on Gary Price’s Research Shelf to Lee Rainie’s March 23rd speech: Life Online: Teens and technology and the world to come. This speech was given to the annual conference of the Public Library Association of Boston. (Teens and Technology.pdf) Rainie describes our students as the Millennials (born 1982 – 2000). He then shares eight recent findings of the Pew Internet & American Life Project that he directs.

I will provide a few direct quotes from Rainie’s speech as a teaser! ~ Dennis O'Connor, 21CIF.

How Millennials Approach Research:“For your purposes, it’s important to note that Millennials’ devotion to the internet has greatly shaped the way they approach research process. In many cases, they start projects by going online and browsing around. When they have questions, they will often ping their social network for advice and guidance.

They approach research as a self-directed process. Those who want to serve them would probably do well to think of themselves as “info support” in the same way all our offices have “tech support”: on call and ready to deal with problems, but not in my face showing me every possible function and setting on my computer.”

Brave New World?The 21 st Century Information Fluency Project plans to adapt and grow to meet the needs and demands of ‘new workers and consumers’ in the coming age. It is a great feeling to be out here on the bleeding edge helping to define this reality.

"I can’t tell you precisely how different this work and research environment will be – and I would be very wary of anyone who claims to know for sure just how much change will occur.

I think it is safe to say, though, for the new workers and consumers coming of age in the 21 st Century, learning and research will be:

  • More self directed and less dependent on top-down instructions

  • Better arrayed to capture new information inputs

  • More reliant on feedback and response

  • More tied to group outreach and group knowledge

  • More open to cross-discipline insights, creating its own “tagged” taxonomies

And

  • More oriented towards people being their own individual nodes of production.

As a researcher, I see this new world as a fantastically target-rich environment for things to study.

Your role is much more complicated, scary, and exciting. You have the privilege of reacting to and shaping the new environment for these emerging workers.

As the parent of four of these neo-workforce participants, I would only ask you to be brilliant at what you do."

~ Lee Rainie


So What Do You Think?

Does Rainie's description of the new generation jibe with your personal experience? Are the kids in your classes the fluid digital natives that the Pew Internet & American Life Project so richly describes?

Library Media AASL survey of State Staffing Requirements

Doug Johnson, recently sent important information to the ISTE Media Specialists Special Interest Group about state requirements for staffing.

Doug has created a Wiki and invited all media specialists to update specific information about their states.

http://dougj.pbwiki.com/State-staffing-requirements

"I hope readers will add to or correct any information about their states. The editing password for the wiki is WORLD.

All the very best and thanks, Doug "

Check it out and consider adding important information to this resource!

~Dennis

Thursday, September 11, 2008

The Essential Role of Information Fluency in E-Learning and Online Teaching

I've been researching and writing about Information Fluency since the turn of the century. My work is published on the 21st Century Information Fluency Portal: http://21cif.imsa.edu You'll find modular online learning content including games, micromodules and assessments on the portal. (Free for all educators.)

I include information fluency training in all of my online classes. I introduce power searching and website investigation to the graduate students studying in the E-Learning and Online Teaching Certificate Program at UW-Stout ( http://www.uwstout.edu/soe/profdev/elearningcertificate.html ) because I believe that Information Fluency is a foundation skill for all online teachers and learners.

dif model

What continually surprises me is that most educators (including those with advanced degrees) lack formal training in this field. Unless I'm working with a Library Media Specialist, most have little experience in searching, evaluating, and ethical use of digital materials.

Curiously, most educators think they are competent searchers and evaluators, when they are really just beginners. Their disposition is to ask for help rather than search for answers. With simple instruction many radically improve their ability to search, and evaluate. This is empowering and greatly increases learner satisfaction. Instruction in copyright and fair use is also part of the program.

At the same time I push the idea that it is everyone's duty to teach website evaluation and ethical use as part of any online curriculum. Too often educators assume someone else should have done the job by the time their students walk through the door. The application of information fluency to all curriculum areas is profound. Students given even rudimentary instruction in Information Fluency immediately benefit.

As online teachers and learners we work in a computer where information is just a few keystrokes away. I hope we can promote the disposition in all online teachers and learners that skilled use of Internet resources is the essential learning skill of our times.

Dennis O'Connor
Program Advisor
E-Learning & Online Teaching
School of Education
Online Professional Development
University of Wisconsin-Stout
Wisconsin's Polytechnic University
oconnord@uwstout.edu
530-318-1145 (Cell)
Skype: wiredinstructor2

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Information Fluency Online Classes






Search Help, Evaluation and Digital Ethics for School, Business and Home

Courses Starting Soon...

Need to create a back to school training?

Use our modular content to snap together your own unique training course.

Power Searching in a Web 2.0 World

Next session starts September 22, 2008 (4 Weeks $99) View as Guest | Enroll | Course Description

Website Investigator: An Introduction to Information Forensics

Next session starts October 6, 2008 (2 Weeks $68) View as Guest | Enroll | Course Description

Receive 21cif newsletter for announcements about these and other courses. To subscribe to our newsletter, click here.

Monday, August 25, 2008

Web 2.0 Tools for Educators






Hard Hat worker holds sign saying Web2.0 Tools for Educators
These sites are web-tools that you can build with. If we can tame the 800 pound gorilla of time and apply our vision and creativity, there are hundreds of opportunities to connect curriculum with the dynamic world on the highly interactive Read/Write web.

Picking up the tools offered by Web 2.0 (and all of the editions after that) can help educators avoid being ‘dis-intermediated’. When a new technology cuts out the middle man, dis-intermediation occurs. Ian Jukes warns that the revolutionary-evolutionary progression of information technology is cutting out teachers by providing a direct supply of information to consumers.

The stark truth is our students don’t need us to learn how to collaborate online, create and broadcast videos, or become published authors. What they need to learn from us is how to evaluate and judge the information they swim in daily.

Becoming aware and versed in Web 2.0 technology will help us bring relevance and motivation to our swimming lessons!

Blogging

Blogging is a writer's dream tool. There's an audience just a few keystrokes away. A blog is a simple website designed for sharing ideas. The blogger writes. The reader comments. Be it a a dialog or a one way manifesto, popular and free blogging tools have fueled use of the Internet as a Read & Write environment. In addition there are many commercial blogging systems that provide value added features.

  • Deeper: The Writer's Center Applied Blogging (Video Tutorials on how to set up a blog.)






Blogger.com http://blogger.com This free site is one of the original and most popular blogging services. Blogger is a relatively 'low-tech' system that's a good choice for those just starting out with the technology. A simple sign-up procedure, easy to use design templates, and compatibility with third party add-on software are positive attributes. Google now owns Blogger and will serve context sensitive ads on your free blog pages. You can pay a modest amount to upgrade to an ad free version.






wordpress
Wordpress: http://wordpress.com/ Wordpress provides free blogging software and space for anyone who cares to sign up. This is an ad free service, with very rich and powerful tools. Design templates help you create an attractive looking site. Since Wordpress is very popular, you'll find many useful ad-ons as you elaborate the basic technology that comes free with your site. The popular Edublogs.net is based on Wordpress technology and provides free blogs and wiki's to educators.







ClassBlogmeister: http://classblogmeister.com/index.php is a free classroom blogging system created by David Warlick and the Landmark Project. Classroom teachers can get a classroom blog and work in a sheltered environment designed to introduce kids K-12 to writing for an authentic audience. There are currently 3500 classrooms and nearly 36000 bloggers using Blogmeister.
Photo Sharing

Millions of digital cameras in the hands of the curious and creative mean billions of images which can be easily shared published via photo sharing services. Tagging photos, creating albums, and inviting friends to view the latest snapshots are a natural glue for a community of interest. Photo sharing sites like Flickr were among the first to demonstrate the possibilities of the read / write web.







Flickr http://www.flickr.com (owned by Yahoo) has a huge community of users. This means there are also a great many free browser plug-ins and software packages to enhance Flickr shared photos. They offer both free and paid accounts. There is a 100mb per month bandwidth limit on free accounts.







Picasa http://picasa.google.com/ This photo sharing and editing software if offered free of charge by Google. Picasa is powerful basic editor. The new WebAlbum photo sharing element makes Picasa a one stop solution for photo editing and sharing. For more about the possibilities see Google's Picasa for Educators information.







Tabblo http://www.tabblo.com/ provides free photo sharing via Online Tabblos. These are attractive, template driven photo pages. Other features like posters and books are available for a fee. This is an ad free service with with unlimited storage space.
Social Bookmarking

These tools let you store and share your bookmarks online. Once you’ve configured your account and customized your browser it becomes easy to bookmark, describe and tag your Internet discoveries. Just click the toolbar icon and you will be prompted to save your bookmarks (including comments and tags) to the online service you have chosen. Using social bookmarks means you can access your favorites from any internet linked computer. Additionally, you can network within the community finding others with similar interests. You can then link to their bookmarks, or add the sites directly to your own account. One crucial feature is the ability to create ‘public’ and ‘private’ bookmarks; there will always be sites you don’t want to share with the group. Social Bookmarking is a useful tool for collaborative research as well as online community building.







Del.icio.us: http://del.icio.us/ Delicious was acquired recently by Yahoo! This means ongoing support and development for one of the first and most popular social bookmarking services. Delicious is designed to make sharing second nature. You can subscribe to Tags, and have the system auto-search and update bookmarks related to any tag of interest. You can also create a network of fellow users; just copy the screen name of another community member and they go into your network, making it easy to monitor those with similar interests.







Ma.gnolia: http://ma.gnolia.com This site has a rich toolset with everything you’d expect in a social bookmarking site. They provide powerful import tools for importing bookmarks from Del.icio.us. Tags are separated by commas, allowing you to use multiple descriptive tags. Support tools include a wiki based Frequently Asked Questions option.







Blinklist: http://blinklist.com Blinklist provides you with quick click access to personal lists, watch lists, tag browsing and tag creation. It is easy to search all public bookmarks. Blinklist automatically provides keyword-tag suggestions. If you find a tag combination you like, and RSS subscription is available. You can import bookmarks from your browser as well as Delicious and Furl. Other attractive features are the thumbnail pictures provided for the more popular sites and a convenient auto-fill feature that lets you copy and paste snippets into the description field of your bookmarks.
Video Sharing

Video sharing sites are intriguing places to search for instructional video. Try the same keywords you use when looking for curriculum materials on the web. Additionally, if your students produce video, there is a world wide audience just an upload away. You can provide links back to your school or program site when you upload your video. This can bring the much desired Web 2.0 benefit of connecting you with an audience for your ideas.

Deeper: Edutopia: How to Use Digital Story Telling in Your Classroom






Google Video
Google Video: For Educators http://video.google.com Try keyword searching Google video for academic subjects. The results will vary, but we guarantee you'll find some interesting and educational videos appropriate for your classroom or library. Using the little known Google Video operator genre: you can find video tagged for educators. Try searching for genre:: educational to find some useful results.







YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/ This is the video sharing site that's been called the mineshaft canary for Web 2.0. Recently acquired by google for billions of dollars, YouTube features a huge array of videos about many different topics. YouTube definitely has a free range wildness about it that gives the user a sense of never knowing what they are going to see.







VideoJug: Life Explained on Film http://www.videojug.com This is a clever site with a how-to angle. You'll find a variety of user produced instructional video. The Kid's section features a fun series of balloon animal tutorials.
Wikis

Think of Wikis as specialized websites that promote collaborative writing. Wiki team-mates can edit documents at any time of the day or night. The wiki will automatically back up the original and present the newest edition of the document to the next team-mate to log in. You always have a revision history to consult, as you create a dynamic document that grows and changes under the attention of an audience of editors. Wikipedia is the best known Wiki at the moment. (See Doug Johnson's article Wikipedia: Ban It or Boost It in this edition of the Resource Kit.)

Deeper: Educause: Wide Open Spaces: Wikis, Ready or Not







WikiMatrix: http://www.wikimatrix.org/index.php This is a comparison site that helps a user compare many different features of a wide variety of commercial and free wiki services. If you want to make an informed choice this site is a great starting place. (Both pbwiki and Wikispaces are reviewed side by side and feature by feature.)







PBWiki http://pbwiki.com With a slogan like: "Make a Wiki as easily as a peanut butter sandwich" you can expect a clean streamlined design. Will pbwiki set you up in just 30 seconds? Try it and see. Learning the ins and outs of Wiki editing and navigation will take a bit more time. Other features include a discussion area where team-members (or any user) can comment on the wiki. If you outgrow the free version you can upgrade for a modest monthly fee.







Wikispaces http://www.wikispaces.com Wikispaces is another educator oriented free service. You will find the easy to navigate discussion, history, and notification tabs useful. You can also set up email or RSS feeds to keep you posted on wiki activity.
Click-O-Rama: More resources than you can shake a mouse at!

We've presented a select number of sites to provide an overview of Web 2.0 Internet services. There are hundreds of innovative sites showing up on the web everyday. Many of these sites provide a golden opportunity to harness the energy of authorship and curriculum. The following sites give you click through access and thumbnail descriptions of far more sites than we can cover in this article.







Web2Logo http://web2logo.com Here you will find 10 pages of Web 2.0 logos. Click on a logo and you are taken to a community rating and review page. You will see the site's traffic statistics, and comments from users. Additionally, you are presented with a hot list of similar Web 2.0 sites, You have the option of subscribing to any of Web2Logo's description pages... and easy way to monitor the community comments about a site.






GO@WEB20
GO2WEB20 http://www.go2web20.net This is a less detailed , but more direct presentation than Web2Logo. Click any of the long scroll of Web 2.0 logos and see a thumbnail description of the site pop up in the right hand column of the page. You'll also find a hotlink that will open the site in a new window. This beta site still has rough edges but the developers are promising more revisions in the near future. For now it's fun for just clicking around!

Sunday, August 17, 2008

The Myth of the Google Generation


Do you believe in the Myth that kids know more about the Internet than you do? Many educators seem to assume that the current generation of ‘net-savy’ kids know what they are doing when it comes to internet based research. Now, scientific research has established what many of us have known all along: today’s kids don’t have a clue about how to find information online.

It was this insight that lead Dr. Carl Heine of the 21st Century Information Fluency project to call the net-generation, the Untaught Generation. In his series of articles: Five Things Today’s Digital Generation Cannot Do (and what you can do to help) Dr. Heine explains the skills today’s students need.

The following information was originally published by The Resource Shelf under the title The Google Generation is a Myth.

“A new report, commissioned by JISC and the British Library, counters the common assumption that the ‘Google Generation’ – young people born or brought up in the Internet age – is the most adept at using the web. The report by the CIBER research team at University College London claims that, although young people demonstrate an ease and familiarity with computers, they rely on the most basic search tools and do not possess the critical and analytical skills to asses the information that they find on the web.”

Here is a link to a 35 page pdf of the full report: ‘Information Behavior of the Researcher of the Future’ 35 pages; PDF) Key findings are summarized by this telling statement: “…traits that are commonly associated with younger users – impatience in search and navigation, and zero tolerance for any delay in satisfying their information needs – are now the norm for all age-groups, from younger pupils and undergraduates through to professors.” (Italics ours.)

We all know that vital 21st century skills like information literacy and information fluency have been elbowed out of the way by the drill and fill demands of a test pressured curriculum. Let’s hope the nation collectively wakes up to the realities that today’s kids (and educators) are in desperate need of training in the critical thinking skills needed to search, evaluate, and ethically use digital information.

Life Online: Teens and Technology

Life Online: Teens and Technology

Knowing your Audience? Or I should say, knowing the audience of your audience? In the first issue of our newsletter we begin a series about what the current crop of kids (i.e. digital natives) know and don’t know. Our research tells us they don’t know much about the formal strategies of searching. (See Five Things Digital Natives Cannot Do (and what you can do to help, coming soon!)

We as educators, do know a bit about this generation of students. I found this link on Gary Price’s Research Shelf to Lee Rainie’s March 23rd speech: Life Online: Teens and technology and the world to come. This speech was given to the annual conference of the Public Library Association of Boston. (Teens and Technology.pdf) Rainie describes our students as the Millennials (born 1982 – 2000). He then shares eight recent findings of the Pew Internet & American Life Project that he directs.

I will provide a few direct quotes from Rainie’s speech as a teaser! ~ Dennis O’Connor, 21CIF.

How Millennials Approach Research:“For your purposes, it’s important to note that Millennials’ devotion to the internet has greatly shaped the way they approach research process. In many cases, they start projects by going online and browsing around. When they have questions, they will often ping their social network for advice and guidance.

They approach research as a self-directed process. Those who want to serve them would probably do well to think of themselves as “info support” in the same way all our offices have “tech support”: on call and ready to deal with problems, but not in my face showing me every possible function and setting on my computer.”

Brave New World?The 21 st Century Information Fluency Project plans to adapt and grow to meet the needs and demands of ‘new workers and consumers’ in the coming age. It is a great feeling to be out here on the bleeding edge helping to define this reality.

“I can’t tell you precisely how different this work and research environment will be – and I would be very wary of anyone who claims to know for sure just how much change will occur.

I think it is safe to say, though, for the new workers and consumers coming of age in the 21 st Century, learning and research will be:

  • More self directed and less dependent on top-down instructions
  • Better arrayed to capture new information inputs
  • More reliant on feedback and response
  • More tied to group outreach and group knowledge
  • More open to cross-discipline insights, creating its own “tagged” taxonomies

And

  • More oriented towards people being their own individual nodes of production.

As a researcher, I see this new world as a fantastically target-rich environment for things to study.

Your role is much more complicated, scary, and exciting. You have the privilege of reacting to and shaping the new environment for these emerging workers.

As the parent of four of these neo-workforce participants, I would only ask you to be brilliant at what you do.”

~ Lee Rainie


So What Do You Think? Does Rainie’s description of the new generation jibe with your personal experience? Are the kids in your classes the fluid digital natives that the Pew Internet & American Life Project so richly describes?

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Information Literacy Game





Here's a clever online 'board game' that helps reinforce basic information literacy ideas. The game was created by the University Libraries in Greensboro North Carolina.

A fun way to gain some basic skills!

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Online Courses in Information Fluency!


Search Help, Evaluation and Digital Ethics for School, Business and Home

Courses Starting Soon...

powersearching and wsi

Need to create a back to school training?

Use our modular content to snap together your own unique training course.


Power Searching in a Web 2.0 World

Next session starts Aug 4 (4 Weeks $99)

View as Guest | Enroll | Course Description


Website Investigator: An Introduction to Information Forensics

Next session starts Aug 11 (2 Weeks $68) View as Guest | Enroll | Course Description


Receive 21cif newsletter for announcements about these and other courses. To subscribe to our newsletter, click here.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Library 2.0

If you're wondering how to implement a social library or just wondering what all this noise about Library 2.0 really means, I've got resources for you! I came across treasure trove of information with this title:

100 Free Library 2.0 Webinars and Tutorials

By Jessica Merritt

If you’ve heard the buzz about Library 2.0, but don’t quite understand how to implement it, you’ve come to the right place. The Internet is full of helpful webinars, presentations, and tutorials designed to help you take your library to the next level, and we’ve highlighted some of the most useful of these here. Read on to learn how your library can get with the times.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Special Event Notice: Conference on Literature in Virtual Worlds


On August 4th, 2008, and again on August 6th, Alliance Library System, in cooperation with LearningTimes, will offer a one-day conference exploring the possibilities of using virtual worlds to teach literature and to promote its appreciation for people of all ages.

The conference, entitled "Stepping into Literature: Bringing New Life to Books through Virtual Worlds," will be held entirely in the virtual world of Second Life, allowing participants to attend from any location with a computer and a broadband internet connection.

Whether you teach literature, or are just intrigued by the potential for learning in 3D worlds, we hope you will join us for a meaningful exploration of the instructional possibilities.

Cost to attend is US $65 per person. For group rates (5 or more) write to john@learningtimes.net

Click here to register: http://tinyurl.com/6ba6nq
Or visit the conference website at:
http://www.steppingintovirtualworlds.org/.

Participants will take take part in a virtual book discussion, and take field trips into literature-based locations that have been created in Second Life. You may find yourself in an Edgar Allen Poe poem, visiting a "secret garden" or learning about gothic literature in an authentically spooky mansion.

Keynotes:

Beth Ritter-Gluth (Desideria Stockton in Second Life) will be the keynote speaker and her talk is on "A Vision for Making Literature Come Alive in Virtual Worlds." She is the creator of "Literature Alive in Second Life" and teaches English and Women's Studies at Lehigh Carbon Community College in Schnecksville, PA.
The keynote author is Kim Rufer-Bach who will speak on "Using Virtual Worlds to Promote Real Life Literature." Kimberly is co-author of "Creating Your World: The Official Guide to Advanced Content Creation for Second Life" (Sybex, October 2007) and is currently at work on "The Second Life Grid: The Official Guide to Communication Collaboration, and Community Engagement."

Full conference schedule and registration information is available at the conference website, http://www.steppingintovirtualworlds.org/

Or register now at: http://tinyurl.com/6ba6nq

Monday, July 14, 2008

Website Investigator: Apple Learning Exchange Podcast from NECC 2008

The Information Forensics Podcast was recorded at NECC 2008 in San Antonio, Texas and produced by the Apple Learning Exchange. PowerPoint is also available from the NECC



Description:

For many students, online research just doesn’t come naturally. Most students have trouble locating relevant information. Even if they find good information, they lack the investigative skills needed to evaluate their sources.

The purpose of this session is to provide participants with an understanding of efficient methods for evaluating online information and to demonstrate effective ways to teach these information fluency skills in classrooms.

The new generation of NETS standards for students (ISTE, 2007), is based on the premise that efficacy and productivity depends on students’ abilities to conduct research and manage digital information fluently. An essential skill is the ability to evaluate information from a variety of sources and media

Online Course: WSI: Website Investigator: An Introduction to Information Forensics

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Website Investigator (Moodle Based Online Course)


Website Investigator: An Introduction to Information Forensics
begins Monday, July 14th. (2 Weeks $34) View as Guest - Register

A facilitated online learning experience in Web Site Investigation. Game Based, Challenging, Fun!

Joyce Valenza –21st Century Research Skills!

Navigating the Shifting Information Landscape


Interview with Joyce Valenza This interview is with Joyce Valenza, Springfield Township (PA) High School Teacher-Librarian and technology writer, who is a featured blogger and presenter at numerous conferences.

What are the greatest challenges for teachers and teacher-librarians when teaching the effective use of research skills/strategies? At this moment it is understanding the shifting landscape. The last two years saw dramatic change in the information landscape. The change forces us to examine new questions: How do we respect intellectual property in a mash-up universe? What do creative, effective information products look like? How do we balance issues of privacy and safety in an information landscape that busts through borders and invites us to share our ideas and our work? How do we use these new tools to participate creatively in global discussion? How do we best exploit exciting new opportunities for authorship and audience? What "old world" tools and skills need to be carried over into our new projects?


You have spoken of students as being either "sponges," absorbing information passively; or "miners," actively searching for information gems. How can educators structure research assignments to help students become “miners” instead of “sponges”? If they haven't already done so, every district should ban the "report." If you asked me to write a report on Pennsylvania, I'd likely print you an encyclopedia article. That work has already been done far better than I could do it myself. Students need to use information to imagine, to solve, to analyze, to propose, to invent, to create. Give me a challenge or allow me to create my own information challenge based on my own questions and passions. Ask me (or allow me) instead to create a commercial promoting travel to my state and post it on YouTube. Ask me to make a decision (based on criteria I myself develop) about whether to move to Philadelphia or Pittsburgh. Ask me to collaborate on solving a local problem in a wiki and to present my solution using a media slideshow I could share on the Web.

How can Web 2.0 tools such as blogs, wikis, del.icio.us, and GoogleDocs enhance and transform the teaching of K-12 information literacy/fluency skills? Among the most powerful applications we've used so far: Blogs to record, manage and reflect on major research projects. These make the chaotic process more transparent and more interactive. They allow teacher, librarian, mentor, and peer intervention. They can also prevent research disasters. Wiki pathfinders allow teachers, librarians and learners to collaborate as they construct guides for projects and lead students to sources they might not discover independently. We've moved most of our lit circle activity to blogs. Each circle manages its discussion, setting up timelines, establishing categories. Our teachers love that they can easily assess the level of participation and quickly gather what any group or student had to say regarding characterization. We love using tools like Animoto and Voicethread for preparing powerful media presentations.We use GoogleDocs for group writing and to allow teachers and librarians to suggest edits. We are exploring ZohoPolls for original research as well. Students work hard to craft solid questions and make sense of the data they collect.We've recognized what our misuse of PowerPoint has done to our school. We are considering new presentation options and tools, as well as the concept of "presentation zen." How can we best connect with an audience? What does effective storytelling look like in the 21st century?

How can we help our students create their own meaningful information spaces to support their work as learners? I think we may need to guide them to widgetizing their personal desktops. This year we asked our seniors to use iGoogle as a tool to organize their senior projects. I see more tools like that emerging. Now students can open an interface and be presented with their favorite online dictionary, foreign language tools, mapping tool, thesaurus, calendar, to-do list, while they push research-relevant RSS feeds to them through a reader. They choose their theme. Their little game applets are there too. This was perhaps the "stickiest" activity they've done yet this school year. The spaces continue to grow more personally meaningful.

I look forward to the day when we can offer more widgetized library tools. So the student who needs the American History database this semester can drag that widget onto her desktop and replace it (or schooch it further down) to substitute a science database widget next semester. We also ask students to consider their research blogs as their own information spaces. Blogs help students organize, categorize, reflect. They can be customized learning spaces.

Tech Tip: Personalize Your Desktop With Gadgets and Widgets A host of free “mini-apps” are available to personalize your computer workspace for fun and productivity, and to gather your frequently-used information resources in one spot. In Macintosh OS X, these are called “dashboard widgets”, in Yahoo they are “widgets”, in Windows Vista they are “sidebar gadgets” and in iGoogle they are simply “gadgets”. Since there is no universal format for widgets/gadgets, a widget designed for Mac’s OS X Dashboard won’t work in iGoogle or Vista, or vice versa. However, there are options for converting Google gadgets to Dashboard or Vista Sidebar formats.

Here are links to directions and galleries for adding widgets/gadgets to Mac OS X, iGoogle, Vista, and Yahoo.



Announcement Download our new poster for your bulletin board at:http://www.uwstout.edu/soe/profdev/pdf/poster.pdf Are you looking for graduate courses that support your professional development goals for changing salary lanes, licensure renewal or advanced certification? January classes are filling now. No payment is due until the beginning of the semester. SEARCH/BROWSE LIST OF NEW COURSES http://www.uwstout.edu/soe/profdev/courses.shtml REGISTER ONLINE AT:http://www.uwstout.edu/soe/profdev/register.shtml Educators who are registering for an online course do not need to apply for graduate admission to the university unless you are beginning a Masters degree program at University of Wisconsin-Stout.


(Republished with Permission from UW-Stout Infobytes: Karen Franker Editor.

Privacy & Google: Take a look at the tech side.

This YouTube video provides a good basic introduction to just what information Google is tracking when you make a search.

Keep in mind that if you have a Google Account (which I do) you are providing Google with far more than IP numbers and cookies. When using Google tools we pay with data, not money. Each 'Free Tool' provides a stream of information that Google is very adept at turning into advertising profit.

I'm quite comfortable with this symbiotic relationship. Are you?