ELI2007: Youth, Privacy and Social Networking Technologies

Tracy Mitrano, Cornell University

{The guy sitting next to me at this session won a super cool office chair in a raffle. Unfortunately he lives in Cairo. Egypt, not Georgia.}

web 2.0 - o'reilly: "what is web 2.0?"

"wealth of networks"

pew: 55% of teens have online profile, 66% not visible to all users - mainly use to talk to/ keep up with/ make friends

what's the fuss about: criminals push tech envelope - have to build protections into virtual world as in physical

Cornell University Computer Policy and Law Program {lots of good presentations}

computer interaction tends to lower inhibitions - human computer interaction/ deep relationship with computers

"Thoughts on Facebook" {good tips for users}: students branding themselves online, growing to larger audience but adding protections to give choices in who can view profiles, educate on physical safety and privacy

"A Wider World" - follow-up article from Educause Review

maybe move towards more "appropriate" use - not as much debauched behavior {really?}, universities looking at FB in student interaction, need to be transparent and careful

facebook has good privacy and appropriate use policies

higher ed should develop own social networking sites {would students want to use for purely academic purposes?}

ELI2007: Introducing the Undergraduate Learner To Independent Learning Through Targeted Transferable Skills Acquisition

Laura Briggs and James M. Skidmore, University of Waterloo

{Ooops, forgot to finish and post this. It was a good session on info lit education. There are students comments on the first semester of the class in the presentation. That was cool!}

Online version of presentation

German 272 course - general course for sophomores, physical and distant, problems with poor term papers - bad cultural analysis skills (ability to read and interpret)/ info lit skills

Use CMS to add rich content to course, spend class time on productive/ deeper discussion - has produced lots of email bet students and faculty

Used teaching improvement grant to study course - questionnaires/ focus groups/ 150 participants

Prof Moments - e-lectures produced w/ camtasia, 5-10 minutes, downloadable guides to video with note space

research feedback reflection - research topic/ get feedback (replaced peer feedback with instructor feedback)/ reflect on feedback before final essay - students liked staggered process

cultural object exercise - open ended questions on place/ painting etc

virtual field trips - study teams investigate topic on web, interaction via discussion boards - students didn't like group work, lack of moderator

InfoLit component - guided tasks, info lit not curriculum bases - dif ability levels, delivered content thru CMS instead of live so students can explore independently, made database suggestions (students liked this)

Washington Post info lit & libraries article (1/21/07)

students recognized transfer of info lit skills to other courses and transfer of cultural lit to their lives outside school

process takes a ton of time for each class!

students liked using discussion boards to ask questions better than email or chat

ELI2007: While You Were Out: How Students Are Transforming Information And What It Means For Publishing

Kate Wittenberg - EPIC

EPIC - collab bet library/publishing/IT, rethink print pub models, develop content in response to scholar and student needs (publishers usually don't do market research)

readers' changing habits: google, library as social/work space, myspace etc (vibrant creative areas for creative expression), gaming, electronic devices for info access

tools and functionality built on top of content just as impt as content

scholarly publishers focus on protecting content for "proper" use, dissaprove of sudent use of tech fr entertainment

future of scholarly pub: rich digital pubs/ storage and delivery for multiple devices/ interoperative with online networks and gaming community - move forward thru partnerships/guidance from users

new models:
networked space for learning - discussion on class projects/ collaboration on media projects/ professors and librarians create profiles and offer suggestions

publisher portals - add value by working together to build spaces online based on subject expertise (requires publisher to work together and work with search companies)

educational gaming - create games with specific learning objectives in particular field, students don't like traditional textbooks - use resources to teach in online gaming environment for collaborative learning

credibility of content: students not so good at evaluating quality

quality assessment models: top down VS peer to peer (community decides value of content) - does learning become process of being admitted to community rather than receiving expert knowledge {does this completely remove any possible wide definition of quality? "quality" in one group might not be quality in another}

one approach: educational resources that combine teachers materials/ lib holdings/ open web/ social space

next gen publishing: understand users/ integration of skills of authors, publishers, libraries, IT/ ability to create and lead collaborative organizations - value of all players and coordinate

ELI2007: Podcast IT: Preparing Faculty for Academic Podcasting

Michael Burke, Susannah Finley, Joan Thomas - University of Tennessee Innovative Technology Center

Online version of presentation

Instructional applications: lectures (passive), students recording experiences of field trips/ study abroad, review materials

think about/ include objectives for podcasts - use as interactive tool (foreign lang ex)

Berkeley Example {nice site}

Circulate equipment for faculty recording

Hosting: created homegrown system, use desktop mac and apache webserver to run, have lots of training materials available

{Very good preplanning checklist for faculty}

Results just need to be good enough to accomplish goals

Journalism class test: 72% of students rated excellent or good {case studies in online version of presentation}, simliar results in other pilots

Future at ut: more integration w/ BlackBoard, make accounts easier to use, upgrade hosting/ storage

Convergence of devices will be big in future

ELI2007: Emerging Educational Technologies and Neomillennial Learning Styles

Chris Dede - Harvard Graduate School of Education

{My comments in brackets}

{Before talk - ELI Guide To...Podcasting available in week}

shifts in knowledge and skills/development of new methods of teaching and learning/changes in characteristics of learners

move beyond tactical tools (blogs, podcasts etc) to strategic transformations in missions (look at big picture 15 yrs out)

definition of info tech changing - more personal expression and interpretation uses

cognition distributed across minds/ tools/ space/time

tech unintelligent but good at doing routine tasks

"new division of labor" - work by people v work by machines, people better at expert decision making (mechanic knows why car is broken)/ complex communications

next gen interfaces for learning: world to desktop/multi-user virtual spaces/ubiquitous computing

mmogs: demographics expanding - lots of folks will live alt life if meets interests/ learning processes outstanding (collaborative learning)/ content of games sucks {he said "garbage" but you know...}

river city - online VR educational game to teach science inquiry skills {has library in town for research!}, target bottom 1/3 of students but reach all - students getting D and F in real classroom do just as well as A students

situated learning - apprenticeship type learning, legitimate peripheral participation, tacit learning

gaming creates distributed-learning community (mediated, situated immersion)

wireless mobile devices for students instead of laptops - more affordable and portable

augmented reality - use gps/ handheld to walk around and investigate, mystery at mit {gps games to learn about physical/ virtual library space?}

students enjoy collaborative learning in river city/ mystery at mit - need to teach students in way that they learn, experience central instead of pre-digested info, gives context to knowledge

media shape participants regardless of age

neomillennial learning styles - fluency in multiple media/learning based on collective experience seeking instead of individual

need to unlearn unconscious beliefs about education to adapt to new learners, can be difficult for many instructors

ELI2007: First-Generation Ubiquitious Computing

Bryan Alexander - NITLE

{My comments in brackets.}

{First slide has screen shot of Get A First Life!}

La Jetee - art film, web presence ex of social computing in action

*social (web 2.0) - microcontent leads of distributed conversations, US citizens minority on flickr, 1/3 of s koreans use Cyworld

*mobile - ambient (exposed to info and do stuff to it), info on demand, archives/ annotations thru tags, use web 2.0 tech for learning/ student projects (blogs, flickr, video)

*gaming - game to stop from playing games so much (cdc), lots of study of gaming in terms of learning, games increasingly spacialized {reading paper very quickly, hard to follow}, increase of pranks and hoaxes in online gaming (2nd life millionaire press conference)

*mixes - weak augmented reality (geotagging in flickr), placeblooger, google earth api

web 2.0 looks at past - uploading video of old tv etc to YT {punk rock / garage/ r&b videos folks post to goner}, digitizing of old photos, shared past, mario brothers opera (people like old stuff!)

privacy has changed and we haven't protested! {plenty of library folks protest, but collection of info prob not issue for most in general public} tech makes it easier to erode privacy (video of lectures taken w/o permission and posted), students have developed mechanisms for coping w/ privacy issues (66% of teens dont make online presence available to all - pew)

web 2.0 tools/ open web can reopen educational institutions to the public

Q: Can we believe stats about web 2 usage?
A: Things like Technorati blog tracking stats are looked at and debated. Same with many other usage tracking systems. Give general trends.

Q: How many people are really participating (submit content)?
A: Pew Project good place to look for numbers. Even smallish numbers/ percents are huge deal in terms of new tech. Participation growing.

Q: Students in focus group didn't want adults in their space online (MS 2nd life etc). Change profiles when know adults will be looking.
A: Mistake to generalize from small sample. But kids do want some sort of privacy. May change what they put online when looking for jobs.

Q: Wither universities?
A: We can certainly skip new tech. Been done in the past.

Get A First Life

The person sitting next to me in the first session was looking at a site called Get A First Life. Awesome. They need a First Life Library though!

ELI2007: K-12 Students Speak Up About Technology And Learning

Julie Evans - Project Tomorrow, NetDay

{My comments in brackets}

speak up: survey of k12 students/teachers/parents, open survey to all k12 schools -
communication #1/ self directed learning on rise/disconnect bet students and
adults on how students use tech and adults think they want to use
tech/sophistication of youngest users (elem level) {these are future, future
students}

dif ages have dif tech approach/ values - dif levels of digital natives

gaming universal among age levels - gender breakdown in younger groups, girls game as much as boys {talking about online gaming or console? will wii mean more female console gamers?}

9% of hi school have blackberry/ smartphone

use tech for research mostly, some only for keyboarding {not clear what this means}, increase in use of tech for presentations

25% email teachers/ 40% email or IM classmates/ 35% 6-12 interested in taking online classes (xtra help in sbj area #1 reason - supplemental assistance, math #1 class {interesting! seems would be hard to do math online to me}, also foreign lang)

lots of use of electronic presentations: ppt/eportfolios/movies etc

tech outside school: email&im/ gaming/ music/ myspace - music downloads has passed email/im as #1 use {take that metallica!}, myspace use has doubled (no gender/ demographic split, split in tech level - advanced group most likely)

{irony moment - her mic keeps cutting in and out when talking bout tech!}

fave comm tool? cell hone for talking (many don't have textable phone) - 36% 6-12 {look at phone policies in future for libs/ schools etc}

connecting big! connect w/ nonlocal kids (in us and around world) - 50% of gr 3-5 use tech to connect, 22% 3-5 have online friends never met (huge future issue), 44% 6-12 have 20 plus online friends

lots of connecting thru online gaming - big number game online w/ strangers everyday

22% blog/ 6% podcast/ 13% post videos on YT/ 16% share writings/ 51% on myspace/ 25% go to tv show websites for interaction

grades 6-12: control issues - rules against tech, feel stymied when want to use tech,
school filters, teachers control tech access {need to ease up on rules in public
and academic lib environment! start now cuz they're coming}
grades 3-5: access issues - lack of comps/ inconvenient locations/ slow access

huge degree of frustration in what they can do w/ tech at school, increasing perception of hi school experience {does this frustration continue when get to college? prob in some cases}

kids would provide: laptops for all students/allow phone mp3 etc use (46%)/ use IM and blogs (45%)/ lessons on iPod (34%)/ online textbooks (39%) {interesting - seem to want learning materials in variety of digital formats}

trends - spectrum of nativeness (dif levels)/ tech as tool (not fun or fad) - makes more effective and accurate/ connect without boundaries/ include student ideas in planning/ kids dont email to talk (except w/old people) - use email accounts for storage

Q: What is keyboarding?
A: Learning how to type. {Thanks}

Q: {Something about expectations of tech in college}
A: Think will have more access to tech in college and have all tech savvy teachers {hahahahaha - this got big laugh in room}

Q: {Privacy issues in social networking}
A: Kids are more self aware of privacy and sharing now. Trend towards backing off from major sharing online in MS etc as seen a year ago.

Q: {2nd life}
A: Kids interesting in potential learning in virtual reality environment. {Maybe 2nd Life Lib isn't such a bad idea!}

ELI 2007 Annual Meeting

While a ton of folks I know are out in Seattle for Midwinter I'm all the way in downtown Atlanta for the 2007 EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative Annual Meeting. The main reason I'm here is to present a poster tomorrow for ACRL about their information literacy initiatives, but there are a lot of interesting looking programs I hope to attend as well. And I hope to be able to spell "initiative" without the spell check by the end of the day Wednesday.

I've never been to a conference here at the Omni Hotel, and the layout is a little confusing to navigate but I think I've got the hang of it now. But the free wifi for the conference worked the first time I booted so I can't really complain about anything so far.

I'll blog some sessions and post some pics later on today.

Introduction to monstering

Introduction to monstering
Originally uploaded by WorldIslandInfo.com.

I was looking for pictures of a classroom on Flickr for a presentation and ran across this. Don't think I can get away with using it (this time) but it is super cool.

"Raise your foot at least waist high before stomping on buildings".

What's In A Name?

I finally have the option of switching my blogs over to the new verison of Blogger and am thinking about making a few changes. The main one being the name of the blog. I've gotten more than a few weird faces and vocal inflections when I tell people the name of my blog or it gets mentioned in an introduction to a talk. And since I seem to be doing more and more and more speaking, it's starting to bug me a little.

I know at least one reader thinks it doesn't matter what it's called, but does anyone else have an opinion? Does the current name sound silly or unprofessional? The best alternate name I've come up with so far is "Library Freestyle". You can't beat a play on your name with library attached. ;) Suggestions are welcome for that too.

If I do change names, I'll keep the Feedburner feed the same so you'll all be kept captive.

And I guess a larger discussion issues is does it matter in general what you call your semi-professional blog? I'm sure I'm not the only person who has used a throwaway name when setting things up and not being sure they would ever continue doing it.

Flickr Video

My friend Ted sent me this video today of Creative Commons licensed Flickr photos set to music by Jonathan Coulton. Coulton gets mentioned on John Hodgman's blog pretty regularly but I'd never checked him out. Think this has been around for a while but still good stuff! Safe travels to Seattle to everyone going to Midwinter. Have a drink for me at the bloggers salon.

Those Boring, Boring Librarians

We're having a minor controversy here in Atlanta over the treatment of a historian who was in town for the American Historial Association conference and arrested for jaywalking. The historian claims he was roughed up by an off duty police officer monitoring the street in a hotel district where the convention took place. The officer says the historian was beligerent. Either way, the historian spent several hours in jail which is pretty absurd. But at least he didn't get shot.

So what is the lead sentence in the Atlanta Journal Constitution editorial about the incident today?

Other than librarians, it's hard to imagine a less rambunctious group than historians.

If any of the members of the AJC editorial board ever happen to run across this post, I would invite you to visit a library conference sometime. Or at least browse the IL2006 tag on Flickr. And it's not hard to picture a bunch of historians in the hotel bar at 1am discussing the finer points of the Ottoman Empire either.

Maybe a librarians and historians VS editorial writers rambunctiousness contest is in order. I wouldn't want to go up against a group of beat reporters but I'm pretty sure editorial writers are soft from their cushy desk jobs. And we have Michelle on our team.

There's a video of an interview with the jaywalker on YourTube too. Who says historians live in the past!

Now Serving #27...

As I alluded to a few posts ago, my pretty much new iBook G4 decided to freak out on me when I was in Chicago to talk to some ACRL folks about podcasting. It was sounding pretty rough when I was working on my presentation stuff, but I figured it would be OK for the trip. Wrong! When I tried to boot in Chicago it started making these frightening grinding and thumping sounds. I literally rebooted 1,000 times over the next day but the best I got was a flashing folder icon instead of OS X. It finally did work long enough to pull a couple of things (I did have most of my presentation on flash drive, but the clips I was going to use were in my iTunes) and I was good to go.

So I took my freaked out iBook to the Apple Store when I got back to Atlanta. When I got to the Genius Bar there was nobody around. But the guy working told me I had to make an appointment on one of the computers in the store and it would be at least 2 hours before they could help me. And made me feel like the idiot I was for not knowing I had to make an appointment. Now there was literally nobody at the genius bar except the guy who made me feel stupid and another guy who was calling out names of people who weren't there from a computer. But they insisted it would be at least 2 hours before they could even talk to me. Not being inclined to hang out in a mall for 2 hours for anything, I decided to come back after the holidays.

When I got home after Christmas I made an appointment like a good boy and took sick iBook back to Apple Store. It was super crowded! But I got summoned to a genius about 3 minutes after my appointment time, described problem, genius diagnosed a bad hard drive and took iBook away. This took literally 10 minutes max. Including paperwork. They had a new hard drive in my laptop by the end of the day the same day. Everybody was very nice and helpful. Excellent service even faced with a bunch of people who had problems with their new iPods.

I'm really not trying to bash Apple here (although I still think John Hodgman is cooler than the Mac guy in the ads), but why did I get such better service when I had an appointment? Is it a snob appeal thing? The guys the first time just didn't care that day? But think about it: what if someone walked up to the reference desk right now and I refused to help them because they didn't know how to ask for it the way I wanted? And I was snooty and made them feel dumb for not knowing how to ask to boot. It's 9:44pm and I'm not doing anything other than typing this. But I'd like to get it done before I leave for the night. Come back tomorrow.

Something that I'm sure was meant to make service more efficient in my Apple Store experience (the appointment system) ended up being inflexible and kind of asinine. Do we have rules like that in our libraries that keep people from getting the help they need? Are we as flexible as we could be (and within reason) with the rules and procedures we do have? Do we treat the person who has never been in the library before and doesn't know what to do the same as the expert who just needs a little guidance?

Dewey Rap

From a LibRef discussion about learning LC and Dewey comes the Dewey Rap. This is just crying out for some beats people! Who wants to get crunk?

Medical Reference Services Quarterly Podcasting Articles

The most recent edition of Medical Reference Services Quarterly features a couple of articles on podcasts in the health science library environment.

Ragon, Bart and Ryan P. Looney. "Podcasting at the University of Virginia Claude Moore Health Sciences Library". Medical Reference Services Quarterly. 26.1 (2007): 17-26.

Kraft, Michelle. "Integrating and Promoting Medical Podcasts into the Library Collection". Medical Reference Services Quarterly. 26.1 (2007): 27-35.

The first article outlines the planning and implementation of podcasting an existing lecture series at UVA. The second describes how the South Pointe Medical Library organizes and presents health related podcasts to their users. (I couldn't locate a link for this one.)

When I did a talk on podcasting to the Atlanta Health Science Library Consortium last month, I noticed that several health science libraries are producing guides to exisiting podcasts. Recommending quality pod/video casts of interest to your library users is a great idea for a specialized library or subject areas within a larger library. Add podcast links to your subject or web guides or even OPAC and let the podding begin.

Happy New Year to everyone!