Monday, July 28, 2008
New Search Engine Unveiled Today
You may want to give the new search engine a whirl. It's called Cuil, pronounced "cool" which is trying to compete head to head with Google. Danny Sullivan, the search engine guru says that it's got promise. Cuil indexes 120 billion web pages. Instead of showing results with snippets of description, it displays more text and pictures and provides for refining your search for more relevant results. I will, of course, start playing with it immediately to determine how useful it will be for my students. Read a review of Cuil or go try it yourself by doing a Google search :) or go to http://www.cuil.com/.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Stratford Theater Festival July 2008
I have been experimenting with Windows Movie Maker to compile a video memory of
the librarian road trip to the Stratford Festival in Ontario, CA. I added photos from Deborah Lazar, Maggie Schmude, and Judy Mitchell. Enjoy!
the librarian road trip to the Stratford Festival in Ontario, CA. I added photos from Deborah Lazar, Maggie Schmude, and Judy Mitchell. Enjoy!
Monday, April 14, 2008
Friday, February 08, 2008
Mary Ann Apple's Web 2.0 Blog
As suggested by Deborah Lazar, I added a link in our links section to Mary Ann's blog:
Web 2 Tools for the Read /Write/ Web
This is a good resource for learning how to save, organize and share your bookmarks, photos and videos.
Web 2 Tools for the Read /Write/ Web
This is a good resource for learning how to save, organize and share your bookmarks, photos and videos.
Saturday, November 03, 2007
ISLMA Conference
Wanted to share this YouTube video recommended by David Warlick which has a humorous take on tech support.
As a result of learning with David Warlick yesterday, I learned that along with librarians providing those feeds, we should also be teaching students to control their own information worlds by selecting relevant RSS feeds for their research needs. This will bring information automatically to them.
With blogs, podcasts, wikis, and RSS, we can connect, share, respond, and grow knowledge anytime, anywhere. Librarians know that access to information is changing and David is a master teacher in breaking it down for us. He patiently demonstrates new ways to view it, what we can do with it, and how we can communicate these changes to our peers and to our students. See links to a variety of resources about RSS.
As David says, “we train the information to come to us”. He refers to his Del.icio.us bookmarks as his “personal digital library”. I also learned about bringing someone else’s del.icio.us tags in as an RSS feed. He demonstrated Netvibes as a way to cluster your aggregators into one web page to build a “personal learning network”.
As a result of learning with David Warlick yesterday, I learned that along with librarians providing those feeds, we should also be teaching students to control their own information worlds by selecting relevant RSS feeds for their research needs. This will bring information automatically to them.
With blogs, podcasts, wikis, and RSS, we can connect, share, respond, and grow knowledge anytime, anywhere. Librarians know that access to information is changing and David is a master teacher in breaking it down for us. He patiently demonstrates new ways to view it, what we can do with it, and how we can communicate these changes to our peers and to our students. See links to a variety of resources about RSS.
As David says, “we train the information to come to us”. He refers to his Del.icio.us bookmarks as his “personal digital library”. I also learned about bringing someone else’s del.icio.us tags in as an RSS feed. He demonstrated Netvibes as a way to cluster your aggregators into one web page to build a “personal learning network”.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
AASL Literacy Standards -- NEW!
AASL published the revised standards Oct. 25: Standards for the 21st-Century Learner
http://www.ala.org/ala/aasl/aaslproftools/learningstandards/AASL_Learning_Standards_2007.pdf
The 4 main principles:
1. Inquire, think critically, and gain knowledge
2. Draw conclusions, make informed decisions, apply knowledge to new situations, and create new knowledge
3. Share knowledge and participate ethically and productively as members of our democratic society
4. Pursue personal and aesthetic growth
http://www.ala.org/ala/aasl/aaslproftools/learningstandards/AASL_Learning_Standards_2007.pdf
The 4 main principles:
1. Inquire, think critically, and gain knowledge
2. Draw conclusions, make informed decisions, apply knowledge to new situations, and create new knowledge
3. Share knowledge and participate ethically and productively as members of our democratic society
4. Pursue personal and aesthetic growth
Monday, October 15, 2007
Earth Metaphor is Appropriate
"The tiller of change is advancing on the field, the corn has been harvested, and the stalks will soon return to the soil. We better be thinking about the new crop, or the field will lie fallow."....Univ of California @ Berkeley,Peter Brantley’s post about Libraries Re-shaping
Brantley has a vision for the next generation of libraries. His focus is on Academic Librarianship but could be applied to a wide range of settings. I appreciate its radical nature because the library profession and large institutions such as New Trier and universities are glacially slow at accepting change. Brantley says that it's time to change:
1) most cataloguing(copy cataloguing) is "superfluous"
2) acquisitions (large contracts with vendors) should be negotiated by business people; librarians are not trained in large scale business transactions.
3)overhaul library systems and integrate acquisitions--" a handful of programmers [can]solve [these issues if] they are left sufficiently unencumbered. "
4)downsize print collections; digital collections have huge advantages in "discoverability, access, and consumability".
5)develop a new hybrid of library/IT that genuinely addresses student/patron needs
Why effect these wrenching changes?
Brantley is supportive of change..."Because It's Time. The librarians that I have talked with - admittedly, they self-select, although they represent a cross section of functions - are ready to move forward into the future. We know how much things have changed; we're not kidding ourselves. We know there should be fundamental transformation, even if some of us necessarily and selfishly want its expression to come in just-a-few-more-years. Yet, a bright future beckons. It is exciting, and we can be part of it. We know it - we have a huge range of skills, and we're bursting with new ideas."
As the Earth evolves and adapts to change, so too should libraries. Innovative Web 2.0 technologies are revolutionizing the way the world interacts with information. We need to be dancing just as fast as we can.
Judy Gressel
Brantley has a vision for the next generation of libraries. His focus is on Academic Librarianship but could be applied to a wide range of settings. I appreciate its radical nature because the library profession and large institutions such as New Trier and universities are glacially slow at accepting change. Brantley says that it's time to change:
1) most cataloguing(copy cataloguing) is "superfluous"
2) acquisitions (large contracts with vendors) should be negotiated by business people; librarians are not trained in large scale business transactions.
3)overhaul library systems and integrate acquisitions--" a handful of programmers [can]solve [these issues if] they are left sufficiently unencumbered. "
4)downsize print collections; digital collections have huge advantages in "discoverability, access, and consumability".
5)develop a new hybrid of library/IT that genuinely addresses student/patron needs
Why effect these wrenching changes?
Brantley is supportive of change..."Because It's Time. The librarians that I have talked with - admittedly, they self-select, although they represent a cross section of functions - are ready to move forward into the future. We know how much things have changed; we're not kidding ourselves. We know there should be fundamental transformation, even if some of us necessarily and selfishly want its expression to come in just-a-few-more-years. Yet, a bright future beckons. It is exciting, and we can be part of it. We know it - we have a huge range of skills, and we're bursting with new ideas."
As the Earth evolves and adapts to change, so too should libraries. Innovative Web 2.0 technologies are revolutionizing the way the world interacts with information. We need to be dancing just as fast as we can.
Judy Gressel
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