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Poll Trial

2010-09-04T16:35:00.000-07:00

Create interactive meetings at Poll Everywhere

Results

Make your own poll voting question with Poll Everywhere

What children do to a marriage

2010-08-13T15:36:00.002-07:00

Our friend says he had to teach himself to fall in love with his new wife after she became the mom version of herself. Then I started to think about how a child is like a boarder you've agreed to take into your home without meeting him and whom you've committed to house for 20 years no matter how he acts. I don't believe that parents have that much to do with how their kids turn out, so it doesn't seem that different from making a commitment to an utter stranger. That's a lot of stressful changes to choose to undergo all at once.

Then I started think about how we believe marriage is only worthwhile if it makes your life better. If the marriage is meant to bank two people's efforts so that each can withdraw energy when he or she needs it, then children have to disrupt the whole purpose of the marriage. My husband says that children may negate the purpose of the marriage but that we both already know how to put off short term happiness for long term gain, so he sees it as just a longer-term version of that short-term deferral. I'm not sure what other stressful life-change I would choose to undertake at the same time that I've deliberately undermined my marriage, but having a child seems to require that kind of decision.

I don't know.

Blog against maternal guilt

2010-08-13T15:36:00.001-07:00

http://adequateparenting.com/?p=393#_ftn1

LIB 2

2010-01-19T09:04:00.000-08:00

Encyclopedias

Publishing Cycle

Creators v Consumers

Citations

Famous Plagiarism/Common Plagiarism

For almost every week, have students find the readings and a group teach the concept

Normal and Alive

2009-12-02T17:45:00.001-08:00

Packing up my office to move and found a sticky note where I'd copied down something that G. Orwell said about us. "The fact to which we have to cling, as to a life-belt, is that it is possible to be a normal decent person and yet to be fully alive."

Taurus

2009-11-14T13:12:00.000-08:00

LIB 101

2009-11-02T12:14:00.000-08:00

Fridays, 9-10am

Day 1 1/15
Rules/Syllabus
Trails Test
Homework: fill out worksheet about academic history, learner attitudes and research experience. One article summary of a recent news story (last 2 years) about information literacy (what questions did you have after you read it, what experiences have you had that are related).

Day 2 1/22
Into: quick write about goals for the class
Activity for What is Info Comp (maybe the notecards in groups with State/Explain/Example or 35)
Readings defining information
Homework: read Siva, research and summarize who he is, what people say about him that influence your understanding of his article

Day 3 1/29
Activity for Generations and Technology (Quotations activity)
Siva
Homework: read an article about info use in jobs

Day 4 2/5
(SCIL Works, Long Beach)
Communities and information
How do people find out?

2/12 President's Day

Day 5 2/19
How google works
Defining trengths and weaknesses (these should be general enough that they can be applied to any info tool)

Day 6 2/26
Student interviews about info seeking and use
Developing hypotheses about inquiry
homework: read articles about adult literacy levels, comment on my blog post about literacy; post summaries of interviews because we'll come back to them later

Day 7 3/5
Literacy

Day 8 3/12
Tools
homework: find one scholarly article, two popular articles and three websites on the same topic and fill out eval sheets for each

Spring Break

Day 9 3/26

Day 10 4/2

Day 11 4/9
CARL -- In class essay

Day 12 4/16

Day 13 4/23

Day 14 4/30
LOEX

Day 15 5/7

Finals

********

What about sociopolitical concerns about who gets to create knowledge?

Guests to be interviewed about how they relate to information to create their own knowledge, what they're curious about, what information they seek out for themselves:
Hal, Jon, Matt, Dick, Elizabeth... any other women?

Elmborg -- Social/political
http://slis.uiowa.edu/~elmborg/Literacies-Large-and-Small.pdf
Hensley -- Inquiry
Swanson?

Use Hal's anti-plagiarism lesson about Chris Anderson

"A slight adjustment of perspective"

2009-10-07T08:06:00.000-07:00

"We treat desire as a problem to be solved, address what desire is for and focus on that something and how to acquire it rather than on the nature and the sensation of desire, though often it is the distance between us and the object of desire that fills the space in between with the blue of longing. I wonder sometimes whether with a slight adjustment of perspective it could be cherished as a sensation on its own terms, since it is as inherent to the human condition as blue is to distance?"
A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Rebecca Solnit, 2005

I'm in school now and constantly under the pressure of studying and writing that's not getting done. At the same time my interests are sharpened. My desire for time to read and think about my own ideas is stronger than it ever is when I actually have the time. I long to be untroubled but I know now that I never experience the perfect moment of thinking and being when I am unfettered. So I'm working on 1) not getting mad at myself for longing for time, 2) enjoying the feeling of heightened engagement because it's a pleasurable feeling if I don't chase it away with my stressed thoughts. Yoga is helping with this, therapy is helping with this, but mostly it's just knowing myself better that's helping with this. The feeling of being under the gun and the feeling of having tantalizing possibilities just out of my reach (and sometimes at my finger tips) cannot be parsed so I have to enjoy the part that I love while I'm stressed and it's here.

Why face-to-face might matter

2009-08-05T12:15:00.000-07:00

http://www.livescience.com/culture/090604-human-behavior-evolved.html

This article is about the role of population density in the evolution of human intellegence and the transmission of ideas and skills. Maybe this is why it still matters to be in classrooms together.

On the Ethics of Realness and Credibility

2009-07-07T20:48:00.001-07:00

A chapter in the book Communication Ethics, Media & Popular Culture (originally published in 2005) might be useful for bringing our concern about ethos and credibility into a cultural context. Dan Molden's "Eminem and the Rhetoric of 'Real': The Implications of 'Keeping it Real' on Ethics and Credibility" makes an effort to situate our current concern for realness and the interest in figures who confront the fakeness of society (like Eminem and Jesse Ventura). Is this connected to our students' sometimes backwards understanding of credibility, authority and bias? The section "Real Ethics?" seems especially to start asking some of the questions that are related to our larger project.

in our library P94. C5725 2007

Research Process Case Study

2009-06-29T16:11:00.000-07:00

Allie is going to write about her experience building the GEL unit around Kuhlthau's research process. So I'm supposed to do the lit review and theoretical foundation stuff. The lit review should be what's been done like this and the theoretical foundation should be metacognitive scaffolding. What else is metacognitive scaffolding called? Should we also get into reflective judgment? What about competency theory or threshold concepts?
++++

sense-making, 1st yr experience, ISP

Book to order

2009-06-15T20:13:00.000-07:00

Get Marketing Today's Academic Library: A Bold New Approach to Communicating with Students by Brian Mathews for the library collection

BSI Grant Research

2009-06-15T19:13:00.000-07:00

I should:

Interview participating professors at my school about how they used the results
Plan a pre/post deployment in fall 2009
Contact the TRAILS test makers about how they've seen the test used and if they have overall percentile figures
Contact Mercer Community College about how they used the test and results
Check to see how the ILT from James Madison U has been used in case there's an analogy with my results

My paper should be focused for a developmental education audience and include plans for how I will implement the findings from my research in LIB 101 and my support efforts for the Freshman Academy.

LIB 2 idea for copyright/ethical use

2009-03-25T17:23:00.000-07:00

google books
Shepard Fairey's Obama poster

CARL Advocacy

2009-03-05T16:36:00.000-08:00

I need to get in touch with Amy and Tracey to see if CARL has any support to offer for getting the libraries at community colleges counted for apportionment to the college. If this is a problem at the level of the system office, then it could be changed if people get interested in it.

focus

2009-03-04T13:24:00.000-08:00

my husband should write a paper on what is meant by "find a focus" in the research process. I saw in "Research on the information seeking behavior of young adults" by Theresa Szeliga a gap in the library literature on what finding a focus actually means when students are expected to use their preliminary research to decide on a focus.

Look into it

2009-01-16T14:10:00.001-08:00

J C says she's trying this. http://www.comminfolit.org/index.php/cil/article/view/Spring2008AR2
I should look into it.

Popular Relativism

2009-01-13T18:37:00.000-08:00

http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Guarding-the-boundaries-3979

This link is to an article that proposes some reasons why moral relativism has proliferated. It might help me to extend what I'm trying to learn about Booth's "good reasons." Especially there's the problem of what happens when the average person believes that something should need to be proven before it can stand. Really we should just be trying to discern "good reasons," instead.

Knowledge is...

2009-01-13T13:40:00.000-08:00

what we are justified in believing.

That's Rorty's summary of Dewey's philosophy and it answers a lot of questions for me.

Readings for LIB 2

2009-01-03T16:11:00.000-08:00

Editors. (2003). Peer review. Library & Information Science Research, 25. 359-361. I don't remember if I already used this, but it's a good description of the process.

Harrison, D. (2008). Scholarly voice and professional identity in the Internet age. Thought & Action, 24. 23-33. It's a good description of the uses of blogs and reflects on the difference between writing for popular and scholarly audiences.

Lewis, H. (2009). Not your father's censorship. Chronicle of Higher Education. An article on the potential for quasi-monopolies like google/youtube to censor.

http://www.chillingeffects.org/

article I saved about newspaper retractions of retracted medical journal articles

http://www.isetl.org/ijtlhe/pdf/IJTLHE141.pdf about using the critical incident questionaire in an online class to assess group development

Flex Week 2009

2009-01-02T19:58:00.000-08:00

Introduction
a. IC Resource for BSI
b. Assignment Consultations, Scaffolding

Defining Information Competency
identifying deficiencies
students as information users
a. Academic Literacy (+ lifelong IC), IC and CTE, distinct from Computer Literacy
b. Information Need, Evaluating Sources, Avoiding Plagiarism
c. ACRL Standards and Discipline Specific Standards, Connection with Writing

Information Competency as a core requirement
a. Matriculation
b. GE Requirement

BSI Grant Funded Pilot
a. Basic Plan
b. Sample questions

When we talk about students plagiarising or using inappropriate sources we're talking about deficiencies in their Information Competency, but it's the same basic problem when we talk about students wanting easy answers, not taking responsibility for directing their own learning, not making an argument in their papers and supporting it with evidence, or clinging to comfortable beliefs instead of thinking critically.

Distinguish between Information Competency and Computer Literacy: Powerpoint can be a powerful tool for communicating information. Computer literacy involves the ability to create a powerpoint presentation and a highly skilled user will even be able to make it animated or more navigable than the average powerpoint. Information Competency involves the ability to consider how the format of powerpoint influences the type of information that can be easily communicated. It also involves considerations about what information to include in the presentation in order to convince your audience of your position. And niether of these skill sets will help a student who does not have natural ability to make good aesthetic decisions like selecting a pleasing color pallette and attractive font.

Further Reading

ASCCC Academic Literacy Statement
the table from "Collaborative Dialogue: Repositioning the Academic Library" by Campbell, N. F. and Wesley, T. L. in portal: Libraries and the Academy 6.1, 2006.
Ward, D. (2006) Revisioning Information Literacy for lifelong meaning. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 32(4). 396-402.
Blummer, B. (2007) Utilizing WebQuests for Information Literacy instruction in distance education. College & Undergraduate Libraries, 14(3). 45-62.
Shapiro, J.J. and Hughes, S.K. (1996) Information Literacy as a liberal art. Educom Review, 31(2). 31-35.
McMillen, P.S. and Hill, E. (2004) Why teach 'research as a conversation' in freshman composition courses? A metaphor to help librarians and composition instructors develop a shared model. Research Strategies, 20. 3-22.
http://www2.morainevalley.edu/default.asp?SiteId=10&PageId=236
Swanson, T. (2006) Information Literacy, personal epistemology, and knowledge construction: Potential and possibilities. College & Undergraduate Libraries, 13(3). 93-112.
Klingberg, S. (2006) Information competencies checklist: a resource for inter-segmental collaboration. Reference Services Review, 34(4). 486-490.
Wright, C.A. (2000) Information literacy within the general education program: Implications for Distance Education. The Journal of General Education, 49(1). 23-33.
Henri, J. and Dillon, K. (1992) Learning to learn: Reflections upon enquiry, information literacy and critical thinking. The Australian Library Journal. 103-117.
Norgaard, R. (2003) Writing information literacy: Contributions to a concept. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 43(2). 124-130.
---. (2004) Writing information literacy in the classroom: Pedagogical enactments and implications. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 43(3). 220-226.
Yancey, K.B. (2001) WPA outcomes statement for first-year composition. College English, 63(3). 321-325.
Elmborg, J. (2006) Critical information literacy: Implications for instructional practice. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 32(2). 192-199.
Holliday, W. and Li, Q. (2004) Understanding the millennials: Updating our knowledge about students. Reference Services Review, 32(4). 356-366.

SCIL Works Assessment

2008-12-16T08:30:00.001-08:00

Critical Incident Survey as part of wrap-up for SCIL Works
Look at the article "Assessing learning, critical reflection, and quality educational outcomes: The Critical Incident Questionnaire" by Gilstrap and Dupree in C&RL, Sep 2008.

See Mezirow and Swanson and also look for other examples.

BSI Grant Project

2008-12-14T16:11:00.001-08:00

Interview ENG 1A and 1B faculty (and other Info Comp classes) about what they expect their students to be able to do with information when they enter their classes. "What do you expect students already know about information/research/evaluation/citation?" "How can I help students in your classes if they don't already have the skills you're expecting?"

Look at Deb's model at Pierce College for her rubric for college-wide Information Competency and review how they do their assessment and maintain their database of assessment results from various courses. Does the database also facilitate the scaffolding of skills through the levels of the program? For example, showing what's being assessed at each level so that the participants in the program can see what link they constitute in the chain.

The Neurotic Librarian

2008-12-14T16:01:00.000-08:00

Based on the Kersten article: a conference presentation called the Neurotic Librarian or Neurosis in Academic Libraries. Extending Kersten's application of critical theory, what unquestioned structures in our profession rely on systemic inequalities that are creating pathologies. Why do we talk so much about what we can't do? Why is it our default stance that we support instruction rather than providing it or shaping it? What myths and fantasies are we holding on to (e.g. classroom faculty have all the control over what gets valued on our campuses)? What does the belief about the typical librarian personality discourage us from changing?

Ethics in Organizations -- Implications for Anti-Plagiarism Education

2008-12-14T13:36:00.000-08:00

Astrid Kersten's article, "Organizing for Powerlessness", in Journal of Organizational Change Management refers to the organizational barriers to ethics. "authentic ethical conduct in organizations requires the creation of a 'holding environment'; a space that is safe enough to share negative feelings, contain aggression and fantasies, and allow workers to explore and process errors and problems. Many organizations, however, contain a prosecutory organizational identity that rigidly and narcissistically separates good from bad, thereby promoting blaming, scapegoating, a false sense of security and dimished anxiety.[...]Authentic ethical conduct, the authors conclude, only emerges out of authentic human relationships." This comes from Diamond, M. and Adams, G. (1999). "The psychodynamics of ethical behavior in organizations", American Behavioral Scientist, 43(2), 245-264.

There's definitely something here to contribute to my understanding of plagiarism by students and the approaches that professors take to the issue of student plagiarism.

Hegemony v Authority

2008-12-14T13:09:00.000-08:00

Through a discussion with Hal, I have a better understanding of the distinction I want to make between authority and hegemony. Librarians often teach authority in a hegemonic way, but the new/accelerating degredation of authority actually strengthens hegemony. Authority can oppose hegemony if we can reclaim it from the wisdom of the masses. We lose a powerful force we could marshal for social justice and transformative learning when we eschew authority. Adult education has a position on hegemony that sometimes also gets wound up with authority. If information literacy has a strong position on the uses of authority and can make a positive case for it, we could extend or clarify the definition used by adult educators. More likely, the application of adult education principles to the professional development of librarians would deepen and contextualize our understanding of authority, our role in promoting various views of authority, and our beliefs about the future of authority. It could influence some of our decisions about the uses of new information technologies and change what we recommend when we collaborate with classroom faculty.

Maybe for Adult Education Quarterly or Journal of Tranformative Education.

Look into joining this organization: http://www.aaace.org/mc/page.do

Uncertainty

2008-11-20T11:22:00.000-08:00

John Dewey* says we exalt philosophy, thought, and intellect because they make knowledge seem certain. Practical action on the other hand is inherently attended by uncertainty.

But it's the uncertainty of creating an information problem and then trying to solve it through considered research and weighing opposing views that I want the most for my students. It's what Hal and I talk about all the time. Certainty is the enemy of discovery and growth. I think Dewey and I can at least agree on that.

*in The Quest for Certainty: A Study of the Relation of Knowledge and Action

The oughts

2008-11-18T20:50:00.000-08:00

Today I bought gas for $2.059/gal. It made me feel young again.

Self Education

2008-11-17T12:33:00.000-08:00

In my dream I'm having the typical problem: I have to get somewhere, I can't get there, I don't have what I need, I'm running out of time. The specifics: I'm in an airport trying to fly home. I finally find my gate and I'm relieved that I'm not too late to board. Unfortunately, I don't have my boarding pass or my ticket. Neither do I have a receipt. Briefly it seems that one of the employees will find a way to get me on the flight if I can produce two pieces of identification. I fumble through my wallet to find them but by the time I do, the offer has been revoked. I talk to a manager; she says she can help and then never comes back. I think I can see her at the other end of the office, feverishly searching through files, but she will not acknowledge me. I'm not going to be able to get home.

But for the first time in any of my frantic dreams like this, Hal is with me. At first I'm frustrated with him because he won't be flying with me. It's not clear how he's going to get home, but his only interest at that moment is to help me to figure out what I'm going to do. He's calm and positive. He's in no hurry and so he doesn't leave me during all of the time I struggle to find a way onto the plane. The same type of dream scenario that would normally leave me miserable and sweaty is, instead, merely frustrating. It's even slightly comical in that detached, zen way of looking at life's hassles. Because Hal is with me, it's entirely managable and will inevitably work out just fine.

Even though the dream ended before the transportation issues were resolved, I was left with the feeling that I was safe, essentially content, and able to find a way around the problem. I figured I was probably going to just take Hal's route home.

The millions who have nothing for our pay

2008-11-13T13:07:00.000-08:00

Let America be America Again, Langton Hughes

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15609

Why college isn't enough.

2008-11-13T10:42:00.000-08:00

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90374583&sc=emaf

The Myth of Freedom IV, Awareness

2008-10-20T14:58:00.000-07:00

"Having experienced the precision of mindfulness, we might ask the question of ourselves, 'What should I do with that? What can I do next?' [...] awareness is the willingness not to cling to the discoveries of mindfulness, and mindfulness is just precision; things are what they are [...] We flash on a situation and then diffuse that one-pointedness into awareness.
"So mindfulness and awareness work together to bring acceptance of living situations as they are. We need not regard life as worth boycotting or indulging in." p 50

I'm still trying to use this practice to fix myself. If I merely practice with less drive and more openness, then there won't be so much that I feel compelled to fix. I believe I can find enjoyment in something besides contortions of mind but I tell myself I can't let them go because I enjoy them. I'm keeping myself from awareness by seeking puzzles. I know I'm afraid that awareness will be like having a vegetable mentality. Maybe I can find a new concept of awareness. Or make myself open to attempting awareness to see what it's like for me.

The Myth of Freedom III, Meditation

2008-10-20T14:40:00.001-07:00

"Meditation practice is based on dropping dualistic fixation, dropping the struggle of good against bad." p 44

This would be expanding. To see what there is that is not good or bad would be an opportunity to forgive myself and have more space for other experiences I would like to have.

"Joy here is not pleasurable in the ordinary sense, but it is an ultimate and fundamental sense of freedom, a sense of humor, the ability to see the ironical aspect of the game of the ego, the playing of polarities. If one is able to see ego from an aerial point of view, then one is able to see its humorous quality [...] Rather meditation is a natural process; working on the material of pain and pleasure as the path." p 45

Maybe this is the alternative to denying, killing, or trying to transcend the ego. The third way is the ironical way? The [uneasy(?)] tension of knowing, not hiding, but not following the ego should make space for easiness.

"In the beginning the practice of meditation is just dealing with the basic neurosis of mind, the confused relationship between yourself and projections, your relationship to thoughts. When a person is unable to see the simplicity of the [meditative] technique without any special attitude toward it, then he is able to relate himself with his thought pattern as well [...] a person always finds when he begins to practice meditation that all sorts of problems are brought out. Any hidden aspects of your personality are brought out into the open, for the simple reason that for the first time you are allowing yourself to see your state of mind as it is. For the first time you are not evaluating your thoughts [...] complications become transparent complications rather than solidified ones. So the first step in dealing with ego is to begin with a very simple way of dealing with thoughts [...] Familiar irritations are still there [in awareness practice] of course, but they are simple irritations, transparent irritations [...] One begins to experience a tremendous sense of space because one does not have to watch oneself in such a very heavy-handed way. Rather you are the recipient of the situation." p 46-47

This would feel so good. This would be the way to have a thought without having to embody it. I looked up from reading this and could see Catalina from the train for the first time in all the train trips I've made. When complications are clarified, they become transparent and reveal what they can be used for, which is neither good nor bad. I can think about not wanting to complete a task without having those thoughts make me feel bad or having them lead to my inaction. I can have thoughts of no consequence rather than thoughts that I have to fight against, counteract, or deny.
There aren't any dangerous thoughts. I have the thoughts I have and I do the things I do and they don't have to be aligned before they can be useful to me or released. There are no thoughts I need to get rid of in order to do what I want to do.

The Myth of Freedom II, Hungry Ghost

2008-10-20T14:30:00.000-07:00

"The poverty mentality is traditionally symbolized by the hungry ghost who has a tiny mouth, the size of the eye of a needle, a thin neck and throat, skinny arms and legs and a gigantic belly. His mouth and neck are too small to let enough food pass through them to his immense belly, so he is always hungry. And the struggle to satisfy his hunger is very painful since it is so hard to swallow what he eats." p 36

"Anything that appears in your life you regard as something to consume. If you see a beautiful autumn leaf falling, you regard it as your prey. You take it home or photograph it or paint a picture of it or write in your memoirs how beautiful it was." p 36

"You consume one idea after another, trying to record them, trying to make them solid and real. Whenever you feel hunger, you open your notebook or scrap book or a book of satisfying ideas." p 36

"You try to hold onto your possession, to dwell on it, but after a while you become heavy and dumb, unable to appreciate anything. You wish you could be hungry again so you could fill yourself up again. Whenever you satisfy a desire or suspend yourself in desire and continue to struggle, in either case you are inviting frustration." p 37

My work came out of my experience as a hungry ghost. It was that way in my adolescence and during college. It is that way now when I work towards my professional goals. My pain is hunger and I am also always in fear of the pain of "becoming stuffed, so full that one is insensitive to further stimuli." There's something else I should want besides continuous sensitivity. Something about what I can communicate?

The Myth of Freedom I

2008-10-20T14:17:00.000-07:00

"Emotions are as they are, neither suppressed not indulged but simply acknowledged." p 4

I don't know what this would feel like. Emotions are amplified in my current habit and they feed back. What's the difference between acknowledging and indulging?
Emotions are tied to actions. How can I break that tie but still act? What else motivates action but emotion? How do I get off the bench? Wouldn't I sit staring at the wall?
If there's Id, Ego, and SuperEgo, what else is left to be making the decision to optimize outcomes based on healthy motivations with reasonable expectations? How do I know what to do if I don't treat my emotions as guidelines? And if I do follow them, isn't that giving them the credence that is the core of indulgence?
Am I only supposed to follow the positive emotions? But wouldn't "are as they are" mean that judgement about emotions is misguided?

"to develop transcendental common sense, seeing things as they are, without magnifying what is or dreaming about what we would like to be." p 4-5

"Treading the spiritual path is painful. It is a constant unmasking, peeling off of layer after layer of masks. It involves insult after insult." p 6

What are the insults I'm trying to protect my ego against? Those are the things I should practice letting go or denying to myself.
What if we do not really "want to be expressed" because of the responsibility of vulnerability? I defend myself constantly from having to defend myself. I do this by making sure my communication is always controlled and imperfect.

Ego = the effort to maintain ourselves in relation to something else. p 12

Acknowledging impermanence = the possibility of appreciating life as a creative process. p 13

life line

2008-10-14T16:41:00.000-07:00

My husband came up with the best idea. There's a game show that's been popular for the past several years and he recognized that one of its signature features is actually an information literacy problem that successful players solve well and unsuccessful players tend to flub. I think there's a brief article in that and maybe a lesson plan. I can imagine a way to create a learning game based on the premise.

Track it Down

2008-10-08T12:31:00.001-07:00

This actually looks like it's too focused on technologies to be a good place for our work. (12/14/08)

Track down this journal:

Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society

Because I think it might be a good place for our article on ethos.

After Tenure

2008-10-02T15:32:00.000-07:00

Another idea from my office mate that I don't want to forget:

Next year I'll be tenured and I can risk just saying what I think is right. So I'll come up with a plan about IC in the comp classes and I'll just lay it all out. Assignment consultation and all. Then I won't feel like I'm trying to trick anyone into anything and I'll know if they're interested or not. If I can gather evidence from their casual interactions with me now, I can give them examples of why I think my plan will work that are based on their own experience.

Things I hear from professors about why their assignments don't work

2008-09-30T17:19:00.000-07:00

The first in a series of "the things I hear from professors about why their assignments don't work":

Students are asked to generate ideas for a paper as a group. They don't have good ideas and they immediately go online to look for some. This frustrates the professor.

Students are asked to write a personal narrative. They go online and plagiarize someone else's personal narrative. Wierd, right?

Hands-on

2008-09-30T11:32:00.001-07:00

I don't want to forget this when I'm planning workshops for the fall:

Have some workshops designated as hands-on and participatory. These would be offered later in the semester and would expect students to have a topic selected so that they have something to research. Maybe they'd even have to fill out a research planning sheet before signing up. After a very brief demo, the students would be on the computers. This could be better than having students at varying levels trying to work hands-on from a canned activity. Knowing when the hands-on classes would be, we could have an additional librarian or maybe a student worker available to help with tech problems.

Toulmin

2008-09-26T12:02:00.000-07:00

I want to get the Toulmin Model into my LIB 2 course to have students map out the evidence they'd need to support the inquiry they're proposing for their research bibliographies. I'm tired of just getting general summaries about the sources they select and this could give them something to say. I also want to add the requirement that students delineate and defend their research process as part of the final project. Now the question is how to scaffold that during the course.

What's lost?

2008-09-16T16:27:00.001-07:00

I finally read an article I've been meaning to get around to for months. I'd hoped it would lead me deeper in my interest about the differences between experiencing research as the physical process of moving through a library and the visual process of scanning computer screens and following links. Perhaps the intellectual process is the same whether the research is done physically or visually, but maybe it's not.

This article I read was only about the way that layouts can be broken up in databases and typographical context can be lost. I'm interested, instead, in research about other information tasks that were physical and are now visual, like medical record keeping, and what might be lost after the transition. There are cues inherent in the physical embodiment of information that have not been made part of its visual representation in electronic formats. Is it harder, as I believe it is, to learn a research process that requires searchers to be aware of the types of sources they're using now that everything's flattened? How do we teach students that there are limits to the information they'll get from the websites they're most likely to find when we can only point to an electronic article or book that looks exactly the same and that they won't be able to distinguish until they actually read it? And when they read it (the article or the book) it's so much harder to process and understand than their usual websites that they give up and don't have a framework to understand what they've missed the way a framework gave context and cues to students in the past when books were separated from journals were separated from pamphlets were separated from magazines were separated from newspapers.

When you had to walk to your next source and hold it in your hands, it was hard to ignore the differences and, perhaps, easier to internalize a hierarchy of information that would make it easier to make decisions about where to go at each stage in the research process. And also how to find our way out of a maze of information if we kept chasing citations. Links from links may mimic the way our minds work but they don't do anything to help us get our thoughts more organized and our natural inclinations in check so that our reasoning on a subject can develop deliberately. The artificial distinctions were a ladder into and out of a subject so that we didn't have to find all of our own toe holds. Can we build something back in to give this guidance? Or, and this seems more likely, has this element of college research faded for good? If it's faded, what do students need from us now?

Here's an article I might track down:

"Full-Text Database Dependency: An Emerging Trend Among Undergraduate Library Users?" by McDonald and Dunkelberger in Research Strategies 16.4 (1998): 301-307.

The Self Authoring Mind Doesn't Feel Good, So What Good is It?

2008-09-06T15:24:00.000-07:00

There's been a lot of talk about this being the stupidest generation. I think it's true that the difference between this generation of young people and previous generations may be over stated. My concern is that the true difference will be manifest when the current population of young people reach adult hood but a smaller proportion of the population than ever before makes the transition from the Socialized Mind to the Self Authoring Mind, a stage in transformative learning that turns people from adolescents to adults.

I believe that the information technologies that promote the view that all information is only as important as the network/hive-mind deems have made it harder than ever to learn how to have an articulated world view as an individual, not beholden to past traditions or always appealing to authority in perpetual, unreflective reaffirmation of social norms. Texting, social networking, user ranking, and the general ease of selectively consuming only the information that supports one's existing prejudices may be retarding the transformation of plugged-in youth from their hyper-socialization to critical mindedness. Already there are few popular examples of adults who think like adults on which these youths can model their development and self assess their progress.

A lot of thoughtlessness may be in store for those of us who have to live in the world that these youths are building to accomodate the preferences they've developed in their extended adolescence.

Ph.D.?

2008-09-06T15:01:00.000-07:00

Could I become a PhD student?

Here are some programs I'm interested in:

UCLA PhD in Higher Ed & Org Change
http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/~heoc/

UCLA PhD in Soc Sci & Comp Ed
http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/~ssce/

UCI PhD in Language, Literacy, and Technology
http://www.gse.uci.edu/phd_faculty_llt.php

My Friend's Library Instruction Blog

2008-08-31T14:16:00.000-07:00

http://lig-er.blogspot.com/

Research Paper Alternatives

2008-08-26T08:21:00.000-07:00

Stickland, James. (2004) Just the FAQs. English Journal, 94(1). 23-28.

Bennington, Adam. (2008) Dissecting the Web through Wikipedia. American Libraries, 39(7). 46-48.

Wordle

2008-08-19T10:04:00.000-07:00

Good advice

2008-08-11T18:02:00.000-07:00

To have a happy life, the best is don't have many babies.

From Elyse Sewell's Live Journal.

My First EBook

2008-07-22T16:28:00.000-07:00

This is the first time that a book I want to read has been more easily available to me through Project Gutenberg than through my usual library channels:

The Civilization of Illiteracy
by Mihai Nadin
c 1997

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext01/cvilt10.txt

From the message to Project Gutenberg readers:

The book's cover succinctly depicts the subject. To see the book cover, and to read more details about the book (reviews, opinions, forum, etc.) Go to the site at: www.code.uni-wuppertal.de. The author, who made this book available to you as a copyrighted Gutenberg Project Etext, would like readers to let him know at nadin@acm.org that they read the book or parts of it.

Progressive

2008-07-15T16:01:00.000-07:00

http://libr.org/plg/index.php

I need to give it a few more chances, but I feel like I get a chilly reception for some of my more critical approaches to IL instruction and maybe they'd be better received by progressive librarians. It'd be sad to go a little bit underground with my stuff, already, though. There has to be a place for it in the IL instruction literature. Right?

DIY Notes

2008-07-08T15:17:00.001-07:00

This is what I want to discuss with students in the DIY workshop:

Theft v Fraud

Code of Conduct

Why do some students plagiarize in some classes but not in others?

How much does it have to do with the professor?

Should professors take it personally when their students plagiarize?

If students are plagiarizing because they’re working too much, is that okay?

What does it mean when professors don’t want you to cite wikipedia in your paper? Does that mean it doesn’t need to be cited?

Examples of approaches

What do students want teachers to know about plagiarism?

Immersion Cohort

2008-07-08T11:17:00.000-07:00

This is Sarah Cohen's blog. She's one of the librarians in my Cohort for Immersion.
http://thesheckspot.blogspot.com/

I liked this idea that I found there, share this page with students about the research process:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Researching_with_Wikipedia

DIY Examples

2008-07-02T11:36:00.000-07:00

Indicate whether the following approaches to research are likely to lead to plagiarism, are general academic dishonesty, are neutral or are likely to lead to original work.

1. Turning in a paper you wrote for another class

2. Turning in your friend’s paper from last year

3. Buying a paper that was written by someone else

4. Writing the whole paper based on one or two sources but including more sources in the bibliography (i.e., citing sources you did not use in the paper or even consult)

5. Approaching research with a goal of finding the right answer

6. Assuming someone else has already answered the question you’re researching

7. Using long quotes that you don’t relate back to your topic, just to fill up space and meet the page minimum

8. Ignoring sources that disagree with your point of view

9. Only reading enough sources to meet the minimum number of sources for your paper

10. Reading your sources and writing your paper at the same time

11. Printing out online sources and highlighting them as you read

12. Taking notes while you read that you can refer to when you’re ready to write

13. Copying text from an online source and pasting it into your paper, then changing the words that the author used

14. Reading a source and then putting the information into your paper by changing it into your own words without citing it

15. Using the same evidence or reasoning that your source used without citing it

16. Researching and writing your paper in one or two days when you were given two or more weeks to work on it

17. Using quotes from sources without analyzing them to show how they relate to your thesis

18. Thinking about your paper even when you’re not physically working on it

19. Using only one kind of source in your paper (i.e., only websites or only magazine articles, etc.)

20. Using sources that you know may not be very good quality just because they agree with our point of view or they are easier to find

21. Doing your research in a wide range of sources (e.g., books and websites and magazine articles and journal articles, etc.)

22. Continuing your research until you find something interesting that you really want to write about

Ethos and Eval

2008-07-02T10:18:00.000-07:00

Based on the work that I've done with my husband about teaching ethos as a central component of evaluating information and combining that with what I've recently been reading about transformative learning and what I saw Jeff Liles do at ALA, I've started thinking about how to restructure my Evaluating Sources workshop. I want to open it with a discussion of how students should evaluate me as a source when they come into the workshop. Questions like: what is this workshop for, what am I trying to get you to do, what's my motivation for that, what methods do you think I used to create this workshop and what audience is this really for? And then questions about how thinking about these elements influences what they think they'll get from the workshop, how they interpret the information I'm giving them, what they'll do based on that information.

I'm sure that they come in with assumptions. This would also be where I start to tell them about my assumptions and goals, but it would be through discussion rather than just my introduction to the class.

IL instruction and critical literacy

2008-07-02T10:15:00.000-07:00

It's an idea that really inspires me at a time when I'm feeling somewhat jaded as a librarian, so I've definitely been wanting to pursue it. I'm reading an anthology of transformative learning essays right now called Learning as Transformation by Mezirow, et al. and it's really renewing my interest in the possibilities for the teaching I do. I'm going to check out the book by Joan Wink and return to Freire as well. I've been seeing Karen Kitchener come up often in what I've been reading, so I'm going to get my hands on Developing Reflective Judgment.

I think that there's potential in IL instruction for inciting students to think more about what truth and authority are. But there's a lot of fear in the profession that students can't be trusted with that kind of knowledge. Or that it won't do them any good for the type of work they're being asked to produce in their classes. There's a sense that they have to learn what we mean by authority and credibility first before we reveal that it's so much more complicated than that. But I'm starting to lose interest in my own teaching when I reinforce a good/bad approach to information.

Goals and Assumptions

2008-06-30T14:41:00.000-07:00

I saw Jeff Liles talk recently and was struck by the way he started his session. Instead of an agenda or outcomes or objectives, he started with his goals and his assumptions. From reading Learning as Transformation recently I'm really into the need to identify assumptions and warrants with students so that they can start making decisions about whether or not they want to continue living as though those things were true. Being more explicit about assumptions is my first step but I hadn't considered how to let that shape my workshop structure (instead of merely workshop content) until I saw what Jeff did. So now I want to start my workshops with goals and assumptions and open it for discussion briefly if any students disagree with my assumptions so we can negotiate. And possibly setting norms like Toni Davies did for her session on kaizen. This feels more comfortable and organic to my thinking than describing an agenda or objectives at the beginning of class. And I know I need to do a better job of framing what will be coming for students, but I haven't wanted to do any of the things I'd ever seen done before. Now I have a model and I feel really excited about it.

DIY Goals

consider that plagiarism can happen accidentally, but doing original work cannot and therefore requires planning
evaluate various approaches to research papers and their value for avoiding plagiarism
become aware of their own views on plagiarism and their roles as student scholars
get an introduction to the idea that knowledge is contingent

DIY Assumptions

students who choose to plagiarize will not be dissuaded by this workshop, because plagiarizing is easier than doing the work
students who hold the belief that there is one right answer to the questions they're researching are more likely to plagiarize
students who don't feel comfortable reading are more likely to plagiarize and so students who are concerned about plagiaizing should seek support from their teachers and tutors when they're having trouble understanding their readings
students who plagiarize give low priority to learning and are more worried about getting the credit

RSR Goals

discover the structure of the research process
consider some of the decisions they make during the research process and the consequences of those decisions
start making connections between the type of information needed and the source to seek

RSR Assumptions

students understand writing as a process, but experience research as chaotic and random
understanding that research is a process, students can more easily assess their progress and adjust their approach if they are falling short
seeing a connection between the type of information needed and the source most likely to contain it will make students better online searchers as well as better researchers and will save them time
professors don't talk about research as a process in their classrooms

FB Goals

recognize the kind of information available in the catalog
face their prior knowledge about the organization of the library
become aware of eBooks
sign up for eBook accounts
hear about what books are good for

FB Assumptions

students don't like using books for research
students don't realize we have eBooks
students think this workshop is a waste of time

FA Goals

know about the databases
understand how they're different from google
have basic search syntax
know how to access from off campus

FA Assumptions

students are more comfortable searching google than the databases
students can find some kinds of information more easily by using the databases rather than google
students won't really know whether or not they know how to use the databases until they're actually searching them

Attribution

2008-06-30T12:38:00.000-07:00

The photo is by queenodesign of the following work: James Harold Jennings (1930-1999) Pinnacle, North Carolina Rock Girls Gives the Devil Hell Painting, on wood (oil or water-based) Size:24" x 18"
This photo is in the creative commons.

I am a rock girl.

It's time to start thinking like an adult

2008-06-30T11:17:00.001-07:00

I'm frustrated that my students don't want to engage themselves enough so that they actually cause themselves to change. But I realized that I'm scared to learn enough to make my teaching change and to become fully engaged. So I'm trying to hold myself to account. I'm trying to start thinking like an adult. I'm bored with my assumptions and the assumptions of my profession. I want to record this growth and my reflections so that I don't keep figuring out the same thing over and over again and thinking it's new each time. I want to start really building on what I'm learning. So here it goes...

btw. This photo is by queenodesign, part of the creative commons.