YouTube and Turkeys

It's that time of year, when people start talking turkey. Well, some of us do anyway, especially when our minds turn to food. So, I'm talking with a friend about plans for Thanksgiving dinners past, present, and future (it was almost lunch time, and we were hungry!), and she tells me that turkeys are actually very stupid birds.

"They are so stupid," she says, "that they stand out in the rain with their heads up and almost drown!"

"Heh," sez I. "I wonder what would happen if you crossed a turkey with its head up in the rain with an ostrich with its head in the sand."

Her reply? "A really cool YouTube video!"

Day Last at the 2008 Georgia Conference on Information Literacy

The day began with a keynote address by Dr. Carol Simpson of the School of Library and Information Sciences at the University of North Texas. In her address, entitled "Can You? Should You," sponsored in part by Linworth Publishing, she discussed the "current fair use climate and the raging battle between those who think educators should force educational fair use to the wall, and their oppornents who advocate a more conservative approach." While she didn't present anything new for those of us who have been following IP issues (albeit, in my case anyway, marginally), nonetheless much of the information she presented was new to many in her audience. Her presentation was clear and well put together, using humor in the right places and in the right proportions. I especially like her use of the David Pogue video on RIAA at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xF7cHmyEJ-c.

I also attended Panel 35, beginning with "Just Google It: Bringing Students' Information Literacy to the Composition Classroom" by Susanna Coleman. I thought she had a very interesting spin, using text messaging skills to help students figure out keywords for Google and/or library database searches (so long as the students learn to spell the words out instead of "txt-ing" them!). She also showed a comparison of Google Advanced Search screen with an Ebsco database search screen, arguing that we can help students learn to navigate the admittedly complex world of scholarly databases by helping them see how it is similar to what they already know. Unfortunately, of course, in my experience few students use the advanced search feature in Google….

Thomas Ferstle next presented "Information Literacy the WIKI Way," in which he likened WIKIs to participatory, democratic (and fun?) forums, arguing that such forums enhance students' writing to each other and therefore tends to be "better" than students writing just for the teacher.

The panel ended with "Blogging, Information Literacy, and the College Classroom" by Catherine Ramsdell. She discussed how blogs have gone from early beginnings (c. 2000?) to mainstream in 2008. Students are excited about writing, she says, especially when they get comments from real readers.

Wow, there's SOOOOO much more I could have said about the great presentations and the wonderful people at this conference. But then, people might think I'm a bit biased since I'm one of the conference's organizers….

Ah, well, maybe those people will just have to come and see for themselves!

Georgia Conference on Information Literacy

Savannah, GA, September 25-26, 2009

Or, as they say in this neck of the woods,

"Y'all come!"

More Good Stuff from the 2008 Georgia Conference on Information Literacy

Panel 19

Lars Soderlund's presentation, Access and Competition: Profile of a Digital Information Literacy Business" was particularly interesting, I thought. Not only was his content interesting – an "information literacy contest," actually a business that learns from its contestants how people learn information literacy skills—but his presentation took the shape of an audio file. Why do I think playing an audio file to a live audience at a conference interesting? Well, maybe because there was a live person (Lars) sitting at the front table while it played so that, when it was done, he could answer questions. Ah, technology. How will "conferences" look in 10 years? Or will they all be virtual?

Amy England presented "Confessions of a Neo-Luddite, or How Changes in Access Have Changed my Attitudes toward Technology," which I thought was a definite turn-around from Lars' presentation. Only it wasn't really anti-technology, of course. Amy's discussion of access, however, was an appropriate foil. That is, access, she argued, is still not a "given." As a result, she continued, there is increased reluctance to use any but the most basic IT. The investment necessary to use IT is not just in dollars, as she so rightly pointed out, but in time and frustration as well. Is it worth it? (Well, to me, of course it is, though I have to admit that, given the frustrations of workload and time, sometimes I find myself backing off from learning things I'd like to learn or, even worse, "playing" with things I'd like to play with in the classroom.)

Workshop 3

I decided to attend Judi Repman's workshop on "Using Web 2.0 Tools to Teach Information Literacy in the School Library Media Center." What a good decision! I'm so proud of myself! There was standing room only for this well done workshop.

Judy was joined by two of her students, Lucy Bush and Diane Griffin, who discussed their use of Web 2.0 tools. Diane talked about creating a classroom resource WIKI page which students can add to throughout the semester (including a dictionary or glossary of key terms, a study guide, and many more valuable resources). Lucy talked about the use of Google Pages for a Virtual School Library.

Voice threads, twitter, microblogging, lions and tigers and google, oh my! So much to learn. So much to play with. Exhilarating! Exhausting! My department chair happened to be sitting next to me during this workshop, and I watched her furiously making notes. Maybe some of the barriers that Amy England talked about in her presentation (Panel 19, above) can actually be breached someday. J

Panel 26

I rounded out the day by attending "iPods, Inquiry and Information Literacy: Developing a Program for USC Upstate's First-year Students," presented by Louise Ericson, Brenda Davenport, and Andrew Kearns. They promised to address the important question of "What would a comprehensive information literacy program for first-year students look like?"

They had been introducing students to the library and its services with a tiered approach not unfamiliar to most of us:

1. library orientation
2. "You be the expert" - annotated bibliography assignment
3. Career exploration worksheet

Then, they said, they had an "Aha!" moment (I wish I could have one of those!). They re-created their library tour as a podcast, following ACRL standards as the basis for instruction. Their handouts for the presentation are available on the conference CD (visit the Georgia Conference on Information Literacy Web site at http://ceps.georgiasouthern.edu/conted/infolit.html for more information).

They also incorporated a cell phone search and ACRL information literacy standards identified by students. I'm really not doing this presentation justice, of course. I have seen other libraries attempt to move their orientation and information sessions into podcast-land (visit iTunesU and I'm sure you can find some examples), but most of them are not interactive (yet). At any rate, visit their Web site at http://www.uscupstate.edu/library/ and you can find more information about their project.

Stay tuned for tomorrow!!

2008 Georgia Conference on Information Literacy

Another conference has come and gone. The 2008 Georgia Conference on Information Literacy took place October 3-4, 2008, at the Coastal Georgia Center in Savannah. The weather couldn't have been more perfect, Oktoberfest celebrations were in full swing on River Street, and yet the conference sessions were packed, a testament to the high quality and timeliness of this year's presentations!

I wish I could have attended all of the sessions, but, of course, I'm one person and could only manage to be in one place at a time. Once again, I took some VERY rough notes, which I'll post here, but I hope if anyone has notes about the sessions I missed (or can add to what I've got here) they'll post them somewhere for us all to see. Luckily, too, a CD that collects some of the PowerPoint presentations in advance of the conference each year is also available. Visit the Conference Web site at http://ceps.georgiasouthern.edu/conted/infolit.html for more information (and to see the CFP for the 2009 Conference!).

So, here goes:

Panel 10

"Information Electracy: Developing a Category System for the Image" presented by Sean Morey, University of Florida. Morey presented alternatives to Aristotelian logic in an imagic age à la Greg Ulmer (whence the term "electracy," a term I distinctly dislike, by the way, even though, like many people in the field, I hold nothing but high regard for Ulmer and the important work he's done in the area). I thought it was really appropriate that Morey's presentation was actually a movie—yes, he sat there in person while we watched the movie (hmmm, wonder if I can get a copy of it? It was a really GOOD movie/presentation). Of course, he didn't address the intellectual property issues that might be involved in his use of several movie clips (real movies) included in his movie/presentation, so, hmmm, maybe I better not ask…. Ya never know!

Ionut Emil Iacob (Georgia Southern University) and Kevin Kiernan (University of Kentucky) then presented "IBX: Image Based XML for Digital Projects in the Humanities," which is a project they are working on that uses image-based XML (IBX), an image-based tagging system, to create a searchable database of images/artifacts (exigesis?). You can see more about this project at http://www.eppt.org. I hope we will be able to get them back next year to see how the project develops!

Marcia Ribble from the University of Cincinnati completed the session with her presentation of "Teaching Media Literacy: How Can It Fit into Teaching Composition?" Students, she says, are not just purveyors, but also creators, of images. The textbook for her class, Media Literacy by James Potter, approaches the topic from the standpoint of production. Historically, our field has looked at the reception of text rather than at its creation. Her class approaches production from the vantage of media (including text, of course, but also images and other media). [Our field has, of course, historically analyzed text (and images)—and taught our students to analyze literary artifacts—even while we have purported to teach production. That is, we teach our students to write, yes, but often what we are really teaching them isn't to write at all, but to analyze works of literature (in writing). Now we see a distinct shift in our field, as we teach students to analyze texts, images, and other media that they find in such spaces as FaceBook or MySpace instead of "great works." ]

 

Panel 12

"When Does Information Become Proprietary? The Link between Quotation and Attribution" presented by Carol Simspon, University of Texas, was a great way to round out the first morning of the conference. She presented some tried and true suggestions for helping students to avoid plagiarism. With her background in law, I found her written information for students particularly helpful since she was careful to define her terms and be explicit—very useful! I was a bit thrown off, however, when she said students might sometimes be guilty of unintentional plagiarism because they don't know how to make good "note cards." Do people REALLY still teach note cards?? Can you say "20^th century!!"? I would also argue with her about the ethics and/or usefulness of using a plagiarism detection service, such as TurnItIn.com, but her presentation did make great use of examples and audience involvement in looking at some of the problems that these types of services may raise in even identifying plagiarized passages to begin with. All in all, a very good session.

 

More good stuff to follow. Watch this blog!

 

MLA Rant

Okay, so just when word processors finally made the process of footnoting and endnoting easier, MLA decided that was not the way we should cite sources. Instead, we should use parenthetic notes and the list of Works Cited.

Okay, so we did.

Now, Word includes an automatic bibliography generator (I know, I know—it kinda sucks; all the bib generators kinda suck and they are all GIGO—Garbage in, Garbage out—but anyway, it’s there). So what does MLA do in response? They change all their formats.

Now instead of underlining, they’ve finally read their own book and they are using italics. And now—sheesh, are you ready—we have entered bizarro world.

Now we have to include the medium of publication (like APA, only worse)—even for BOOKS and journal articles (the medium for these, by the way is “print”). For journal articles accessed through library databases, we no longer need include the library information (which was silly anyway)—but now the medium is designated as “Web” (even though, technically, the library databases aren’t on the Web, but accessed through a portal FROM the Web (usually—anyway, go figure).

There’s even more silliness. You GOTTA be sitting down.

Once again, MLA has decreed we don’t need to include the URL for Web sources. MLA has decided that, heck, you can use a search engine. So just providing the medium (Web) works.

So, if the file happens to be in some format other than html or print, the medium gets, well, complicated (according to MLA anyway), so you have to designate Microsoft Word document, jpeg, television, radio, DVD, CD, LP (do you believe it!?), .PDF, etc. In other words, you have to know a lot of things that most of our students (and many of the rest of us) don’t know about a given source—and often don’t need to know.

Oh, yeah, and make sure you only include ONE space after a period (not two).

The 3rd edition of the (infamous) MLA Style Manual includes all of these changes and more.

Yet another reason to ignore MLA and adopt the 2nd edition of The Columbia Guide to Online Style instead! http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-13210-7/the-columbia-guide-to-online-style .

Oh, yeah, but in case you were wondering: in the few instances where MLA does include a URL in their citation format, they still advise us to turn off hyperlinking so we can designate text that should be hyperlinked with (Gasp!) those silly angle brackets….

Are we having fun yet?

Using Word 2007 to Post Blogs

Well, this isn't exactly earth-shatteringly new (I used to be able to write and publish blogs with Word 97-2003), but it's much easier now in Word 2007.

Simply click the menu button in the top, left-hand corner of Word, select "New" and then "blog post." You'll have to register your blog, of course, in order to publish it—and the picture publishing stuff seems to me to be a bit clunky and unclear (why isn't Flickr an option??), but other than that, it's pretty easy.

For more information and help should you need it, visit "Help with Blogging in Word" at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HA101640211033.aspx.

I've got a new blog!

Yeah, okay, so the last thing I need is another blog NOT to keep up-to-date. But somehow, having three blogs now makes me want to actually do more.

So I wanted to check out WordPress and, quite frankly, I'm impressed with it. Of course, my "Squirrel Splat" post is still here in this blog, so I'm keeping this one, too!

Anyway, if you're at all interested (then you are probably insane), but check it out: http://janicewalker.wordpress.com/