A positive spin on copyright

So yesterday I had to go have an MRI and injection into my hip, which is pretty much my nightmare because I HATE needles and confined spaces. However, it turned out to be not nearly as bad as I expected, mostly because the doctors were nice to me. They treated me like an intelligent human being and explained what was going on (and we even chatted a bit about the NYT article about hip librarians). And so that made it much easier for me to be cooperative and nice toward them (yes, I recognize this makes me about 5 years old, and I’ve accepted that).

This is also how I feel about Creative Commons licenses. If you’re polite and give me clear guidelines, it’s easy for me to be polite back and respect your work. As Erin said, I like that CC focuses on the positive aspects of what you can do with a work. I think that if it’s explained that way, students might be more willing to give it a try. And this carries over into instruction as well… I think that students should definitely use a CC license for some of their work. That would really bring the point home. I think the guidelines should be posted and clearly explained, maybe at the beginning of each school year (you can’t expect someone to follow guidelines if that person doesn’t know what they are!). And the expectation should be clear: Here are the guidelines. Follow them and respect the work of other people, and respect that you are smart enough to do your own work. I think the quickest way to lose kids (and teachers) with copyright issues is to focus on the don’ts. Give them positive alternatives and be clear about what they CAN do. There’s too much negativity about the topic– it’s already overwhelming, and people will just give up if you don’t show them what they SHOULD do instead. We need some positive energy so people will want to do the right thing. Too much stick and not enough carrot.

And this feeds into what I don’t really like about Turnitin. Anyway you look at it, it’s negative. It’s an “I’m checking up on you because I don’t trust you” service when students have to submit their papers there, and it’s a “you probably did something wrong so fix it before you get caught” service when students run their papers through before turning them in. Don’t assume they’re going to cheat… but don’t wait until there’s a problem to correct it, either. I think we need more focus on positive expectations. I recognize that I’m an optimist, but, well, I prefer it to the doom and gloom.

Thoughts on texting

I must say that I didn’t start this class as a fan of text messaging or Twitter (which I recognize is also a form of text messaging). However, this Google text messaging option may just have changed my life. Seriously. I finally understand why people like texting. It was so easy and convenient to get information I needed, and I didn’t have to be at my computer. I am so going to text message Google when I’m traveling. I wish I had known about it when I went to CA at the beginning of the summer–would have been much easier to check on my flights that way, instead of trying to find a computer!

Twitter has also grown on me. Part of it is that I like seeing what other people are posting–it’s a little window into someone’s day, which is nice in the online world. I also like the challenge of fitting an important message into 140 characters.

Moving on to other, less-selfish thoughts… I’m a little torn about if/how to use texting in a school or library setting. I don’t know how much back end work it takes to get a text/SMS system like the one Google has up and running. I’d be curious to know, though–and also to know how much people use it. Mostly my thought is that if we can keep in touch with users and make them see the library as a valuable resource, that’s a good thing.

I worry a little bit about the lack of decent grammar and writing skills that people have nowadays. Not just students, either– as an editor, I have read many many really bad documents from very senior people who should know better. Give them a forum where it’s encouraged to use abbreviations and slang and improper grammar, and how is that helpful? There’s a lot of writing that goes on in the real world. Being able to communicate clearly is one of the most important skills you can develop.

However, I like the idea of getting to the essence of the message. I think that’s a goal that goes along with clear writing. I liked the “Messaging Shakespeare” article– what a creative way to get people to understand and summarize complex ideas. I think it would be really interesting to use text messaging in a poetry curriculum. Many students don’t like poetry, but I wonder what they would think about comparing it to text messaging? In a limited amount of space, every word counts. I wonder if we could breathe some new life into poetry by having students create text message haikus… an interesting thought. I can also see using it in an English or religion class, especially in college. I had a religion professor who used to make us write a one-page paper about the reading for every class meeting. I wonder what would happen if you asked students to text you the main point, or something they learned from the reading, or a discussion point? It would have to be something that they could answer in few characters, so the questions would have to be pretty controlled… but it would be an interesting experiment.

A visual learner who can’t visualize

I consider myself a very visual learner. If I look at printed information, I remember it much better than if I hear it. Often I can even picture how it looked on the page. I have to take notes and make outlines and lists to stay organized (even to remember the three things I need at the store). I have to listen to the podcasts at least twice to get useful information out of them, and I only like listening to books on CD after I’ve already read them (otherwise I get lost). 

Yet this whole visual learning/Inspiration/Kidspiration thing I don’t get. I can’t visualize a useful concept map. I think that’s a little weird considering how much I like to have things visually in front of me. But I like outlines and hierarchies, not free-form items (unless I’m brainstorming). I’ve had trouble following all the examples so far except for the Venn diagram of birds that swim vs. birds that fly.

One problem is that I don’t like clip art and I like things to be parallel (too many years of editing). I don’t like things like the concept of a wave map (example of a concept map on the Inspiration site) where the levels do not denote hierarchy and the text is broken up into chunks. I don’t understand how writing things in bubbles is different than writing things in a list except that it’s not organized logically (I recognize that this is a personal preference and that my struggle with this is probably other people’s struggle with outlines… but I still don’t get it). I am having trouble visualizing things that aren’t visual. The concept of a wave is not visual, and I am having trouble creating a visual to fit onto a piece of paper. People seriously prefer these things? They don’t get lost and overwhelmed by looking at the examples? I certainly do.  

Off to coach and ask my co-coach (a third-grade teacher) if she uses Kidspiration or concept maps. I know she did a unit on rocks and minerals and they made toothpaste. I should be able to get an interesting map out of that… if I can figure out how to represent it visually!

I’m a jelly girl

In general, I think wikis are awesome.  I like the collaborative aspect and I can see so many uses for them in schools and school libraries. I also like Richardson’s book– he gives clear explanations and many ideas for using the technology in school settings.  In addition to the examples he gives (I’m looking at p.70), I could see using a wiki as an easily-updatable library web page (not terribly collaborative, but easy), as a teacher resource (maybe for things like staff meeting notes and school-wide documents), possibly for individual projects (when collaborating with a classroom teacher) and maybe for school-wide collaboration too (for example, a ”One Book, One School” projects–every class or every grade level could create a page).

But for all the hype from Richardson and the SLJ article, I’m not a fan of PBwiki. I helped create a PB wiki today for LIS483, and my teammates and I were underwhelmed. I expected more. I don’t like the design (the sidebar is weird and the text is badly aligned on the page). I don’t like sharing a password (which partially defeats the point of collaborating to create a history if you can’t see who changed what). I don’t like the big PBwiki information at the bottom. I miss the ease of the MediaWiki interface for creating new pages with brackets, and I miss the table of contents that MediaWiki creates for you. However, I will admit that I really like the MediaWiki software and I’m used to that, which could be part of why I wasn’t entranced with PBwiki. 

 I just tried JotSpot (www.jot.com) and it turns out that Google has taken over it! Seriously, is Google trying to rule the world? They just bought GrandCentral too. Yikes.

Oooh paydirt! It looks like Wikia is free MediaWiki software. That would be my ideal! However, it says that wikis must have a large potential audience and individual schools aren’t encouraged. Humph.  (Also interesting to note: Wikia used to be WikiCities. Will Richardson’s book is copyright 2006 and it’s already behind!)

Seedwiki.com looks more promising– it has better design and looks easy to set up.  It also has editing codes and instructions right on the homepage– much more straightforward than others I’ve seen. I’d try that one first if I had to create another one. Enough for the moment– on to finding the link for my podcast.

Preserving the five-paragraph essay

This started as a comment in reply to Linda’s comment on my post, but it got so long I made it  into its own entry.

Linda remarked that technology supports research but it doesn’t mean that students no longer need the process. This resonated with me because I had already been thinking about it in terms of writing. I’m hoping that teachers won’t think that blogging replaces the good old five-paragraph essay. I know I’m biased because I’ve spent nine years as an editor. I’ve seen a lot of bad writing. And one of my concerns about blogging is that it’s SO easy that people will do it without planing it or understanding its structure. Just because you can post something quickly and efficiently doesn’t mean it’s good. Often, if you just sit down and pound something out without a lot of planning, it’s really bad! Students still need to understand the structure of formal writing because a lot of the rules (topic sentences, theses, logical flow, etc.) still apply to blogging.

This is also to what I was referring when I pulled the quote from the Librarian in Black’s blog for the Jott entry in the tech encyclopedia. Sometimes just because technology makes things EASIER doesn’t mean it makes them BETTER. The Librarian in Black said that when she used Jott (a voice transcription software), the “content is a lot more superficial, a lot less coherent, less formal, and a lot less structured… so it ends up being a little bit rambley and miscellaneous (kind of like this post, which was written with Jott).” (Librarian in Black blog, http://librarianinblack.typepad.com/, 6/18/07). The technology made it easy for her to write, but it was less analytical, less structured, and less profound… which to me is a warning.

I think that encouraging kids to write blog entries could be very powerful. Blogs are easy. They’re fun. They look professional with minimal effort, and they look official because everyone can see them. Yay for easy distribution and a sense of accomplishment and teamwork for the kids (important developmental assets!). However, students have to learn (and teachers have to understand) that there is still behind-the-scenes work to be done in planning them out so they are effective.

Will Richardson speaks to this idea a little bit. He noted that posting is not the same as blogging. You can write about what you had for lunch, but it isn’t blogging unless it’s analytical and ideally includes different links (p.32 in Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms). I appreciated that he recognized the behind-the-scenes effort that goes into making the technology work.

Do librarians have more than 24 hours in their days?

I’m reading ahead for next week (because I have to go to a wedding in CA). This is my response to Karen Oberstein’s article “Invisible Access: Innovative School Library Programs in a Wireless World” (Knowledge Quest 34 no3 12-13 Ja/F 2006).

I think that Karen must have more than 24 hours in her day. Really. With all the teacher support she was doing, her daily Website emails, and the training sessions she designed, she must have put in a ton of hours. Finding good information is time-consuming! Designing good training is time-consuming! And she manage this in her first year?? Wow. I’m impressed with the way she really worked to connect students and teachers and make the library a central learning space. But, since I already mentioned that I was a “how-does-this-work” type person, I’m wondering: How do you balance the technology needs and high-level curriculum support with the daily grind of checking in books? Maybe this is where RFID comes in handy? Or, more realistically, parent and student volunteers? How much money did she have to make this work? She had access to several databases and the whole school was wired, so there must have been a decent amount of money.

Another article documenting some of Karen Oberstein’s other projects and her work at another Florida school–it also has some interesting ideas. I especially liked how she got the student volunteers involved:

http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showstory.cfm?ArticleID=391

Lessons about technology

I tend to be a “how-will-this-work-let’s-make-a-plan” type of person. So as I was doing this week’s reading, I was struck by the discussions of how even highly media-literate students probably won’t know how to use all these technologies effectively. The SLMS will have to do training. And not only for the students– most likely for the teachers, the students, and possibly the parents. It’s not just getting the technology into the school– it’s getting people excited and knowledgeable about using it.

When I was searching for podcasts, I came across one on NPR about using laptops instead of textbooks at a high school: http://tinyurl.com/yr6fxh. NPR reported that there was no significant difference in test scores between the school that used laptops and other schools that used traditional textbooks. One explanation is that students might not know how to use the technology even if you provide it. As the Educause article says, “Even such digitally fluent students need to learn to manipulate their multimedia languages well with conceptual and critical acumen” (p.5). Even though students are familiar with the Web and various technologies, they have to learn to use them appropriately. They still need to develop analytical and critical thinking skills in this new context.

So the questions I was thinking about were, how much training do students need? What’s the best way to train them? How much can you assume that they know? The Richardson book reminded me that a good strategy is probably to start small. Get people using the new technology– introduce it slowly. Then, once they’ve gotten used to it and are intrigued by it, teach them how to use it. The Technosavvy blog provides an interesting perspective in the entry, “Tricking administrators into using technology” (blog post 5/5/07, http://tinyurl.com/ywnsx8). The author, the Director of Technology for the school district, helped administrators use podcasts to pool applicant interviews. This was something they really wanted to do. Once they were familiar with the technology, he told them how easily they could make podcasts using the same technology and encouraged them to blog and create podcasts for the next school year.

So really I think it’s more than training… Introducing people to new technology is also about selling it to them. I had originally planned on taking Storytelling as my elective, but now I’m wondering if I should take Marketing the Library!

A lamer Saturday night than mine

I’ve just been reminded of what scares me about the Internet. Yesterday I did all the podcasting homework, and then I had a non-homework thought: we’ve been recording the coxswains on my crew during races and making CD’s so we can share ideas and feedback. What if we turned those files into podcasts and posted them? No more need to make CDs, and we could tag them and sort them and make an archive and we could all have access.  Great! So I posted a test podcast of myself calling a seatracing piece at practice. It doesn’t sound like anything unless you know what it is. The name of the site is  our running joke and the podcast starts out with me calling the start of a race (“three-quarters, half, three-quarters, lengthen, full, ten high”). Does anyone really know or care what that means, unless you’re a rower? Yet this morning when I checked my email, I had a message saying that Danger Zone wanted to be my friend. Why? Why did he subscribe to my podcast? Why did he invite me to be his friend too? Why did he do this between 10pm Saturday and 9am Sunday –within 11 hours of my posting the show? His Saturday night was even lamer than mine! And I must say that it’s a little scary to me. You just never know who’s out there or what they’re doing with the information you post. I’m sure it’s fine and he probably just wants to get more people to listen to his podcast, and there was nothing personal in mine… It’s just not exactly comforting to know that in order to use the helpful benefits of this technology, you have to put yourself out there for anyone to do who-knows-what with. It just reminds me of how little you really know about other people you are connected to via the Net, which is not always a good thing.

Techie or non-techie? That is the question

I used to consider myself fairly tech-savvy… and then I came to Simmons. And while I can still impress my non-librarian friends by dropping terms like “RSS feeds” into casual conversation, I am not even close to techie by Simmons standards. I’m somewhere between my mother (“why does my computer have a cup holder?”) and my officemate (a chair of ASIS&T). 

Okay, I’m definitely way ahead of my mother. She is the reading and language arts coordinator at a school in CT. She’s an excellent teacher… but she hadn’t heard of a blog until I told her I was writing one, and she doesn’t understand why people use e-mail. Hmmm… which brings me to a challenge of a SLMS: staying current with technology yet leading people who aren’t as current with technology. I am hoping to get some insights about that through this class, if only through my own experiences trying to figure out how things work!

I will admit to being a little nervous and a lot curious about this class. The amount of information I’m supposed to know or find out is a little overwhelming at first glance, especially since we only have six weeks! However, I’m sure it will get easier as we get the hang of different technologies (it’s really the blog that has been killing me this afternoon. I never seem to find the settings page in the same place twice. Grr.)

I’m also really curious about taking the class online. At my old job, I helped design synchronous e-learning for a writing training company (they help corporations write more effectively). That company sort of scoffed at asynchronous e-learning. This is partially because we (the instructional design department) sat through many terrible online “classes” that were glorified PowerPoint presentations. It’s also because it’s just hard to teach a soft skill like strategic writing online, especially to busy corporate learners. I think that learning about technology will be a much more appropriate thing to do online.   The workshops my company did were single-day workshops, so if you weren’t meeting people in person you lost a lot of connection and learner interest in the class.  I’m curious to see how well we get to know each other through the collaborative technologies.