New LOEX Quarterly

The new issue of LOEX quarterly is available and online. The instructions I received in the email announcement seem a little…involved. So I’ll include them here.

“Volume 35, Issue 1 of the LOEX Quarterly is now posted. Remember: as with the previous issue, the Quarterly has migrated to a new, more easily browseable format which also now has searching capability.

After you click on any of the articles you wish to read under “Volume 35″, it will take you - after about 5-10 seconds - to the article’s page in the digital repository, EagleSpace. To view the article, simply click on “View/Open”; if this the first time you have done so during your current web session, it will ask you for a log-in and password.
That information is:
my.emich username: loex_member
Password: loex1849

That specific article will then open in a new window. Once you are done with that article, you can close that window, and then just hit the “Back” button in your browser while at the article’s EagleSpace page to go back to the web list of articles.”

Proficiencies for instruction librarians

I’m embarrassed to admit that I’m the last UCSD instruction librarian to discover that there are actually standards of proficiency for instruction librarians! I ran across these ACRL proficiencies while I was cleaning out my office in preparation for the upcoming re-carpeting of S&E in the October 2007 issue of C&RL News. It was a very interesting exercise to go through the list of proficiencies and see how many I actually possess! Check them out.

http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlstandards/profstandards.cfm

5 Things You Should Read About Copyright and Sharing Your Instructional Materials

Are you paranoid? I mean, cautious and conscientious? Then the first in a series of what will probably be many publications from the new ACRL IS Research & Scholarship committee is for you. You’ll find “5 Things You Should Read About Copyright and Sharing Your Instructional Materials” Here
“The recommended “5 Things” are intended to be eclectic and thought-provoking, and are drawn not only from traditional library literature but also from popular magazines and newspapers, the blogosphere, archived web presentations, and other media. (They) hope the “5 Things” will spark discussion among instruction librarians both on ILI-L and in person at the conference and in our libraries.”

Updates From LOEX Of The West 2008

I’ve just returned from LOEX in lovely Las Vegas. It was a short, intense, great experience–I wanted to share some of the great resources and methods I picked up while I was there. One session I attended was The Cephalonian Experience: how to bring some Greek sunshine to your library orientation given by Nigel Morgan from Cardiff University in Wales. This method is hard to explain quickly, I’d encourage you to read his short article: MORGAN, N and DAVIES, L., 2004. Innovative library induction- introducing the ‘Cephalonian Method’ Sconul Focus, 32, pp.4-8. Essentially the library instruction session is interactive, colorful, spontaneous, incorporates music and I am totally going to try it in the Fall. Nedra Peterson’s It Came From Hollywood: using popular media to illustrate information literacy concepts in the classroom was another winner-It was library instruction interspersed with film and tv clips that demonstrated certain important research techniques and strategies- Party Girl of course, but also Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and one of my favorite scenes from High Fidelity, when Rob organizes his record collection autobiographically. She has all of her resources in RefShare.
Another favorite was Peer Review 2.0: giving today’s students the tools to create tomorrow’s scholarship on the emerging web by Anne-Marie Deitering & Kate Gronemyer. Thought provoking and smart as hell, bringing up issues of what Authority really means. Check out Anne Marie’s blog post on their presentation here and then do as I did and put info-fetishist in the feed reader of your choice ASAP.

Podcasts

Just in case you didn’t know about this exciting thing….

Create Interactive e-Learning Courses with Microsoft LCDS

Via Digital Inspiration

For educators: LCDS Author (Learning Content Development System) is a free software from Microsoft that lets you create and publish e-learning courses.

You can include software simulations, interactive Flash content (such as Drag and Drop, tile puzzle game, etc.) and the regular true-false / multiple choice style questions in your e-learning content.

Once you are done authoring the course, it can pre-viewed in the web browser and you may then publish it as a SCORM 1.2 Package for hosting in any Learning Management System (LMS).

EDUCAUSE Releases Latest Review And 7 Things (Ning!)

Via The Kept-Up Academic Librarian

The May/June 2008 issue of EDUCAUSE Review is now available online. This issue includes articles about the top ten IT issues in higher education, the search for certitude (librarians should definitely read this one), broadband connectivity and the usual columns including one that features an interview with Jim Neal.

EDUCAUSE also made available its latest release in the “7 Things You Should Know About” series. The latest one covers Ning which is an online service that allows users to create their own social networks and join and participate in other networks. Access it here.

New Pew Report on Teens and Writing Released

Found Via Stephens Lighthouse..
VERY interesting! (and very long..)
“- 87% of youth ages 12-17 engage at least occasionally in some form of electronic personal communication, which includes text messaging, sending email or instant messages, or posting comments on social networking sites.
- 60% of teens do not think of these electronic texts as “writing.
- 64% of teens admit that they incorporate, often accidentally, at least some informal writing styles used in personal electronic communication into their writing for school. (Some 25% have used emoticons in their school writing; 50% have used informal punctuation and grammar; 38% have used text shortcuts such as “LOL” meaning “laugh out loud.”)”

!!

“There is a raging national debate about the state of writing and how high-tech communication by teens might be affecting their ability to think and write,” noted Amanda Lenhart, a senior research specialist at Pew who co-authored a report on the findings titled Writing, Technology and Teens. “Those on both sides of the issue will see supporting data here. There is clearly a big gap in the minds of teenagers between the ‘real’ writing they do for school and the texts they compose for their friends. Yet, it is also clear that writing holds a central place in the lives of teens and in their vision about the skills they need for the future.”

New PRIMO Sites Of The Month For February & March

The Peer-Reviewed Instructional Materials Online (PRIMO) Committee of the Instruction Section of ACRL is pleased to announce its Sites of the Month for February and March 2008. To read the full interviews for both projects and to browse the archive of previous profiles, please see here.

*** PRIMO Site of the Month Interview, February 2008 ***

Appalachian State University Library Research Tutorial

Authors: Kelly McBride and members of the Library Research Tutorial Taskforce
Institution: Appalachian State University Library and Information Commons

Description: The Appalachian State University Library Research Tutorial is an interactive, web-based tutorial designed for use within the Freshman Seminar Program. In 2006 it was completely re-designed to incorporate information literacy more prominently within the content.

* Module 1 introduces students to a variety of locations and services within the library.
* Module 2 compares types of information sources: popular vs. scholarly, primary vs. secondary and internet vs. database sources.
* Module 3 teaches students to search effectively by developing thesis statements, using background sources, identifying key concepts, combining search terms, identifying synonyms and using truncation.
* Module 4 helps students find materials using the catalog, reserves, and library databases.
* Module 5 presents fives steps in evaluating information sources.
* In Module 6 students learn to avoid plagiarism.
Continue reading New PRIMO Sites Of The Month For February & March…

ACRL Springboard, If You Missed it Live!

ACRL Springboard Event archive and podcast interview with Henry Jenkins

On April 2, ACRL held its inaugural Springboard Event, an annual free webcast for ACRL members. The webcast featured Henry Jenkins, Co-Director of the Comparative Media Studies Program and the Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities at MIT. The archive of Henry’s presentation will be made available on the ACRL website on April 16. More details are online here.

In the meantime, check out the podcast, “A Conversation with Henry Jenkins,” online here. In this podcast interview, Henry talks with College & Research Libraries News editor-in-chief David Free about presenting online, participatory culture, libraries, and rapper Soulja Boy as the poster boy for new media literacy.