Another Way to Keep Up

Journal Tables of Contents is a free service from a consortium of UK universities and vendors like ProQuest to help researchers stay up to date on the journals in their fields. From the Web site:

Journal Tables of Contents service makes it easy for academics, researchers, students and anyone else to keep up-to-date with newly published scholarly material by enabling them to find, display, store, combine and reuse thousands of journal tables of contents from multiple publishers. With ticTOCs, it only takes a or two to keep up to date.

More details from the site:

• ticTOCs is easy to use, and it's free.
• Find 11,344 scholarly journal Table of Contents (TOCs) from 421 publishers.
• View the latest TOC for each journal.
• Link to the full text of 294,062 articles (where institutional or personal subscription allows).
• Export TOC feeds to popular feedreaders.
• Select and save journal titles to view future TOCs ( You must register to ensure your MyTOCs are permanently saved).
• And more!

I browsed around and found a variety of library and education journals. Note that this is a similar service to the Journal Alert by Ebsco, ProQuest, and other ELM vendors as Jennifer Hootman explained in her MILI December presentation. However, there may be other journals here that are not on an ELM database. I will say that the day I tried it, response time was very sloooooow.

MapHappy

Here is an interesting use of a Google map mashup. The University of Minnesota has created a finding aid for its map collections because "Print maps can be difficult to find in the library. MapHappy changes that. Search or Browse all maps held in the multiple library locations across the UMN-Twin Cities campus."(from MapHappy page).

According to the Minitex Reference blog, MapHappy is a Google Maps mashup that provides users with visual information about the location and coverage of print and electronic maps while searching University Libraries collection. A browse feature also allows users to find maps that cover a particular geographic area rather than searching with key terms. All 30,000 maps held in the Twin Cities libraries are discoverable in MapHappy. These resources are still in beta and will be released sometime in January 2009. Note that this is a finding aid for the University's collections; the maps themselves are not online. 

 

Downloading YouTube Videos

YouTube does not support downloading of videos, which can inhibit teachers' use of YouTube if it is blocked in your school. Here is a list of sites that help you download YouTube videos. Post in your blog if you use any of them and how they work.

Now, Magazines

Google announced that is has added magazines to Google Book Search. Here is an Official Google Blog post about the new feature. I couldn't find a list of the "ever-growing" number of magazines being added. Results will be tagged with "magazine." One interesting feature--a Google map with pinpoints to the locations mentioned in the magazine issue you are viewing. This adds to the other special collections like Patents, Life magazine photo archive, and News Archive.

The Networked Student

A video to use with administrators, parents, and others to explain how new tools and new connections are important to create 21st century learners. It does miss the collaboration with your media specialist, but it does mention the media center. Found via Tame the Web,

The Networked Student was inspired by CCK08, a Connectivism course offered by George Siemens and Stephen Downes during fall 2008. It depicts an actual project completed by Wendy Drexler’s high school students. The Networked Student concept map was inspired by Alec Couros’ Networked Teacher. I hope that teachers will use it to help their colleagues, parents, and students understand networked learning in the 21st century.Anyone is free to use this video for educational purposes. You may download, translate, or use as part of another presentation. Please share.

History Uncovered Competition

Here is an opportunity for teams of students coached by their teacher and media specialist. From the press release:

ABC-CLIO will launch its new annual research competition for secondary students at the National Council for the Social Studies 88th Annual Conference in Houston. The award-winning developer and publisher of history research databases will award more than $60,000 in cash and prizes in this unique competition for teams of secondary students working in collaboration with their social studies teachers and school library media specialists.

The topic for the inaugural competition is "Select the top 10 people, events or places that have shaped the course of history." Coached by their teacher and/or school library media specialist, student teams will identify their choices and then defend them and present their research findings to ABC-CLIO in an electronic format...

More details at the History Uncovered Web site.

My Dewey Decimal Classification

Just what every librarian needs to know! Where do I fit in?

Ann Walker Smalley's Dewey Decimal Section:

068 Organizations in other geographic areas

Ann Walker Smalley's birthday: 11/17/1951 = 1117+1951 = 3068


Class:
000 Computer Science, Information & General Works


Contains:
Encyclopedias, magazines, journals and books with quotations.



What it says about you:
You are very informative and up to date. You're working on living in the here and now, not the past. You go through a lot of changes. When you make a decision you can be very sure of yourself, maybe even stubborn, but your friends appreciate your honesty and resolve.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

New Tools

Life Magazine Photo Archive
2 million photos from Life Photo library from 1750s on. The goal is to add 10 million of Life's photos. Search from the start page or you can include source:life with any Google Image search query. Great for History Day, among other things.

EtherPad
"The perfect way to collaborate on a text document and keep everyone literally on the same page." Doesn't Google Docs already do this? Their answer:

No. Google Docs is a suite of products that do many things, from word processing to spreadsheets to document management. One thing that Google Docs does not do is real-time collaborative text editing. We think this is an important use case, so we built EtherPad with real-time collaboration as the focus.

Gmail Themes
Not exactly a productivity enhancer, but Gmail has added the ability to customize the look of your Gmail account.

Google SearchWiki
Tailor your Google search results. Learn more.



And a tool no more--Lively
Google announced that it will discontinue Lively, a Second Life-type 3-D virtual world creator in December.

And You Thought Wikipedia Was Bad

This post on ReadWriteWeb describes a casual conversation about a nine year old boy who accesses the Web through YouTube. The kid's dad says that when the kid wants information, he goes to YouTube and types in a search term. The kid then watches the videos. No Google, no other Web sites, no further searching, no other information source at all.

The author of the post does his own experiment using various terms to test YouTube as search engine. Read the post to see his conclusions.

Now admittedly, what the original kid was looking for was not "research"--he was looking for Pokemon characters or Donkey from Shrek. But what does this mean for us as teachers and librarians trying to teach research and information literacy skills? Will we face a a whole generation of kids growing up and learning about the world through YouTube? Only YouTube?

We do keep hearing that people no longer read, kids use their electronic tools for all things from communication to games, etc. People are seeking information, but through less traditional ways than print. Doug Johnson of Blue Skunk Blog has an interesting post on Libraries for a Post-Literate Society. Doug is Media Director at Mankato Schools.

Note that I love YouTube--I have spent a lot of time watching stuff like this or this. During the campaign, I looked for the speeches, debate clips--and SNL sketches. And it looks like soon we will be able to watch full-length Hollywood movies on YouTube. I have to say, though, YouTube as search engine does not thrill me. What do you think?

Glue

Yahoo! Glue is an "all in one" search tool. Yahoo! Glue search results include web search, images, news, blog search, Wikipedia and YouTube videos. The cool part? All these links are on one page. Here are the results for a search on Barak Obama.

Depending on the search terms, you get different results (or no results if you search school libraries). Most have the Wikipedia article at the top, then maybe blog posts, images, videos, articles, news links, and more.

Try it out--it is fun.

Digital Youth

Just wanted to point you toward this post on Stephen's Lighthouse blog (he is a big thinker in the library world) that is a good summary of Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project funded by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Take a look at Stephen's summary and delve deeper in the entire executive summary (58 page PDF) for more insights and answers. The two questions the study asked are of great interest to all educators.

The study was motivated by two primary research questions: How are new media being integrated into youth practices and agendas? How do these practices change the dynamics of youth-adult negotiations over literacy, learning, and authoritative knowledge?

The answers to these questions are critical to developing educational and other social institutions--including libraries--that can meet the needs of this and future generations.

The Week of the Search Engine

I seem to have encountered several new search engines this week. The latest is DeepDyve. DeepDyve says it searches the deep Web that other search engines don't reach. It seems to search selected industry databases including open access databases such as Medline and other government medical sources, open access medical journals, and patent databases. It includes SAGE Publications and some other subscription journals. 

These are freely available databases (although may require payment for fulltext), but as we mentioned at our meetings this month, the typical search engines don't search these specialized deep databases. You won't find Medline results in a Google search. You could search each of the sites DeepDyve mentions on its Expert Sources page but it would mean searching each site/publication individually, so this is a productivity/efficiency tool at least. Currently the focus is on patents, life sciences, and physical sciences. And Wikipedia. More industries to come.

You have to sign up and sign in to use the free version of DeepDyve. Premium version--which offers more complicated display and filtering of results, along with some organizing tools--is $45 per month per user. 

Seriously, I've Been Trying To Tell You!

Here's a tool that I can recommend for its extreme accuracy. The Blog Readability Test measures the level of education required to understand your blog. Just enter your blog URL and get the results. And how do I know it is accurate? It rated my blog as:

New Tool

Refsek* is a search engine designed to make academic information available to students and researchers. My first search got no results (Truman Capote), but you have the option of searching again using Google, Yahoo, Ask, or Live. Other searches had better results. The site seems to retrieve "academic" information from .org, .edu, and .gov sites. Could be useful for new searchers unfamiliar with verifying their information. The directory (click on link in upper right) has links to reference sources and a list of teacher resource sites. 

Here is a tool to really keep an eye on. Reference Extract is a new search engine under development by OCLC (the multinational library organization that brings us NetLibrary, WorldCat and OpenCat, among many more library-focused tools and services). This search engine will be built for

maximum credibility by relying on the expertised and credibility judgements of librarians from around the globe. Users will enter a search term and get results weighted towards sites most often referred to by librarians at institutions such as the Library of Congress, the University of Washington, the State of Maryland, and over 1,400 libraries worldwide.

The Planning Reference Extract blog has more information. The blog also seeks librarian input into the development process. 

Blocked

Edutopia has many sources for teachers and media specialists that are integrating technology in their teaching. Here is an article on working around filters with good points on advocating for access and teaching "digital citizenship." One recommendation,

When Honeycutt introduces Web 2.0 tools to schools, he often starts with a virtual sandbox in which teachers can play with new applications before granting access to students. "We need to create places where teachers can take chances," Honeycutt says. “Every district needs to anoint some teachers to play with Web 2.0 tools in a safe, hypothetical environment. I call it taming the tool. Teachers need time to consider, 'Under what conditions would we allow this tool into the classroom?'

Hey, that's you MILI participants!

Blog Tools

Here is a handy chart that compares features of various tools that offer blog search. These tools let you search for information in blog posts, which can be useful if you are looking for opinion or recommendations.

And may I say, Ann Smarty is a better name than Ann Smalley.

Save Money@your library

Here is one of my favorite Web 2.0 tools. It is convenient and saves me money! I often have materials out from more than one library and with this tool, someone else reminds me of what is due when and where. Handy.

LibraryElf is an Internet-based tool for keeping track of what's due, overdue and ready for pickup at your library. Users can keep track of one or more library accounts in one place and receive reminders. Reminders are sent when the user wants it -- before items are due (up to seven days advance notice, weekly notice, or everyday reminders). For families or anyone who'd like reminders before an item is due (user-selectable number of days notice). This is a third-party application (not developed/supported by the library or its circulation system vendor). If LibraryElf is for you, sign up for an account.

Some people are concerned about privacy with this service. In theory, you could put in someone else’s library barcode and their PIN (since in most libraries it is set as the last four digits of your phone number) and then see what they are reading. Just why I would want to do that, I am not sure. And, I can change my PIN to a different number if I want to. So, I use ELF and I love it. I did about these issues, but I decided that I was willing to accept the potential risk of privacy loss for the convenience of the service. As soon as my libraries start offering RSS and or other easy reminders on my account, I'll gladly use that rather than my Elf account. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening any time soon.

All Twin Cities area library systems are compatible with Elf.

Google Book

You may know that Google was being sued by authors and publishers over the book scanning project. Well, they have reached a settlement. Not sure if this is good news, bad news, or no news in the sense that not much will change for the user. Except for the need for libraries and universities to purchase a license? According to Google Official Blog,

This agreement is truly groundbreaking in three ways. First, it will give readers digital access to millions of in-copyright books; second, it will create a new market for authors and publishers to sell their works; and third, it will further the efforts of our library partners to preserve and maintain their collections while making books more accessible to students, readers and academic researchers.

Here is each party's take on the settlement.

• Google Book Search’s page on the settlement
• Association of American Publishers’ page on the settlement
• Author’s Guild page on the settlement
• Joint FAQ about the settlement
• Official Google Blog entry about the settlement
• University of Michigan President Paul Courant’s analysis. (University of Michigan was one of the early Google Book partners.)

The library section, down near the bottom of the first link, says:

This agreement wouldn’t have been possible without all the libraries who have preserved these books and now partnered with us to make so many of them discoverable online. We’re delighted that this agreement creates new opportunities for libraries and universities to offer their patrons and students access to millions of books beyond their own collections. In addition to the institutional subscriptions and the free public access terminals, the agreement also creates opportunities for researchers to study the millions of volumes in the Book Search index. Academics will be able to apply through an institution to run computational queries through the index without actually reading individual books.

"...computational queries without actually reading individual books" has a brave new world sound about it, doesn't it

*Update* Harvard University Library weighs in and isn't happy. From Library Journal: Harvard University Library Director Robert Darnton said that

As we understand it, the settlement contains too many potential limitations on access to and use of the books by members of the higher education community and by patrons of public libraries.

Concern of many seems to be that Google is going from "a universal digital library" to a "universal digital bookstore" with Google Book (Paul Courant, UMich President). Libraries have collected these materials and made them available to researchers and others and with the idea of licenses or other payments for materials, some librarians are not happy. The Library Journal article above has a roundup of reactions.

Wikipedia Scholarship

MIT's Technology Review has an interesting article on Wikipedia Wikipedia and the Meaning of Truth: Why the online encyclopedia's epistemology should worry those who care about traditional notions of accuracy.

The author has an interesting perspective on Wikipedia and its standards for truth and accuracy and the question of how do you know what to question on Wikipedia and what to believe.

...Wikipedia's standard for inclusion has become its de facto standard for truth, and since Wikipedia is the most widely read online reference on the planet, it's the standard of truth that most people are implicitly using when they type a search term into Google or Yahoo. On Wikipedia, truth is received truth: the consensus view of a subject.

That standard is simple: something is true if it was published in a newspaper article, a magazine or journal, or a book published by a university press--or if it appeared on Dr. Who.

Worth reading and thinking about in light of reliable resources and student research.

I had to look up epistemology.

Not That You are Middle-Aged or Anything, but...

I was happy to see this article reporting some good news for those of us at the older end of the age scale.

"For middle-aged and older people at least, using the internet helps boost brain power, research suggests."

It is nice to know that what I spend so much time doing might actually have a health benefit, not just keep me informed!

Thing 6. Online Collaboration

Out of order, but....

Here is an interesting use of a wiki. It takes a traditional assignment and adds a virtual twist. It has received a lot of responses. Karl Fisch, the father of this student, is tech coordinator at Arapahoe High School in Colorado. He created a video for one of his staff days that "went viral" and has had millions of YouTube views.

If you have never watched Shift Happens by Karl Fisch, do so. It is a great conversation starter for staff days or any other time the need for technology and information literacy arises. This is Shift Happens 2.0.

Karl's blog The Fischbowl is an interesting read, too.

Thing 7. Search Engines

Google is 10 years old this year--which is a surprise. It seems it has been around forever. In honor of its birthday, Google has made one its earliest indexes (2001) of the Web available for the curious to search. The Washington Post has an interesting article about its efforts at searching "old" Google. The article is here. Not much for Wikipedia, Facebook is still limited to a few Ivies, and blogging is just taking off (according to US News and World Report, 1.15.01). If you want to llik at what was actually on a site back then, try the Internet archive Wayback Machine.

The Google site will be up until the end of the month at Google.com/search2001.html.

Google Docs Blog

I recommend that everyone subscribe to the Official Google Docs Blog. This useful source gives updates to Google Docs features, points out ways to use the product in classrooms, and is just a good way to keep up with what's happening. A recent "contest" asked K-12 teachers to send in their ideas on using Google Docs in their classrooms. The first 50 respondents received a Moleskine journal.

Recent posts highlighted the Table of Contents feature and bibliography templates.

GoogleDocs & Copyright

I am clearly behind on my blogging--like so many of you:-) I hope you are thinking and learning and will share what is happening.

Being behind, I am late in posting this information that responds to some questions about who owns the copyright for material produced using GoogleDocs. There were some rumors/doomsday posts in the blogosphere awhile back asserting that Google owns your copyright.

The answer is that the creator holds the copyright, just as the creator holds the copyright on any written or artistic creation whether or not a copyright is registered for the work. Take a look at Google's Terms of Service.

Google’s terms provide strong protection for intellectual property. Abusing other people's intellectual property rights is forbidden:

8.2 … You may not modify, rent, lease, loan, sell, distribute or create derivative works based on this Content (either in whole or in part) unless you have been specifically told that you may do so by Google or by the owners of that Content, in a separate agreement.

It acknowledges your rights:

9.4 Other than the limited license set forth in Section 11, Google acknowledges and agrees that it obtains no right, title or interest from you (or your licensors) under these Terms in or to any Content that you submit, post, transmit or display on, or through, the Services, including any intellectual property rights which subsist in that Content (whether those rights happen to be registered or not, and wherever in the world those rights may exist). …

And,

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. …

Slide Presentations

Lots of students use slide presentations to display their knowledge and work. SlideShare is a Web 2.0 tool that allows users to upload and share these presentations. Not all the bells and whistles of a PowerPoint presentation may transfer, but it is a useful tool when you need to share the presentation or want to make it available to a wider audience.

SlideShare just posted the winners of its The World's Best Presentation contest. The contest drew over 2,400 entries. The top three winners are posted on the SlideShare newsletter. You can use them as examples for how to do a "good" presentation. SlideShare is worth browsing for ideas on how to present information, ways to effectively create slides, and for classroom content. Many of the slideshows can be downloaded and embedded in your web page or blog.

Thing 2. Another RSS Hint

I think the best way to get into the habit of using your RSS reader is to add the "subscribe" button to your toolbar. If you regularly use one computer--your laptop, for example--to read your Reader or Bloglines feeds and to browse the Internet, having the buttons installed makes it a snap to add a feed to your reader. No need to copy and paste a URL or even look for the RSS icon.

For GoogleReader
It is an easy drag and drop operation to add the Subscribe button. You actually just drag the blue link Subscribe to your toolbar.

For Bloglines
Follow the instructions, depending on your browser.

We will talk about adding other buttons to your toolbar at our meetings--they are productivity enhancers!

Thing 2. I Love RSS!

I use Bloglines as my reader. It is similar to GoogleReader, but I like the cleaner interface. It is all personal preference. I *try* to keep up, but I do use the Mark All as Read button, too. And I don't even feel guilty.

I have added many non-educational blogs to my Bloglines, too. I love magazines (OK, I love all sources of information!) and having blogs that address my magazine interests is really ideal for me. I have craft/sewing blogs, news, thrifter blogs (I am a hunter/gatherer by nature), "green" blogs, pop culture blogs, and more. I spend many an evening looking at other people's projects for home and hearth--and seeing what is new in the world.

While the use of GoogleReader or Bloglines is great for keeping up with blogs, there are other uses, too. If you want to keep up with the latest from your favorite columnists at the NYT, Newsweek, or many other papers, use RSS. You can keep up with stock quotes, podcasts, and just about anything else on the Web that has a feed.

I just read on Infodoodads, a blog by a team of librarians, about a service that will email your feeds. I would have to think about that, since as Infodoodads points out, we already get a lot of email. But here it is if that appeals to you--Feed My Inbox.

Thing 2. Blogging--Sorry, MPS

Well, our brief experiment with Edublogs didn't work. The final straw was having to reset the password, which took way too much time and effort. Add that to the GoogleReader problems (and apparently the same problems exist with Bloglines, another reader) and it is just too unpredictable. If you were to use for classroom blogging, the delay in receiving the feeds could be a big problem if students were expected to blog and you needed to read the posts in a timely manner. Which is too bad, because there are some nice features.

I have re-done my blog using Blogger. I think you will find Blogger very simple to use with many ways to customize the template and many gadgets (or, as others call them, widgets) to add to the sidebar. I haven't progressed much with that, but I will. I encourage you to take time to look through the gadget list (under Layout>Page Elements>Add Gadget). Just remember to Save any changes you want to keep.

Chaska Training

It was a great two days in Chaska. We managed to get though all of the material--a lot--thanks to the cooperation and interest of all involved. Thanks!

It is nice to have returnees, too--Travis, Sarah, VeRonica, Kelly, Connie, Sharon, Lisa, and Jeanne will have much to offer based on their understanding and use of the tools last year. I know people have asked Travis already how he managed all those student blogs.

Bill DeJohn was impressed by your enthusiasm and ideas on the Research Project Calculator. I am always urging him to update its look and to take a hard look at the information architecture of the RPC. It is a great tool with tremendous content, but it does have a *Web 1.0* look about it. And in this day and age, looks count, especially with students. Bill does react to our comments, so keep sending them in via the RPC feedback page.

First Training Days at MPS

A week later, I am finally reflecting on the two days at Ramsey with the 2008-2009 group of teachers from Minneapolis Public Schools. I’d say we are off to a good start! We managed to cover all the material, teachers and LMS were responsive and interested, the food arrived on time, most people got their blogs set up and sent the URL to Karen, and in general, it went smoothly. Thanks for all the interest and cooperation.

Some snags–The glitch in the computer lab where we were viewing each other’s accounts seemed a bit random to me. In the future at Ramsey, this shouldn’t be an issue using your laptops with the wireless. It was a bit chaotic choosing the dates/days, but it got done. The email delay for the blogs could have been avoided–and we will use what we learn in future groups.

I received a comment about passing on suggestions about the Research Project Calculator–I did that when I talked to the Minitex director this week. It is good if you directly submit comments, too. Everyone in MPLS was so excited about the RPC and how they can use it that I invited the Minitex director to observe that session next week in Chaska. Hope they are as enthusisastic as you all!!