#CPD23 Thing 14: Managing the Sea of Information

Creative Commons License by Walt Stoneburner

Thing 14 of the 23 Things for Professional Development program discusses Zotero and other bibliographic citation tools. I have long since been a fan of Zotero, a Firefox extension that has made my research life so much easier. Up until about a year ago, Zotero was a tool that I used personally. I would boast its helpful effectiveness to anyone that would listen (or if it happened to come up during a reference question), but for the most part, it was something I used to keep track of my research while in my Masters program. Most recently, a colleague of mine and I formed a private Zotero group to share sources that we will use for an upcoming conference presentation, this being my first Zotero collaboration project.

Since becoming a librarian within higher ed, I have had the opportunity to teach an Information Literacy course each quarter, and I have shown Zotero to students during the last few weeks of the course. It has been a bit frustrating because my institution uses internet explorer like it's the greatest browser of all time - [sigh... that's a post for another day], and I found out that portable Firefox won't work for student accounts (so my bringing in flash drives with portable Firefox and Zotero installed didn't work either unless I was logged in as myself). Since that fiasco, I have been using diigo with great success. While it has nothing to do with citing sources, it does help keep research organized.

So back to my initial comment about Zotero being a tool for personal use...

As I was reading the post for this "thing," one comment stuck with me. Isla Kuhn stated, "managing information ..., and helping others to do so too demonstrates our worth in a new way, and is a very useful skill. We’re not just there to help people find information, we can help them manage it to more easily achieve their goal." This key point is something I haven't thought of before, but Kuhn is absolutely right! The tools that we use personally, can surely benefit the library population, be it students or patrons, in a significant way. Helping people manage the information they find is just as important as helping them to find the credible information in the first place (and by doing so, we boost our resumes with new skill sets and tools to boot).

So far during this post, I have discussed Zotero, but there were two other citation organization tools that were discussed for this "thing." Mendeley is one that I have looked into in the past, but I never wanted to download it to give it a try. Zotero has worked so well for me that I haven't wanted to dive into something different (if it 'aint broke...don't fix it). But, this "thing" has me digging deeper to find pros and cons of using Mendeley over Zotero.

*Jennifer Vinopal of Library Sphere sees Mendeley as being beneficial due to the academic networking options available. Additionally, the citation cross-referencing features provides a collaborative research atmosphere, in my mind similar to what delicious created with collaborative bookmarking.
*Jodi Schneider wrote in 2009 with hopes that Mendeley would eventually integrate with Zotero. It seems Mendeley heard the plea and the desktop application now offers the ability to import your Zotero library. Schneider also mentioned the 1 point that has always made me hesitate to move solely to this platform - Mendeley really only provides a way to organize pdf files. I'm not sure this is enough for my research endeavors.
*Aaron Tay of Musings of Librarianship also provided an excellent write-up comparing EndNote, Mendeley, Zotero, and Wizfolio. Excellent post I tell you...excellent!

Perhaps this exploration is the push I have needed to give Mendeley a real try. I have it downloaded and will give it an honest trial run...but I still must say that Zotero is so easy! It's easy to learn, easy to teach (even with the hiccups I mentioned above), and easy to use all the way around.

The last citation tool discussed was CiteULike. Kuhn describes this tool as being similar to delicious, but with "articles, rather than websites." While this seems like a good option, especially for my students, I find the interface to be clunky. There's no bookmarklet (to my knowledge) which would make it easy to import items into the CiteULike library, but because it is web-based with no download necessary, it would be easy to access your library at any time, on any computer. I suppose there are pros and cons to every system.

For now, I'm still leaning towards Zotero. I'd like to hear from you too - what's your favorite citation tool?

#CPD23 Thing 11: Mentoring

I'm a bit behind again, but it shouldn't be too hard to catch up. This post is all about thing 11 as part of 23 Things for Professional Development. The topic of mentoring couldn't have come at a more opportune time. I've been thinking a lot about mentoring lately because of two pretty cool items that have come across my plate recently.

Cool Item #1
A colleague of mine sent along an e-mail regarding ACRL's mentoring program. I have been putting off renewing my ALA membership, but when I saw this come through, I immediately started thinking about renewing and tacking on the ACRL membership as well. Sadly, I think I've procrastinated too long and have missed the deadline of August 8th to sign up to be a mentor, but I'll have this to look forward to for next year perhaps. It's a bit daunting, but would be a good way to give back to the profession.

Cool Item #2
A small group of fantabulous librarians that I work with have banded together to create a Research Society. The premise of this group is to encourage one another along the journey of research, whether for publishing or presentation purposes. Many of us are looking to be published down the line, and this group will help in terms of proof-reading, offering suggestions, etc... We're just getting it started, and none of us have a ton of time to devote to it yet, but it's a great idea that I'm hoping takes off! This group of colleagues will provide a mentoring opportunity for each of us, which after reading the cpd post for this thing is super important. Being able to have a solid sounding board for ideas, but also a place where we are all comfortable to share our thoughts and go out on a limb, never to be made fun of, will be nice. I'm excited about this opportunity!

Hopefully I can get the next 2 things completed in the coming days and I'll be all caught up again. Thanks for reading!

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes: Or, Google is Making Me Pull My Hair Out!

Do I sound like I'm contradicting myself yet? Maybe so...but it's all because Google keeps changing up stuff, and today, it's really driving me batty!

I wrote back in May about Google being sort of "big brother"-ish with personalized searches. You can read my thoughts on why I see this as a problem (portraying Google as the devil), and you can also read about an instance where Google search tools really worked for me (portraying Google as an angel).

Then, just yesterday, I wrote about Google as a company, trying to compete with big contenders such as Facebook and Apple (others were mentioned in the article referenced in my post).

But today is a whole new story. Recently, Google has been making quite a few facelift changes, all right around the time of the Google Plus roll out. The changes seemed to work (except for my integrated g-mail extension not playing nice with the new calendar), but today brought with it the revelation of a few changes that I am not too thrilled about.

For my information literacy course that I teach, there is an entire week of brainstorming topics with concept maps (partially Google-ified) and an entire week of web searching (heavily Google-ified).

The tools that I point out to students each quarter include:
* Google Books
* Google Scholar
* Google News
* Advanced Search Options
* Any Time Date Ranges
* Timeline
* Related Searches
* Realtime

And my beloved Google Wonder Wheel. Students LOVE (I mean... L.O.V.E.) this tool! It's one thing to take them to the Credo Reference Concept Map, but it's an entirely different matter to take them to a tool that allows them to learn something new within a system they are already used to using.
So, you can imagine my reaction when I learned that the Google Wonder Wheel is gone! Yep...that's right - gone . vamoose . nadda [enter very sad face and utter dissatisfaction here].




When we Google now, all we get are the options to the right:
* Google Books
* Google Scholar
* Google News
And in the More Search Tools area,
* Related Searches
* Timeline
* Reading Level (not sure this is useful for my needs)

And folks... that's it! No more Google Wonder Wheel... no more Realtime... It's really quite sad, and it seems like really useful tools are being cut without any warning!

So, with thanks to Search Engine Land, this seems to be the progression that Google has taken:

• Google Begins Multi-Month User Experience Update
  I love this quote that states, "I imagine most people think that whatever links are listed there are the only options available." This is so very true for my students. They just don't have the skills yet that tell them to dig a little deeper! So is Google really creating a user-friendly interface for the mass population of internet users?
• Google Realtime Search Goes Missing
  This is one that I really enjoyed using for showing primary source material.
  
• As Deal with Twitter Expires, Google Realtime Search Goes Offline
  This is the update to the above posting. I like that they are trying to reinvent this option to include multiple content avenues outside of Twitter. This could be a good thing in the long run, but it's coming at a really crappy time.
• Official: The Google Wonder Wheel is Gone
  And finally, the post that makes me the most sad. I really can't say it enough - I am truly going to miss this concept mapping tool...and I'm not sure what alternative I will use.
  

I'm sure there are more changes coming down the pike, but the one's referenced here are those that will impact me right now. I have 4 days to find an alternative to the Google Wonder Wheel and 2 weeks to revamp my web searching lesson plan. If you have ideas...please share them (and in reality, I could have used the time it took me to write this post searching for alternatives)!

I would also like to know how the Google changes are affecting you and your work, so don't be shy...

Teaching and Learning Conference: Empowering Students With Necessary Tools

Today, I was able to attend a teaching and learning conference along with other instructors and librarians across the campuses of the community college where I am employed. Much of what I took away from the conference are concepts that I have already been toying with - the idea that educators need to be empowering students with necessary technology tools that will enhance learning outcomes and instill a sense of pride and success in the classroom and beyond. As a librarian, many of the technology tools discussed are tools that I'm already using daily, but there were definitely ideas that I have taken with me that I can implement very soon.

I must preface the list that I am about to give with the fact that I am not an advocate of using technology just for the sake of using technology. Working in the public library systems of my past, I saw technology adopted often that maybe wasn't the best technology for that particular community of people. In the education sector though, I do feel that students should be exposed to technology (and many different forms of technology), not because it's cool (it is!), but rather because it will enhance the curriculum. The challenge, therefore, is finding the right technology for those participatory classroom sessions.

The session I attended today that was most intriguing was conducted by Corinne Hoisington, a professor at Central Virginia Community College in Lynchburg, VA. Again, many of the technologies I am either currently using as a librarian, or I am teaching to my information literacy students - but you may find a few here that you didn't know about. So read on!

Actually, before I get into the list of technologies, I want to share a video with you. Corinne shared one that was similar, but this will get the point across even still:

She talked about the future of technology that is coming down the pike faster than we think. Much of the mobile technologies we're currently seeing are already headed in this direction - no keyboards, no mouse, finger swipes, etc... This video is indicative yet again of the fact that information is everywhere. How our students are accessing information is changing daily, and now more than ever, we as instructors need to continue finding ways to meet students where they are in the online social realm. But enough about that... on to the list:

Wolfram Alpha
This search engine is unique in the sense that it gives statistical information, as well as mathematical equations that can be beneficial to the research process. This is one search engine that I cover with my students when we look at online resources, but I now have a few more examples that I can use when searching for next quarter. Examples include:

• Algebra equations - Can be used when checking work
  
• Mortgage calculations - Determine monthly payments
  
• Nutrition information - Find restaurant nutrition information

There are so many more uses for this search engine, but these are a few that I may add to my own sch-peel.

Join.Me
If you haven't ever used join.me, it's one technology that you have to see to believe. Students are always amazed when I use this with them, mostly during chat or phone reference conversations when I need to see their computer screen to get a better idea of their problem. It really is the coolest thing since sliced bread!

Xtranormal.com
I was first exposed to this technology when a few librarian videos began circulating the twittersphere. I'm not sure that I will use this one often...but since I am the administrator for our campus Facebook page, I may dapple with a few videos to promote campus events. I can't see me using it much for the classroom setting...but it's still fun.

Docs.com
This is one that I really need to ponder more. Microsoft and Facebook have partnered together to provide word, excel, and powerpoint web capabilities - right in the Facebook platform. I've been thinking for a while now that Facebook could very well be the next LMS. With tools like join.me and docs.com, it's moving even quicker towards that possibility of creating a classroom setting right inside the walls of Facebook. This quarter, I created a class website with Google Sites. It was effective, but I'm going to now be researching docs.com further to decide whether Facebook could be a more useful avenue for sharing class documents, etc...

Qik.com
This is the last tool that I want to touch on, and it's one that I do think is a neat concept, but I'm not sure how I would use it in the classroom either. To me, it seems it's just an alternative to youtube - capture video and upload directly from your portable device to the qik server. There's a location feature that is kinda cool... but I'm just not sure it will work for my classes.

In addition to this session that I've referenced here, I also attended a session on Turnitin, the plagiarism checker widely used in academia. This session was presented by 2 of my librarian colleagues, and they did a fine job! Much of the information I knew and have used, but it is always nice to be able to support your fellow colleagues and friends in their professional development endeavors.

That's it for now. If you have found something here that you haven't used before, please let me know if and how you plan to use it. And if you have any other cool technology tools, pass those along as well!

Golden Nuggets of Information - Finding What Absolutely MUST Be Taught

I've been seeing a lot about participatory learning and librarianship in the mainstream library twitter-sphere recently. Articles have popped up like this one, as well as a project for new media literacies and even transliteracies. All areas discuss ideas that can be used to bring new, yet practical, learning opportunities into the classroom. So, as an instructor of information literacy, I have already been diving deep into the literature for this type of instruction environment. Imagine my pleasant surprise when I entered a faculty in-service (on a Saturday morning mind you) today that spoke to this same idea of participatory learning. I was not looking forward to this at all - having to give up a Saturday is NOT something that makes me happy - but the information was very beneficial and I have walked away with new and refreshed ideas. The talking points will be covered first with my ideas of incorporation as a conclusion.

The in-service today covered a presentation from Magna Publications titled: What Should You Teach When There Isn't Time To Teach Everything? Ruth Rodgers discussed three main steps to making sure that information is being given to students in a manner that embraces lifelong learning.

Ruth began by speaking to the stereotype of new instructor behavior. Oftentimes, new instructors (myself included along with many adjunct faculty) are being placed in the classrooms with very little preparation time, in part because the position needs to be filled quickly. Many of my colleagues where I work experienced this exact scenario the first quarter our information literacy course was introduced. The curriculum team was still revamping lessons even as the course began. Many of the instructors were forced to review the material a day before (and for some, even the day of) the class session. Thankfully, my campus decided to hold off for a quarter in order to let the kinks be completely worked out. I say all of this to reiterate the point that Ruth makes: "most [instructors] concentrate on covering the material and find there isn't enough class time to cover it all." Much of what we new instructors do is brain dump all of our information resources, knowledge, and experiences onto the students. Oftentimes, we don't look beyond the content to create an engaged classroom. Thankfully, the course curriculum that I teach is designed to be engaging, but it's still a work in progress.

Consider the three points below when creating a participatory learning environment:

1. Recognize that information is ubiquitous - What aspects of the curriculum material MUST students learn or practice to be successful?
   Instructors are no longer the #1 source of information. Information is literally everywhere. Our job now is to instill a sense of lifelong learning by providing the skills necessary to be successful in the students' chosen career (skills such as critical thinking which is so very hard to teach). Students need to recognize that continuous learning is a necessity (especially for career colleges like mine) for any career path!
   In recognizing this first point, instructors should find and teach course information that is absolutely necessary for success in the classroom, as well as in a career.
2. Define the processes that are CRITICAL for success - What questions should students be asking themselves?
   For information literacy students, this question is an easy one to instill. Students learn to think very critically about a topic, looking at it from every angle and brainstorming keyword supplements using basic who, what, when, where, and why questions. For medical students, it seems the main question for them is "why" (why is this patient on this particular medication? or why is this patient reacting in this way to a certain drug?). If we are successful in getting the students to ask questions of themselves, of the coursework, and of the information they find, they truly are learning critical thinking skills that will be extremely useful in the workforce.
3. Define continued development that is necessary for students - What lifelong learning habits must students develop?
   Again, this an area that speaks directly to information literacy. I can give my students many of the tools and skills necessary to being successful in information retrieval and evaluation, but if it stops once they exit my classroom, have I really done my job? Somehow a sense of lifelong learning should be taught.

What I plan to incorporate next quarter (which is coming way too soon!):

1. What MUST be taught/learned for students to be successful in my course?
   a) Understanding that information is everywhere and there is no set schema to finding information.
   b) Finding information by using library catalogs, online databases, and the world wide web
   c) Learning to evaluate and think critically about the information found
   d) Learning to properly cite the information to give credit where credit is due
   e) Organizing information using online tools
2. What questions should students be asking themselves that encourage critical thinking processes?
   I've already mentioned the who, what, when, where, and why research questions, but I also want to create participatory learning activities that force students to think critically about how they search for information. I plan to set up learning groups where regular activities are designed for students that are in the same program of study, so the material covered becomes practical - they should not longer think of this class as a class that helps them learn how to research for a paper...rather, a class that teaches them skills in finding credible and reliable information for research and everyday life.
   
3. What lifelong learning habits must students develop?
   If students can grasp the concept that no career is a career that has stagnant information, then my job will be complete. Students will learn tips and tricks to help them embrace change in technology, information, and processes. They also have to understand that they can't learn everything there is to know in a 2 year program! They need to be self motivated to continue learning and growing with changes. In doing so, they will begin to develop a self worth that so many of our students need these days. I will be using a lot of program specific topics that students can research in their learning groups to reiterate the need for finding credible information. (How would you go about researching a new drug? or How would you find information on a new technology?, etc...)
   

Hopefully if you're still reading you have found a helpful nugget of information that will be useful to you and your classroom (if you teach). And for me, just when I thought I had my class material just about set - I'm off to change it up some more...

Google - An Angel or the Devil?

The Devil...
In the information literacy classes that I teach, there is a full week of nothing but Google searching. Students learn how to:

• Narrow to a specific site domain using the advanced search feature
• Use the news, timeline, and realtime tools
• Formulate searches that get away from long sentence searching by utilizing keywords with " ", +, and -

Oftentimes students are amazed that they can locate much more credible information just by taking about 5 minutes (or less) to really think about their search terms, as well using the tools Google has provided.

This is all well and good, but a recent class left me baffled. I was demonstrating several sample searches on the overhead projector. Many students were walking through the steps with me. Right in the middle of explaining the search results, I hear: "But wait... I don't have the same link you have."
I make it a point to stop and go back just a few steps to see if maybe the student missed a step. In doing so, she assured me that the same clicks were made. I then chose to walk over to her computer and see for myself... and low and behold, she was right! She didn't have the same results. "Huh..." I said. "This could just be a fluke. Let's try another search and see what results we get."
So, as a class, we formulate another search. Same thing. By now, I'm getting a bit annoyed. Everyone should be able to have the same search results displayed if the search is done the exact-same-way-every-time. But that just wasn't happening.

We continued to move on during class, but I was still quite bothered by the situation. So, by the time I returned to my desk, I was on a massive information hunt for anything that would explain to me what was happening. Ironically enough, (I really couldn't have planned it any better) I had a link that I saw in a stream of twitter feeds from a friend and colleague of mine titled: "If you haven't seen this Ted talk on internet filtering and personalization, you HAVE to!" I'm not sure how it caught my eye...but it was so timely that I was a bit freaked.
Take a look:

I'm still miffed, and not sure really what to do about it.... but then there are the times that I really really love Google.

An Angel
In the news, There has been limited coverage of the Morganza Spillway catastrophe in the major news stream media. This is a topic that hits home (literally) with me since my home town is the good 'ole Morgan City (yes there really is a town that's west and south of New Orleans!). The news that you are hearing discusses Morgan City (since that's the end of the line for the Mississippi), but it has had limited coverage.

Google to the Rescue!
Using a few of the tricks that I teach my students, I have been able to locate the local news from the Atchafalaya Basin area. These articles have been much more beneficial than the mainstream news stations like Fox and CNN. I was able to find the most recent news articles like this one, this one, and even realtime twitter updates. Thanks to Google, it has truly allowed me to feel as if I am right there watching the impending doom happen. I still have family and friends in the area...so it's been very important for me to be able to keep up with what's happening.

Additionally, Facebook has been a fantastic use of primary source information. Friends that still live in the area have taken pictures, and Morgan City even has a Facebook page. So yet again, I have felt as if I'm right at home.

So with all of this being said, Google can definitely be a great source for information, but I don't like the fact that they are personalizing the information that is being found. Any thoughts?