Friday, January 30, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Class Sessions
On Tuesday 1/27/09 I had the pleasure of conducting two sessions of information literacy, as it were, for the two sections of Family Foundations. This course is also referred to by the students quote unquote Christian sex-education.
This post is quick overview of my view of this session. I would appreciate any insight or feedback as this whole one-shot deal in front of a class is less than ideal. My ppt definitely leaves a bit to be desired but I'm still learning and am not entirely sure how to make it better. Information literacy is much more difficult to share with students than is thought.
My goal is to ty to get the faculty involved as well in the coming semesters. (Side note: On the first week of classes, I did a similar session for Comp I. These two sessions are similar enough so as to not require mentioning the first session.)
Sessions:
1st class has approx. 35 students.
2nd class has approx. 55 students which is a ludicriously gigantic class. (The second class was pretty much like the first session except I shortened the second session.)
(The Hook) Students, especially undergraduates and especially freshman seem to dread this sort of session. The hook has to be pretty good in order to distract them and get them involved. My first attempt at a hook was okay but not great.
Started the session by giving each group of students (4-5) a book and asked them to pick a foreman to share about the book. The books used included anything from the Death of Ivan Ilyich to the Practice of Zen. (Using the practice of Zen in the first session was awesome as any such interaction with such philosophy seems to really blow the students' mind. My enjoyment of their interaction is probably somewhat perverse I suppose but still enjoyable.)
Each group had 5 minutes to gather information on the book in order to understand what the book was about. In the ppt, there were some suggestions of what to look at, such as the title, author, date of publication, number of pages, cover, etc. Once the 5 minutes were up, I interviewed each group foreman for the rest of the class. I asked what is the title of the book, who wrote it, what did you think the book was about and whom would you reccommend the work to? Surprisingly enough the Zen book group would not recommend the book to anyone. Most groups responded well. There were some of those who simply read the back cover and read it back. (How to circumvent this. 1. Remove covers. 2. cover covers so students are
forced to think a bit 3) Use a different hook.)
Once all the groups had responded, the entire class was then posed the question what did we just do with these books? In this both sessions most students got it pretty quickly. They were evaluating, analyzing or assessing the book, figuring out what the book was about. (Goal 2. Tap into the evalutory tools students already have. There's really not enough time or force of mind ot cause the students to instantly develop new methods of information gathering. Using the books allows for a tactile process and physical interaction as well as reinforcing the students already understand some method of evaluation that can be applied to other media .)
I then shared the above informitaon with the class to emphasize that they managed to evaluate these books quite well. I said that I'm not here to throw more information at you but rather try to give you some additional tools to help you evaluate what information you already have access to.
Tools examined: (Each of the tools has, at most, 7 minutes spent on it. Spending more time on my attempt to explain a website loses students faster than then speed of free doughnuts in the student lounge. Asking the students to bring laptops doesn't necessarily help becuase they are searching all corners of the Internet.)
OED
EasyBib
EBSCO
Wikipedia
All Things Google
Google Books
Google Scholar
OED:
The OED really has no bearing on family foundations but our subscription to it is new this semester so I'm highlighting it at every opportunity.
I quickly review how to locate the OED on the Davis site, what the opening screen looks like, locating a word and onto the next one.
EasyBib.com
Is a free tool that allows students to build bibliographies without having to think about what they are doing. It is a good reference to get one going on how to build a bibliography.
We quickly walk through this as a group.
EBSCO
Our main subscription through EBSCO is Academic Search Elite. This is our most used database by far and as such I continue to emphasize it. This database is particularly helpful as it includes
Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection which bears particularly well on Family Foundations.
Wikipedia
I ask how many people use Wikipedia in the past two weeks. For those students who raise their hand, I gather some examples of what they utilize it for. Most use it for learning more about bands, movies and other entertainment, at least those whom admitted it. For anyone who protest, it frankly doesn't matter. Students are using Wikipedia anyway. I simply attempt to say continue using it, just don't stop there. Using the David Foster Wallace article as an example I stres Further Reading and References in the Wikipedia article as an excellent places to continue research. We then briefly discuss the virtues of how Wikipedia exists and works as a community driven entity while also pointing out its failures i.e. Colbert and the elephant entry or the recent "death of Ted Kennedy" item from inaugaration week. (In the second session one of the students indicated that her older brother, also a Davis student, had effectively messed with the Davis College entry. I just checked it and the entry is still off. This is the type of connection I'm looking for in these sessions.)
Google
After asking if the students are familiar with Google Books,which most were not, I summarily explain how the whole book projects works and what Google is trying to do by scanning all these works. As a class we looked at Sense and Sensibility to demonstrate the ability to read an entire book online. I also found to my own surprise that one can now download the pdf of full preview works. Ergo, one can download and prints the 1922 copy of Sense and Sensibility for free. (There are tremendous implications here but not appropriate for review in this class.)
Secondly, Google Scholar is summarily reviewed.
We examine two sites. The first is The Endangered Tree Octopus and the second is a Flying Car article. I pose the question how do you know which one is correct or usable? Most students pick up on source or the facts stated in the article. We discuss this for a few moments, chuckle at the tree octopus and away we go. The website view segues into Scholarly resources versus unscholarly resources .I pose the question "What do you do with a blog by an established scholar, i.e. Rod Dekker NT scholar at BBS versus an edu website? There are blogs everywhere, can they be used? How do you evaluate it?"
The next slides, which coincide with a handout, are a condensed version of this site. . Also the slide and handout contain information on how to evaluate a journal article. The links are included on the handout.
I have not figured out a particularly good way of reviewing this page with the class. It's fairly useless to read it at the class and mind-numbing as well.
(In hindsight, we should probably go back to the Octopus page and Flying Car page and apply the principles from the handout. This requires laptops and good wireless signal. In this classroom neither are particularly bountiful) While not particularly evident here, I do attempt to use awkward humor throughout these sessions in order to keep the class from getting distracted and involved. In the second class which had 55 students in it I actually did a bit of soft shoe across the front of the class singing "EBSCO" over and over again. At the very least it got the class attention back on me though the overall effect was almost ruined by a student in the front row issuing an incredibly loud snort/shout of laughter.)
That's pretty much it. At the end I emphasize I am really very interested in their feedback and questions. The last slide has the library email, my email, the fact and link to the DAvis College Library Page and the Davis College Group Page. I also post the Twitter acount for the Library. (I am trying Twitter out for the library this semester. Almost to a student in both sessions, no one really knew what Twitter was. I'm really not convinced that these students are digital natives. There is still definitive gaps in user populations. )
If you're interested in seeing the actual ppt, I can post that and share the link. Any feedback would be helpful and appreciated. I'm still rather new at this which definitely shows. I'm trying to read as much as possible on new/better approaches to the pedagogy of teaching informaiton literacy. My mantra, if you will, is to teach what needs to be learned not what I think needs to be taught. We'll see if it actually works.
Goal, loosely stated to students at beginning of session:
You (the students) know how to find information. Finding information is not really an issue at this point. (This is not my idea. Current library writings back
this up as well as my own conversations with students.) What I am here to do is give you some tools to evaluate
This post is quick overview of my view of this session. I would appreciate any insight or feedback as this whole one-shot deal in front of a class is less than ideal. My ppt definitely leaves a bit to be desired but I'm still learning and am not entirely sure how to make it better. Information literacy is much more difficult to share with students than is thought.
My goal is to ty to get the faculty involved as well in the coming semesters. (Side note: On the first week of classes, I did a similar session for Comp I. These two sessions are similar enough so as to not require mentioning the first session.)
Sessions:
1st class has approx. 35 students.
2nd class has approx. 55 students which is a ludicriously gigantic class. (The second class was pretty much like the first session except I shortened the second session.)
(The Hook) Students, especially undergraduates and especially freshman seem to dread this sort of session. The hook has to be pretty good in order to distract them and get them involved. My first attempt at a hook was okay but not great.
Started the session by giving each group of students (4-5) a book and asked them to pick a foreman to share about the book. The books used included anything from the Death of Ivan Ilyich to the Practice of Zen. (Using the practice of Zen in the first session was awesome as any such interaction with such philosophy seems to really blow the students' mind. My enjoyment of their interaction is probably somewhat perverse I suppose but still enjoyable.)
Each group had 5 minutes to gather information on the book in order to understand what the book was about. In the ppt, there were some suggestions of what to look at, such as the title, author, date of publication, number of pages, cover, etc. Once the 5 minutes were up, I interviewed each group foreman for the rest of the class. I asked what is the title of the book, who wrote it, what did you think the book was about and whom would you reccommend the work to? Surprisingly enough the Zen book group would not recommend the book to anyone. Most groups responded well. There were some of those who simply read the back cover and read it back. (How to circumvent this. 1. Remove covers. 2. cover covers so students are
forced to think a bit 3) Use a different hook.)
Once all the groups had responded, the entire class was then posed the question what did we just do with these books? In this both sessions most students got it pretty quickly. They were evaluating, analyzing or assessing the book, figuring out what the book was about. (Goal 2. Tap into the evalutory tools students already have. There's really not enough time or force of mind ot cause the students to instantly develop new methods of information gathering. Using the books allows for a tactile process and physical interaction as well as reinforcing the students already understand some method of evaluation that can be applied to other media .)
I then shared the above informitaon with the class to emphasize that they managed to evaluate these books quite well. I said that I'm not here to throw more information at you but rather try to give you some additional tools to help you evaluate what information you already have access to.
Tools examined: (Each of the tools has, at most, 7 minutes spent on it. Spending more time on my attempt to explain a website loses students faster than then speed of free doughnuts in the student lounge. Asking the students to bring laptops doesn't necessarily help becuase they are searching all corners of the Internet.)
OED
EasyBib
EBSCO
Wikipedia
All Things Google
Google Books
Google Scholar
OED:
The OED really has no bearing on family foundations but our subscription to it is new this semester so I'm highlighting it at every opportunity.
I quickly review how to locate the OED on the Davis site, what the opening screen looks like, locating a word and onto the next one.
EasyBib.com
Is a free tool that allows students to build bibliographies without having to think about what they are doing. It is a good reference to get one going on how to build a bibliography.
We quickly walk through this as a group.
EBSCO
Our main subscription through EBSCO is Academic Search Elite. This is our most used database by far and as such I continue to emphasize it. This database is particularly helpful as it includes
Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection which bears particularly well on Family Foundations.
Wikipedia
I ask how many people use Wikipedia in the past two weeks. For those students who raise their hand, I gather some examples of what they utilize it for. Most use it for learning more about bands, movies and other entertainment, at least those whom admitted it. For anyone who protest, it frankly doesn't matter. Students are using Wikipedia anyway. I simply attempt to say continue using it, just don't stop there. Using the David Foster Wallace article as an example I stres Further Reading and References in the Wikipedia article as an excellent places to continue research. We then briefly discuss the virtues of how Wikipedia exists and works as a community driven entity while also pointing out its failures i.e. Colbert and the elephant entry or the recent "death of Ted Kennedy" item from inaugaration week. (In the second session one of the students indicated that her older brother, also a Davis student, had effectively messed with the Davis College entry. I just checked it and the entry is still off. This is the type of connection I'm looking for in these sessions.)
After asking if the students are familiar with Google Books,which most were not, I summarily explain how the whole book projects works and what Google is trying to do by scanning all these works. As a class we looked at Sense and Sensibility to demonstrate the ability to read an entire book online. I also found to my own surprise that one can now download the pdf of full preview works. Ergo, one can download and prints the 1922 copy of Sense and Sensibility for free. (There are tremendous implications here but not appropriate for review in this class.)
Secondly, Google Scholar is summarily reviewed.
We examine two sites. The first is The Endangered Tree Octopus and the second is a Flying Car article. I pose the question how do you know which one is correct or usable? Most students pick up on source or the facts stated in the article. We discuss this for a few moments, chuckle at the tree octopus and away we go. The website view segues into Scholarly resources versus unscholarly resources .I pose the question "What do you do with a blog by an established scholar, i.e. Rod Dekker NT scholar at BBS versus an edu website? There are blogs everywhere, can they be used? How do you evaluate it?"
The next slides, which coincide with a handout, are a condensed version of this site. . Also the slide and handout contain information on how to evaluate a journal article. The links are included on the handout.
I have not figured out a particularly good way of reviewing this page with the class. It's fairly useless to read it at the class and mind-numbing as well.
(In hindsight, we should probably go back to the Octopus page and Flying Car page and apply the principles from the handout. This requires laptops and good wireless signal. In this classroom neither are particularly bountiful) While not particularly evident here, I do attempt to use awkward humor throughout these sessions in order to keep the class from getting distracted and involved. In the second class which had 55 students in it I actually did a bit of soft shoe across the front of the class singing "EBSCO" over and over again. At the very least it got the class attention back on me though the overall effect was almost ruined by a student in the front row issuing an incredibly loud snort/shout of laughter.)
That's pretty much it. At the end I emphasize I am really very interested in their feedback and questions. The last slide has the library email, my email, the fact and link to the DAvis College Library Page and the Davis College Group Page. I also post the Twitter acount for the Library. (I am trying Twitter out for the library this semester. Almost to a student in both sessions, no one really knew what Twitter was. I'm really not convinced that these students are digital natives. There is still definitive gaps in user populations. )
If you're interested in seeing the actual ppt, I can post that and share the link. Any feedback would be helpful and appreciated. I'm still rather new at this which definitely shows. I'm trying to read as much as possible on new/better approaches to the pedagogy of teaching informaiton literacy. My mantra, if you will, is to teach what needs to be learned not what I think needs to be taught. We'll see if it actually works.
Goal, loosely stated to students at beginning of session:
You (the students) know how to find information. Finding information is not really an issue at this point. (This is not my idea. Current library writings back
this up as well as my own conversations with students.) What I am here to do is give you some tools to evaluate
An open letter to most self-publishers
Self-Publishers Flourish as Writers Pay the Tab
Dear Self-Publishing writer.
It's not true as one exec states that everyone has a book or two in them. Keep your books inside of you. Spend the time instead of writing nonsense reading better literature then what you could possibly hope to craft. Typically there's a fairly good reason that your book was not accepted by a mainstream publisher. It's not that good. There are exceptions to this rule but until the rest of your fellow wannabe writers flood the market you simply are not there. Please know I'm not against the self-publishing model. It is simply that as readers we are already wading through knee-deep manure in terms of output from publishers and mainstream booksellers. Is it entirely necessary to add another six inches of waste from your own stomach? It is simply making the work of finding good* writing that much more difficult and I do not appreciate your efforts in doing so. Please feel free to open a blog.
Sincerely,
Jeremy
*I understand that the use of the term good is fraught with all types of issues. For now let anyone you would equate with Steinbeck/Sayers/Postman = good and anyone equated with Atwood/Meyer = bad. This analogy should definitely clear up any issues of good vs. bad writing.
Dear Self-Publishing writer.
It's not true as one exec states that everyone has a book or two in them. Keep your books inside of you. Spend the time instead of writing nonsense reading better literature then what you could possibly hope to craft. Typically there's a fairly good reason that your book was not accepted by a mainstream publisher. It's not that good. There are exceptions to this rule but until the rest of your fellow wannabe writers flood the market you simply are not there. Please know I'm not against the self-publishing model. It is simply that as readers we are already wading through knee-deep manure in terms of output from publishers and mainstream booksellers. Is it entirely necessary to add another six inches of waste from your own stomach? It is simply making the work of finding good* writing that much more difficult and I do not appreciate your efforts in doing so. Please feel free to open a blog.
Sincerely,
Jeremy
*I understand that the use of the term good is fraught with all types of issues. For now let anyone you would equate with Steinbeck/Sayers/Postman = good and anyone equated with Atwood/Meyer = bad. This analogy should definitely clear up any issues of good vs. bad writing.
Monday, January 26, 2009
River Reads Books:The Indie Bookstore in my 'hood
I found out that there is an indie bookstore just 2.3 miles from my current location called River Reads Books. The site is simple but it looks awesome. As soon as it is no longer in the negative temps, I'm taking a walk there after work before classwork jumps me.
What is exciting is how I found this particular place. It was through INDIE BOUND, from which the logo above has been lifted. Indie Bound is a site that gives news, store locators and general awesomeness for independent bookstores. This site is sweet; great photographs, really good resources and they support independent presses such as Unbridled Books which was featured in this really excellent review today in Conversational Reading which is fast becoming one of my favorite blogs. This is a solid interview, good questions and excellent responses dealing with publishing in a recession. If possible, support your independent bookstores as by doing so you will typically be supporting the independent presses. You do have to work a little harder in using an independent press because they are publishing more specifically but once you find a collection of publishers you like, the benefits will be tremendous.
And just in case you were wondering where you might put all of these lovely new books, check out the Bibliochaise. (On the right hand side of the page, select Products and then Bibliochaise.) Feast your eyes!
Totally Unrelated: If anyone has a used classic ten-speed, sweeping handlebars and all that, I would be interested. Especially if it's free.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Citispot Coffeehouse
I'm working on homework in the Clinton Citispot Coffeehouse while a self-described medium is attempting to convince a mother and a daughter of his clair-audio (sp?) abilities sharing audio time with a German-speaking daughter who converses with her Germany-inhabiting mother via web-cam and headset as a young man tells the young woman, not yet his girlfriend, "I'm a jack of all trades" so it might not be a date it might actually be an interview but this does not phase the man directly in from of me from finsihing his second cup of cofee and slowly progressing through his book with singleminded focus that the medium would probably envy if he wasn't lying; a shared singlemindness which the high-school age girl in the opposite corner of the room share in her writing of what seems to be homework of printed articles and notes of music that drift in from Radiohead, Iron & Wine and Bob Dylan sharing the outside speaker for the married couple who shares the corner of the table of the German-speaking daugther momentarily fascinated by her technology uniquely together his legs on the run of her chair with her jeans against his while they listen like I'm typing.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
The Holocaust, Viewed Not From Then but From the Here and Now
The Holocaust, Viewed Not From Then but From the Here and Now
"...the Holocaust has become what one expert here called the “masternarrative” for suffering, shaping discussions about every present
conflict over genocide and human rights even as comparisons distort
history and can serve the purposes of propaganda as often as the truth."
This is an incredibly profound statement about how historical narrative is utilized in our present-day thinking. I looked up the definition of the word quote unquote holocaust. I would guess that the Jewish people knew what they were doing when they picked this word as the first definition is quote unquote A sacrifice wholly consumed by fire; a whole burnt offering. (OED 2nd ed. 1989) However the third definition is an excellent example of how context changes our understanding of words and history . (One of the really nice things about the OED is that it gives quotes from real texts.) The third definition follows quote unquote (A) complete
consumption by fire, or that which is so consumed; complete destruction, esp. of a large number of persons; a great slaughter or massacre. The use of the word holocaust extends back at least as far as circa 1250 (1st definition). The shift of the word is from a sacrificial focus to a victim/victor focus. Reading this word from the context of my history back into these quotes causes some conflict with reading these quotes correctly.
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