Collaboration - Thing #15

Working with teachers is one of the things I like best about being an LMS. It's fun to hear about projects the kids will be doing and to be part of the process by providing good sites, pulling books for them, and helping the students when they visit the LMC. Having been in the classroom for many years, I can empathize with the lack of time teachers have to do everything they want to do. Helping them with the research piece I know saves them precious time. Unfortunately, my EA was cut two years ago; consequently, there would have been no book pulling had it not been for the great interns I've had, and that part of the support I offer would have suffered. I worry about the future and I'm afraid that when there are no LMC interns or EAs at Como, the collaboration process will suffer. Working with the Como staff reminds me how lucky our students are to have such creative teachers who are very concerned about what their students learn. The MILI project has also reinforced LMS-classroom teacher teaming. When LMSs and teachers have the equipment they need, it makes the transfer of information literacy tips that much easier, not only from LMSs to teachers and students, but from teachers to students as well. For example, recently Kita, Kathy, Kristin and I got together (Steve had a 1 on 1 session later) and we explored how to do a smart search on Google, using the advanced search page and limiting searches to various domains like .edu. It took about 15 minutes. This productive time, then, led to these teachers showing their students the same tips. The result? Hundreds of kids benefited and will continue to benefit from one short collaboration session between the LMS and four teachers. This is just one example of the good that can come from LMSs and classroom teachers working as partners.

Dribbling Lessons - Thing #8

I like the access route to the dribbling lessons. If you want to work on question generation, just click "question," etc. I've been incorporating search term lessons into each project introduction when a teacher brings his/her class to the library to learn about the teacher's webpage for the project. I've written some suggestions for searching directly under the project title so the kids can refer to them later and won't have to take notes when I'm presenting. An example is Nancy Plagens' project webpage. One simple search tactic many kids don't know, for instance, is that when searching for famous rulers you use Roman numerals, not 1, 2, etc. or the words one, two, etc.

Research Project Calculator - Thing #7

It was a good review to see Leslie's presentation on the RPC at our last MILP meeting. I was reminded that while there is a great deal of info, one can focus on portions here and there when needed. The whole thing doesn't have to be tackled at once. I guess that's the approach I've taken, and it makes the RPC more usable for me. One way I introduce students to the RPC is by showing 9th graders during library orientation where the link to the RPC is on the Library Media Center website, so they all have easy access to it in the right column of the Research Process webpage. Also, because the 9th grade English teachers are present during these orientation sessions, they can see where it is too.

Metasearching - Thing #12

Years ago I used Metacrawler and Dogpile all the time, but dropped them as soon as Google hit the market. I was glad for the opportunity to revisit them, and to try out some new metasearch engines I'd not heard of before. I loved Kartoo's graphics, but personally prefer the simplicity of Clusty's Googlesque homepage and easy-to-follow clustering categories. As a matter of fact, I have it as a link on my ROR page. I'd seen the Search Engines Features Chart before and had found it helpful, so I posted it on my Smart Search Webpage. Clicking Quintura brought up an error page, so I'm not sure about that one, and MusicPlasma looked interesting, but I didn't want to set up an account.

Copyright & Plagiarism - Thing #10

The staff members at our school are very concerned about plagiarism; therefore, my second year as an LMS at Como, the English Department and I collaborated and came up with a list of possible consequences for plagiarism. I created a webpage that discusses plagiarism and points out how to avoid it. I noticed that Purdue's Owl was referenced under Thing #10. I, too, included it on an MLA citation page I created so that students can have a guide in citing correctly. I think it's one of the best sites around for looking up how to cite. (By the way,thank you to Leslie E. for having her intern create the original guide sheets several years ago. My former EA retyped them and now anyone can access them, even at home.) Also, because staff members care about the legalities of using various media, I added a Copyright and Fair Use webpage. Until recently it was relatively easy and free to type a segment from a student's paper into the Google search bar, put quotes around it, and voila, up came the source. It's not possible to do that anymore, and my guess is it's because the online paper writing warehouses have put some kind of block up that makes it impossible to track papers to them. Schools need to decide if they want to spend huge bucks to buy online plagiarism-detection tools such as Turnitin.com, CopyCatch and the Essay Verification Engine. Using the plagiarism proof assignment ideas listed under Thing #10 might be a cheaper, and in the end, more fruitful way to go.

Infinite Thinking Machine - More Googling - Thing #11

My wonderful colleague, Gail, just told me about a great Google workshop she attended and shared with me the wealth of Google knowledge she learned, all contained on one little handout titled "The Google Universe." It has so many good tips and quips I felt compelled to add several of the points to my Teacher Tools and Smart Search webpages, and to add the presenter's blog to my Helpful Blogs Urban Planet webpage. It's a website & blog called the Infinite Thinking Machine and can be found at http://www.infinitethinking.org/. From the "About" section of the ITM site: "ITM is designed to help teachers and students thrive in the 21st century. Through an active blog, an Internet TV show, and other media resources, the ITM shares a 'bazillion practical ideas' for turning the infinite universe of information into knowledge. We showcase examples of innovative instructional methods, talk with leading experts, and share real stories from the classroom to improve how we think, learn, teach, and live. And we try to have a little fun along the way."

College Kids Today on You Tube - Thing #21

Thanks to Leslie Y., who spent two hours Urban Planeting (why can't it be a verb just like "googling?") with some Como folks today, I took the time to add a new section to my webpage called "Helpful Blogs." I included Dr. Scott McLeod's blog, "Dangerously Irrelevant," to the section (thank you Ruth W. for reminding me of the name), along with several consumer-related blogs. While I was poking around DI, I noticed a video Dr. McLeod recommended which was produced by a Cultural Anthropology professor and his students using "digital ethnography." I was very intrigued by its subject matter: How do today's college kids spend their time, and how do their choices impact their future? I was also very entertained by the technique used to present the info. It turns out the students who collaborated on the video used Google docs to compile and edit the info: 200 students made 367 edits to one document. I was so impressed with the video I decided to post it here. It's around 4 minutes long, but is well worth the view time.

The following description of the video was taken from You Tube: "A short video summarizing some of the most important characteristics of students today - how they learn, what they need to learn, their goals, hopes, dreams, what their lives will be like, and what kinds of changes they will experience in their lifetime. Created by Michael Wesch in collaboration with 200 students at Kansas State University."