Gail Marsella: The Academic

Sun, 19 Jun 2005 03:12:32 GMT

Who Knows Whom, And Who Knows What?.

Social network analysis (learning network analysis?) is really the key to the interaction aspect of formal and informal learning - Who Knows Whom, And Who Knows What?: "Companies that have been frustrated by traditional knowledge management efforts, such as Mars, are increasingly looking for ways to find out how knowledge flows through their organizations. Looking at the company org chart, it turns out, often doesn't tell the real story about who holds influence, who gives the best advice and how employees are sharing information critical for success. This all takes on greater urgency as millions of baby boomers prepare to retire over the coming decade. Social network analysis provides a clear picture of the ways that far-flung employees and divisions are working together, and can help companies identify key experts in the organization."
[elearnspace]

Sun, 08 May 2005 15:06:21 GMT

Got Game on the Brain.

I’m late to the whole gaming and how it affects libraries thing, but I’m a total convert now and it’s something I’m going to actively track from now on. At first I thought it was just interesting, and while I did like the idea of bringing tweens and teens into the library using gaming as a social carrot, I’m gaining a totally different perspective for the way we can use the characteristics, expectations, and interplay of gaming and gamers in a “tipping point” kind of way.

The latest catalyst for this round of “gaming on my brain” is Moira Gunn’s interview with John Beck for IT Conversations. I’ve listened to the podcast of it twice in the last three days, and a couple of his points really resonate with me. In case you’re not familiar with him, Beck wrote Got Game: How the Gamer Generation Is Reshaping Business Forever, and this podcast is the first chance I’ve really had to hear him talk about all of this since Audible doesn’t carry the audiobook and I’ve never seen Beck speak in person. While listening to it, all I could think of was Brent and how much Beck totally nails him and his friends. I even made Sheree listen to the interview and she agrees with me, although we both disagree with Beck about gender differences because most of the girls we know don’t play video games much at all.

At one point in the interview, Gunn asks Beck how gamers will change the workplace, and Beck provides an example observation that in video games, there are “level bosses” that you have to beat in order to advance further in the game. So one of the things you don’t want to be in real life if you’re a gamer or the supervisor of a gamer is a “boss.” I hadn’t thought about that before, although I always hear Brent talking about bosses in a negative way. In fact, when he started playing video games years ago and he first told me he was having trouble beating the “boss,” I thought that was the name of the character he was fighting. It took me awhile to realize it was his generic term for “the big bad guy at the end of the level.” Then came the realization that it wasn’t just him using the term, it was all of his friends. Imagine his surprise when he first heard me talking about my boss in a positive way!

Beck goes on to say that in the workplace, you don’t want to be a “boss,” but rather a “strategy guide,” because that’s what gamers rely on, especially to beat the boss. And as I was listening to this, it struck me that this is an excellent description of librarians! I’ve always liked that comic drawing of a librarian sitting behind a reference desk with a sign on it that says “search engine,” but now I’ve decided that I’d rather be a “strategy guide” instead. In fact, if I could, I’d change my job title to “strategy guide.” That’s exactly how we need to market ourselves to gamers, boomers, bosses, everyone. The big question, of course, is how to do that and more and more, I think gaming offers clues for how to do that.

If you don’t really understand why this gaming stuff is important, why it will be important in the future (the not-so-distant-future), why it will affect everyone (including you) or why gamers truly are different than you or me, then this interview is a great place to start. I highly recommend you listen to it. And don’t let anybody tell you that these kids aren’t any different than we were at their age, because they’re not like us at all. I was struck by how Beck’s descriptions of gamers mirror so closely the way I talk about NetGens (aka Millennials) in my own presentations. I’m going to have to rework my stuff a bit to highlight the gamer aspect of this generation.

Oh, and if you listen to the Beck interview and get as excited and intrigued about all of this as I did, be sure to register for our upcoming Tech Summit on Gaming @ Your Library! Thanks to our Executive Director, Alice Calabrese, I get to attend the ADL Games, Learning, & Society Conference in June, after which I’m debating trying to put together a day-long symposium/discussion/whatever specifically about gaming and libraries.
[The Shifted Librarian]

Tue, 22 Feb 2005 01:02:04 GMT

It's gotten to the point where I want to teach. I really do. But I don't want to have to make a living at it. So I work at a corporate job (a good one, that I like, and in a good workgroup), but I want to teach again when the lack of money doesn't mean anything, anything at all. Perhaps when I retire.

Please, God, let me live long enough to do that.

Tue, 22 Feb 2005 00:59:15 GMT

Games and eLearning

Games and Learning: "Three University of Wisconsin-Madison professors, among the top researchers in learning through game-playing, explained the advantages of games over traditional teaching tools..."
Two things are currently hampering games in learning - lack of tools, lack of experience for learning designers. Games have much potential, but the startup is high in time and expertise requirements.
[elearnspace ]d Learning.

Wed, 09 Feb 2005 02:32:05 GMT

Celebrating the Body Beautiful. The human body is intriguing in all its forms. A photo exhibit features subjects both nude and clothed, giving us a complex picture of who we are as a species and as sexual beings. Commentary by Regina Lynn. [Wired News]

Wed, 09 Feb 2005 02:31:25 GMT

Now I'm really worried...and I thought public education was bad before (even though I insist on sending my children there to meet others unlike themselves.)

Does the First Amendment go 'too far'?. The First Amendment grants too many freedoms, according to more than a third of US high school children. This is the disturbing conclusion of a new report by the Knight Foundation. [kuro5hin.org]

Wed, 19 Jan 2005 00:49:46 GMT

A Nation founded on Christian Ideals?. "The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses." - John Adams

"I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life I absented myself from Christian assemblies." - Benjamin Franklin

"Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man" - Thomas Jefferson

"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution." - James Madison

"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon that the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and for my own part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel." - Thomas Paine

"We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition ... In this enlightened Age and in this Land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man's religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest Offices that are known in the United States." - George Washington
[What Do YOU Think? Comment on this Post!] [Testify!] [Father Dan]

Sun, 16 Jan 2005 22:56:53 GMT

Our city library (Allentown, PA) does pretty well in the couches, computers, and helpful staff areas. Wireless broadband, remote access, and movie screening - not yet.

How Well Is Your Library Serving these Kids?.

Millennials & Libraries

“…When asked how frequently they used their local public libraries, most reported that they didn't read books for leisure that much (but they do read lots of magazines!) and don't use their libraries that often (there were two notable exceptions -- both young women who said they used their public libraries because they loved to read but couldn't afford to buy books or magazines). When asked what would draw them into their public libraries, they all said the following:

Wireless internet access
Remote/electronic access to all library materials
A more comfortable environment -- couches, coffee, and food all ranked highly
"More staff who are helpful and who show you where stuff is" -- a direct quote
Better marketing -- tell the public about what you've got going on!
More choices in materials
A movie screening room (this recommendation from an aspiring filmmaker, who was also the only panellist to indicate an interest in becoming a librarian)” [Pop Goes the Library]
[The Shifted Librarian]

Sat, 15 Jan 2005 23:56:28 GMT

Game Theory.

Terrific resource if you are interested in games and learning (part of the MIT OpenCourseWare initiative):Game Theory
[elearnspace]

Sat, 15 Jan 2005 23:54:47 GMT

Pollard's Creative Problem-Solving. Pollard's Creative Problem-Solving -- It's been a while since I've visited a number of my formerly regularly read blogs, so I've recently been making a conscious effort to revisit some of my old haunts. Two have come together when I noticed that Terry Frazier lauded the graphics that support the prolific Dave Pollard's usually insightful postings. This one...

...pointed out by Terry, has reminded me that I've had a few of Dave's pieces in my "to-blog" list for a while. I'll have dig them out, dust them off, and do something with them. [Frank Patrick's Focused Performance Blog]

Wed, 22 Dec 2004 01:17:27 GMT

Leaders Blogging.

Some significant blogging news: As many readers are aware, I'm an instructor at Red River College in Winnipeg, Manitoba (Canada). Several years ago, in my blogging enthusiasm, I tried to initiate a culture of blogging to encourage knowledge sharing. It failed (in the sense that I couldn't convince anyone to start blogging). Recently, RRC hired a new President - Jeff Zabudsky. I'm pleased that he has taken up blogging as a means of communicating with college staff: his blog, the RSS feed. I think it's an excellent way of compressing organizational knowledge flow (and adding a backflow dimension). Thankfully, openness is becoming a more common occurrence in business and society. I believe the defining trait of our generation is openness...not information/knowledge expansion.

I'm not aware of any other president of a large academic institution (RRC has 32,000 enrolments) who is blogging - are you? I've opened comments...please leave information on any academic leaders who you know of that blog.
[elearnspace]

Wed, 22 Dec 2004 01:10:46 GMT

Why Students Struggle When Pressure Is On. Psychologists are reporting that intense exam pressure is actually more likely to impair the performance of very good students than mediocre ones. By By BENEDICT CAREY. [NYT > Health]

Wed, 22 Dec 2004 01:10:14 GMT

OpenOffice 2.0 Preview Available. UPDATED The OpenOffice folks are giving the world peek-plus at version 2.0, which looks pretty snazzy. Of course, the Mac OS X version is still basically missing in action. At the rate things are going, it'll never be close to ready for prime time, much less at parity with the other versions. UPDATE: More from The Inquirer. [Dan Gillmor's eJournal]

Wed, 22 Dec 2004 01:09:30 GMT

Searching the Web for Copycats. Here's a useful application of the Google API: Copyscape, a free service that can find Web sites plagiarizing your content.

The service takes any URL as input, looking for a suspicious number of matching words on other sites. Most hits for Workbench came from sites and aggregators making legitimate use of my RSS feed.
Copyscape found several plagiarists of my book Sams Teach Yourself Java 1.1 in 24 Hours, using the first chapter as input.
The service might be too fast on the trigger: Another suspected copywronger was a person who quoted one of my jokes as his .SIG. [Workbench]

Tue, 14 Dec 2004 04:01:07 GMT

The Network is the Blog.

This image of blogging speaks well of its application to the learning process: The Network is the Blog: "Just as telephones are meaningful only when connected to the telephone network, so blogs are meaningful only when connected to the blog network...The blog network is made of people. We are the nodes, actively filtering and retransmitting knowledge. Clearly this architecture can help manage the glut of information. More subtly, it can also help ensure that no vital inputs are suppressed because nobody has to rely on a single source."
[elearnspace]

Tue, 14 Dec 2004 04:00:26 GMT

The Anti-Lecture.

Most people in education recognize the value of facilitation as an augment/replacement to lecturing. Facilitation: The Anti-Lecture provides a simple overview of the values of facilitation.
[elearnspace]

Sun, 28 Nov 2004 02:22:58 GMT

Science Geek Gifts for All. Banish underwear from your gift-giving list this year! Your smarty-pants friends and relatives aren't as hard to buy for as you might think. The web is full of brain-gratifying gift ideas. By Kristen Philipkoski. [Wired News]

Sun, 28 Nov 2004 02:19:53 GMT

A Gift of Reading. The day after Thanksgiving is the semi-official kickoff of the holiday shopping season. I hope you'll consider saving a bit of your budget for some folks who need help from the rest of us. One program I'd like to recommend again, as I do at this time every year, is the "Gift of Reading" sponsored by the Mercury News and Kids in Common. Reading is such a basic part of a productive life, and this book drive is a worthy way to get books into the hands of children who will gobble up words, given the chance, the way we all gobble up our Thanksgiving turkeys and trimmings. For many of these children, the books will be their only holiday gifts this year. So Gift of Reading is looking for new or like-new volumes, and asks that you not wrap them so the books can be sorted by age group. A cash donation is also welcome. You can find much more information on the program's website. Or call +1 (408) 882-0900, extension 11, or send e-mail to communityrelation@mercurynews.com. Please help out if you can. (Image via NASA) [Dan Gillmor's eJournal]

Sat, 20 Nov 2004 02:51:37 GMT

Get out those sneakers, babe:

Even Couch Potatoes May Have Been Born to Run. Humans evolved into the way they look today probably because of the need to cover long distances, scientists said today. By By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD. [NYT > Home Page]

Sat, 20 Nov 2004 02:42:53 GMT

The FCC Censorship Machine.

Jeff Jarvis: Censorship by the tyranny of the few. With not much original reporting, I discovered that the latest big fine by the FCC against a TV network -- a record $1.2 million against Fox for its "sexually suggestive" Married by America -- was brought about by a mere three people who actually composed letters of complaint. Yes, just three people.
The First Amendment is under attack, and I can't understand why the "conservatives" are so happy to see it happen. They've rightly complained about some of the left's overzealous "speech codes" at universities, but can't see why this is a much, much bigger threat -- ultimately to their own speech. I just got back to Hong Kong from Shanghai, where I met some young bloggers who have been cowed by odious government speech restrictions; they don't dare talk politics in a medium that is made to order for debating the issues of our times. America isn't China, but what's going on with broadcast censorship is an awful trend. [Dan Gillmor's eJournal]

Sat, 20 Nov 2004 02:41:08 GMT

Google Science Search. Jeremy Faludi: Google has a new tool for searching scientific literature, Google Scholar. It seems pretty impressive. For instance, searching for "biomineralization" turned up 3700 hits on... [WorldChanging: Another World Is Here]

Sat, 13 Nov 2004 02:38:20 GMT

Okay, here's what we did right...

Mom bought nursing home insurance. No telling how good it will be, but at least it's there.
Mom picked out the assisted living facility she wanted to go to before she needed it.
Both Mom and Dad saved for many years.
Both Mom and Dad worked at paying jobs for many years, so they both have a pension and social security income now. It's higher than most. The good elder care facilities talk to us. If Mom had stayed home, they'd only have half as much. (They actually need about 4 times as much, but this is better than it might have been.) All five of us (kids) are fine, by the way...nobody lost out because Mom got paid.

Here's what we did wrong:

We didn't get the nursing home insurance earlier. Dad had a stroke in his late 50's. No one will insure him now.
We didn't pick an assisted living facility with gradually increasing care levels. They're about to be thrown out of "assisted living" at $3400/month to a full-blown nursing home at a cost of $15,000/month. Neither of them need that yet, but we may have to pay it, and then watch the government run their lives after their savings run out. Intermediate care facilities and full service end of life facilities exist. Find them. Get on their waiting lists. (The best one I found has a 2-year wait.)
We didn't protect their money by putting it in a trust. You want an elder care lawyer for this, not a run of the mill lawyer, and go to one who doesn't take a percentage of their total assets.

Thu, 28 Oct 2004 04:21:38 GMT

Cool, huh!...

A Real Education, by Way of Sleight of Hand. Larry Hass, who normally teaches courses in philosophy at Muhlenberg College, in Allentown, Pa., has started teaching classes on magic. By By MAREK FUCHS. [NYT > Education]

Wed, 24 Mar 2004 02:34:56 GMT

Academics and blogging.

James links to this discussion on why academics blog. Some excellent questions are posed...with great responses. A few quick responses from my own perspective:
Why do you blog? To work through ideas...to create a history/record of my thoughts and their evolution. To find a pattern in the rapid flow of information.
What keeps you going?Same reasons as why I started...With the added benefit of being involved in a community of people that I dialogue with indirectly (i.e. I speak to them through my blog, I listen to them through theirs. I've largely given up on blog comments as dialogue. Time for revised expectations...:)).
What do you get from reading other blogs? Diversity of opinion...clash of ideas...synthesis...more complete perspective of issues...discovery of new trends before they become mainstream.
[elearnspace]

Tue, 16 Mar 2004 11:32:42 GMT

Liberal Arts Libraries Support Open Access Publishing.

Fifty-one liberal arts college libraries have become institutional members of Public Library of Science (PLoS), a non-profit organization dedicated to making scientific and medical literature a public resource. The libraries are members of the Oberlin Group, an informal community of liberal arts colleges and libraries dedicated to promoting science education (for more on the Oberlin Group, see this brief history by Ray English and Will Bridegam).

Joining PLoS promotes the growth of open access publishing by allowing authors from member institutions to publish in PLoS journals at reduced or no cost. Publication fees are a significant barrier to open access publishing of science, technical, and medical journals, and PLoS has sought to lower this barrier to entry.

For more on the announcement see the press release forwarded by Peter Suber, available at the extended link below:
[commons-blog]