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Friday, December 10, 2004 |
Students ditch the books in favour of online information
An article in Technology section on CNN
reports that students are staying away from text sources even when
asked to do so for an assignment. One student's response
was,"Excuse me, where would I get a book?"
In a study on research habits, Wellesley College researchers
Panagiotis Metaxas and Leah Graham found that fewer than 2 percent of
students in one Wellesley computer science class bothered to use
non-Internet sources to answer all six test questions.
And many
students failed to check out multiple sources. For instance, 63 percent
of students asked to list Microsoft Corp.'s top innovations only
visited the company's Web site in search of the answer.
It's a paradox to some that so many young Americans can be so accepting of online information whose origin is unclear.
"Skepticism
... is part of their lives, yet they tend to believe things fairly
readily because it appears on the Internet," said Roger Casey, who
studies youths and pop culture at Rollins College in Winter Park,
Florida.
One concern is commercial influence online; some search
engines run ads and accept payments to include sites in their indexes,
with varying degree of disclosure.
"If I'm going to go to the
library, chances are somebody hasn't paid a librarian 100 bucks to
point me to a particular book," said Beau Brendler, director of the
Consumer Reports WebWatch.
9:40:58 AM
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Thursday, November 18, 2004 |
Will Google Scholar put Ebsco out of business?
Google scholar
launches in Beta mode with impressive results. Provides links to
citations, online articles and books with some areas covered better
than others. IS this the end of library databases?
"Google Scholar enables you to search specifically
for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses,
books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas
of research. Use Google Scholar to find articles from a wide variety of
academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and
universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web."
10:25:06 AM
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Wednesday, October 13, 2004 |
More on google and librarians
why you can't find it on Google, a few ideas. Andrea looks at Cantfindongoogle.com
a list of failed searches. When people ask me, as they often do "how do
librarians stay relevant in the age of Google" I tell them that Google
is a very powerful tool that very few people know how to use well. I've
been reading Tara's Web Search Garage lately and even I'm
learning more about how to massage information out of Google. Sometimes
it's as simple as explaining to the patron that if you're looking for
LTD Consortium, it's going to be pretty important to use both words. Or
maybe telling the patron who is trying to find the Boston Museum of
Fine Arts that the key word to include in her search is "Boston." This
is second knowledge to me, and many of us, but it's not to my patrons.
Google is so fast and so useful that I've taken to remembering some web
pages just by the search terms that I can use to find them, since I can
never remember their URLs. I'm also pretty good at ballparking whether
some information that I need either can or can NOT be found in Google
before I waste a lot of time looking. That's powerful stuff, and a
useful skillset, so it's good to remember that some people don't have
that mojo, either because they haven't learned, don't care, or give up
too easily. [librarian.net : a library weblog]
3:43:35 PM
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Gary Price on the value of modern librarians
Gary Price interviewed in Library Link. He's been asked so much about Google and librarians, he's got a good answer handy. LL: How can librarians stay ahead of the perception that everything people need is two clicks away on Google?
GP: Google and other web engines are fine for certain types of
searching. However, it's not the best choice in some situations. The
challenge for us is not only telling people about what Google and other
web engines can offer but also showing them what's not available.
Likewise, we can demonstrate how to be a better web search engine
searcher. This is valuable info for many people. Why? With the help and
knowledge of a good information professional we can help to save the
time of our users. This is a commodity everybody wants to have more of. [librarian.net : a library weblog]
3:43:02 PM
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Wednesday, September 29, 2004 |
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Monday, August 23, 2004 |
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Friday, August 20, 2004 |
Celebrate International Literacy Day
Ideas for celebrating the day in September that "focuses attention on
worldwide literacy issues and needs." Includes activity and event
suggestions, a fact sheet, media tips, a downloadable brochure, and
information about the International Reading Association Literacy Award,
which is presented on International Literacy Day. From the
International Reading Association, a professional membership
organization. Librarians' Index to the Internet]
10:18:20 AM
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Thursday, August 12, 2004 |
Wikipedia
Wikipedia (a free online encyclopedia)is a tremendous example of collaborative content creation. This Slashdot
interview with Wikipedia's founder gives insight into the project, its
motivations, meaning, and reasons for success. It's a refreshing read
in "successfully implemented idealism".
Comment: Like social network analysis and communities,
collaborative content creation has been untapped by education
providers. Our course-based focus of learning continues to be at odds
with how many people learn today. This is not to say that courses
aren't valuable...just that they need to be properly positioned in a
wider array of learning methods - not centric, but complimentary to the
entire learning/knowledge acquisition experience. [elearnspace]
10:06:49 AM
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eSchool News
eSchool News has this piece on RSS and its potentials in schools. The article also briefly discusses blogs and wikis.
Really Simple Syndication (RSS) might not mean much
yet to the average internet user--but it soon could revolutionize the
medium. Some forward-thinking educators are taking advantage of the
burgeoning technology to keep abreast of school-related issues and push
important information to stakeholders.
eSchool News now has RSS feeds of it's own, by the way, and stay tuned for some more blog related initiatives that may be coming down the pike. [Weblogg-ed News]
9:23:37 AM
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© Copyright 2004 Johan Ragetli.
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