2011 Horizon Report is out!

The release of a new Horizon report is a happy day for me. Of no surprise to anyone is the time to adoption one year of mobile computing and ebooks. We are still waiting for students to adopt ebooks at the library... it can be difficult to wait for even the early adopters when we are paying so much for the books as well as access fees. Its still a device driven problem.

I am excited to read about game based/driven learning and gesturing. What a world we live in!

What stuck out for you in the report?

LIS blog

I am digging this LIS Blog. The instructors threw out everything and started over by launching this blog. great stuff!

PearlTrees

Each time i teach my cataloging class I want students to understand the differences between tags and subject headings; not just the process but how they are similar and yet different. With the news that Delicious may not continue when Yahoo sells the website I decided to explore other options.

I tried PearlTrees. I really like it.
1. easy to set up
2. can import bookmarks from delicious
3. its visual and easy to follow
4. less restrictive in creating hierarchies within trees.

take a look at my tree and let me know what you think. then give it a shot and post your comments!

Packers Win SuperBowl

LIS article

I love the simplicity of this approach to LIS teaching!

Delicious, social networking and teaching

Each semester I include a discussion /exercise for experimenting with Delicious as both a bookmarking and social networking site. Students are required to create an account and then tag 20 sites. Since this is a cataloging class the objective is to compare the intellectual process of tagging to subject analysis and then use the cloud tag to compare. Its a great way to introduce students to a non-threatening social network site.

Quiz

I created an assessment tool for my cataloging class using ProProfs quiz maker. It was very easy to create and required that I plan ahead for the types of questions I wanted to ask! I liked that I could time the quiz and select various types of questions.

The things I did not like about Proprofs are:

Inability to give a varied grade.

Inability to force students to answer the question.

Inability to control open ended questions - the entire answer was checked versus part of the whole.

Then I created a survey in Zoomerang which I liked much better for this type of survey!

Jing - great!

I created a 5 minute Jing for my cataloging students. Its a basic introductory tutorial for verifying and assigning LCSH. Students can see the searching in action and understand the process more readily.

Jing is easy to use and you can embed, link or post the link. Creating tutorials are very easy and can convey to students concepts and procedures that are too complicated for an online class. Jing could not be easier to use!

RDA Updates

As the RDA testing period ends in December, the documentation continues to grow. Example sets, additional clarifications and instructions are available from the Library of Congress. .

Creating my own content

I created a Jeopardy review game that will assist students in preparing for the exam. I created the game using the Wisc-Online games tool and found it to be very easy to do! Review games seem to help students prepare and they can do it on their own time.

Twitter Tech tips...ultimate synchronous communication

Great article! Twitter Tech tips Twitter is the ultimate in real time communication! I am still on the fence about using Twitter in the classroom but as an instant poll or question it fits the bill nicely.

The future of online education?

OpenStudy is a startup company from Georgia Tech and Emory University that wants to create online study groups and a platform for independent learners. What does a project such as this do to the future of online formal education?

Did you know- now updated 4.0

I love to start out the new school year featuring the most up to date Did you know video for my students on the first day of class. The video perfectly frames the discussions we will continue for the rest of the term.

Asynchronous versus synchronous

Planning and implementing a vs s communication in the online classroom. Great stuff, thank you EduCause!

Its obvious to me but...

apparently not to everyone else that Google Apps for education are totally happening!

ACU Videos - Abilene Christian University ACUVideos's Channel

I recommend that everyone subscribe to the ACU video channel on YouTube for ready made content! In 2008 this Abilene gave every single incoming freshman an iphone 3g or itouch for mobile learning! Student focused, their plan is driven by learning!

Kahn Academy Videos

After Bill Gates named Sal Khan his favorite teacher, Khan became famous over night. I love his student driven videos for all types of information. Could this be the new educational horizon?

Keeping a place for everything!

I am still deciding how to organize this blog for tech tools. For now I am going to work on my tagging to see if i can keep professional reading and tools separated. Right now I am reading an article entitled, Information behaviour. The report defines the google generation and discusses how students and researchers, search for the information they need. While not specifically a techtools article, it is important for instructors to understand students may not have the information literacy skills that we think they have! I am very interested in this as an informative report.