SJRLC Connections

Digitial Learning Day

Should be an exciting, informative day!!


Digital Learning
Presented by the Camden County Association of School Librarians and the Tri-County Librarians’ Association

DATE: April 5, 2008
COST: FREE
LOCATION:  Clearview Regional High School, 625 Breakneck Rd., Mullica Hill, NJ  08062
AGENDA:


8:30am – 9:00am

• Registration and refreshments

9:00am – 10:00 am: BREAKOUT SESSIONS

•  Gaggle, More Than a Bunch of Geese. Scott Wagner, Clearview Middle School Social Studies Teacher.  Gaggle is more than a safe e-mail account.  Students and teachers can blog, use message boards, open chat rooms, store information in digital lockers, and communicate in a safe environment.
• Intelliboard .Donna H. Armstrong, Clearview Middle School, Technical Support Teacher.  Using an interactive white board can be as easy as using a mouse. Learn more lesson development ideas using the Intelliboard that we have here at Clearview.
• Have You Googled Lately? Michelle Marhefka, Clearview Middle School Librarian. Learn some hints in searching this popular search engine.

10:00am – 10:15am

• Break

10:15am – 11:15am: BREAKOUT SESSIONS

• Podcasting 101  Part 1, Robert P. Rynkiewicz, Assistant Director at The Atlantic City Free Public Library. This workshop will outline the planning, the production, the hardware, and the software needed to produce podcasts for Web sites. Planning and production issues will be discussed to help make recordings sound like professional podcasts creating by professional blogging sites on the Internet.
• iMovie Part 1.Nancy Dowd, Director of Marketing for the NJ State Library.  Learn how to create your own video with easy step-by-step instructions. Please bring your Mac laptops.
• CPS – Classroom Performance System.  Michelle Marhefka, Clearview Middle School Librarian. What is CPS?  Find out by experiencing the Classroom Performance System and exploring its uses.

11:15am – 11:30am

• Break

11:30am – 12:30pm: BREAKOUT SESSIONS

• Getting The Most From EBSCOHost.  Jill Tweedie, EBSCO Sales Representative.  Learn to "Search Like a Pro" using basic and advanced search techniques. See what's new including enhancements, exciting new databases and more. Get a sneak preview of the upcoming EBSCOHost 2.0. Plus see a demo of Novelist Plus which includes Nonfiction titles! 
• Podcasting 101  Part 2.  Robert P. Rynkiewicz.
• iMovie Part 2.  Nancy Dowd

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Registration is FREE
PLEASE let us know if you will be attending on April 5, 2008 by sending an e-mail to Jackie Gould,           Clearview Regional High School Library Media Specialist:  gouldja@clearviewregional.edu

Registration deadline:  April 1, 2008

Interesting Debate on Web 2.0: Weinberger vs. Keen

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal ran a piece, "The Good, the Bad and the Web 2.0" that featured a debate between Andrew Keen, author of, "The Cult of the Amateur" and David Weinberger, author of "Everything is Miscellaneous".

I highly recommend the article, but for you fans of Cliffs notes, here's my quick 'n' dirty summary, followed a by a few questions to ponder.

Notes on Keen's position

IS WEB 2.0 A DREAM OR A NIGHTMARE?  It is: "The radical democratization of media which is enabling anyone to publish anything on the Internet.    

• Web 2.0 tranforms all of us into digital writers, music artists, movie makers, journalists (and critics)
  
• YouTube, blogs, Wikipedia, MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, Tagging
  
• A flattened media is a personalized, chaotic media without that essential epistemological anchor of truth.  The impartiality of the authoritative, accountable expert is replaced by the murkiness of the anonymous amateur.  When everyone claims to be an author, there can be no art. no reliable information, no audience
  
• Web 2.0's Democratization of information is creating a generation of media illiterates.  That's the Nightmare.
  
• Web 2.0 (combined with broadband) will transform the media into "ubiquitous chatter".  Digital abundance will lead to intellectual poverty.  "The more we know, the less we will know."
  
• Traditional media has done a good job in discovering, polishing, and distributing talent.
  
• To use this chaotic media efficaciously, we need to invent our own taxonomies -- which isn't realistic to the majority of the people.

Notes on Weinberger's position

THE WEB IS ABUNDANCE, WHILE THE OLD MEDIA IS PREMISED ON SCARCITY

• The web is problematic because there are no centralized gatekeepers BUT the Web is ALSO the continuing struggle to deal with that problem:  sites that enable users to tag online resources; the Web invents ways to pull together ideas and information, finding the connections and relationships that keep the "misc" from staying that way.
  
• People rely on a wide range of trust mechanisms appropriate to the domain to guide us (i.e. ebay reputations; persistence of posts on blogs; recommendations of other bloggers; Wikipedia's sophisticated governance and complete transparency…)
  
• Amateurs aren't driving out pros.  But the criteria governing our choice of whom to listen to are expanding from "those are the only channels I get".
  
• Keen's picture of talent is formed by the binary view the traditional media has forced on us.  It's been expensive to produce, market, distribute products (book, records, films).  The traditional distribution system made it look like talent is a you-got-it-or-you-don't proposition.  That doesn't reflect the scarcity of talent so much as the scarcity of distribution, a result of the high cost of delivering the first copy.
  
• We couldn't find so much on the web if finding required creating our own taxonomies as Keen says.   We rely on taxonomies created by experts (catalogs, indexes), computer assistance (search engines) and recommendations from people we trust.  We're getting better at all of these.
  
• Consider how much more we know about the world because of bloggers.  They may not be "journalists" but they are sources.

Thoughts/Questions

1. What can libraries be doing to help people find information?
   • Creating (good) expert taxonomies
   • Building recommendations systems into our catalogs and websites
   • Leveraging our reputation as a trusted source
   • Become actively involved with social tagging.   
     
2. What can/should libraries be doing to help customers create and share?  Can/should we be aggregating or creating local community or subject oriented:
   • Blogs
   • Wikis
   • YouTube "channels"
   • Podcasts
     
3. As information professionals, what are our information competencies in the web 2.0 world?
   • Can should we be helping to teach our customers how to use new information technologies to enhance their lives?
   • What do you think of David Lee King's suggested competencies. 
   • How do Livonia Central School's tech competencies for 3rd graders compare/contrast with the current competencies of library staff?   
     
4. Web 2.0 fosters communities of interest.  Are there opportunities for libraries to strengthen their role in their community and/or connect people (or connect with people) in their communities?

Library Camp!

Library Camp NYC, August 14, 2007, New York, NY

Baruch College (New York, NY) will be hosting Library Camp NYC, a free event on Tuesday, August 14, 2007, from 9am to 4pm. This event will be run as an  unconference and will focus on finding solutions to common problems and issues for current and prospective librarians in all types of libraries.

For those who may be unfamiliar with unconferences, here are the basics:

• The program is determined by the actual attendees of the conference.  The meeting starts off with each attendee introducing him or herself and detailing what topics he/she would like to see covered in a discussion group that day.
  
• A meeting facilitator helps finalize the agenda (attendees may end up voting on what discussion groups are needed) and a schedule for the day is mapped out.
  
• Facilitators help keep individual discussion groups moving along.

If you'd like to read more about this event or past ones, please visit the
Library Camp NYC wiki here:  http://librarycampnyc.wikispaces.com

If you would like to attend, please place your name on the sign-up page of
the wiki here http://librarycampnyc.wikispaces.com/Sign-up+Page

You can see what others have proposed as discussion topics and add your
suggested topics here: http://librarycampnyc.wikispaces.com/Discussion+Topics

Should you have any questions about this event, please feel free to contact
Rachel Watstein at Rwatstein [at] aol.com

Podcasting Workshop Resources

A big thank you to Bob Rynkiewicz, Atlantic City Free Public Library's Assistant Director, for delivering a wonderful tech talk on Podcasting yesterday.

Bob has graciously agreed to share his powerpoint slides, which are available here in pdf format.

Here are some other resources, some of which we discussed, others are drawn from my personal bookmarks:

Recommended Tutorials

• Lansing Public Library: http://www.lansing.lib.il.us/podcast.htm  (Bob Recommends)
• 23 Things: http://tinyurl.com/2kvxjs
• How to Podcast: http://tinyurl.com/2fa9gk
• Forever Geek: http://tinyurl.com/mn8ad
• Network 211: http://www.network211.com/podcasting/
• Podcast Free America: http://tinyurl.com/2z9wdq

File Hosting options

• Creative Commons: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CcPublisher
• Odeo Studio: http://studio.odeo.com (will allow you to create audio, host all ready created audio, create channels, and generate RSS feeds for you---You may want to start here…
• Delicious PlayTagger: http://del.icio.us/help/playtagger  (creates a little mp3 player for your page.)  Kind of like this:  (click the blue button to play)
  
  • Michael Stephens says hello

Recording Software

• Audacity: Don't forget to download the lame.dll which allows you to convert to mp3 format
• RecordForAll: A nice bit of shareware.  Try it for free, buy it if you like it.

And don't forget to check out ACFPL's Podcasting page.

Tech Talk: Podcasting

South Jersey Regional Library Cooperative presents

A New Tech Talk...

Now We're talking!

Led by Bob Rynkiewicz,
Assistant Director Atlantic City Free Public Library

Thursday, March 29, 2007 10:00-Noon (9:30 Coffee; Free lunch 12-1) Cost:  FREE Cherry Hill Free Public Library 1100 Kings Highway N., Cherry Hill Directions: www.sjrlc.org/directions/chpl

CLICK HERE FOR REGISTRATION FORM

The other way to chat with your patrons...

Come hear how the Atlantic City Free Public Library implemented podcasting and learn how you can offer podcasts on your website.   Bob will discuss both hardware and software issues of bandwidth, drive space, recording and producing audio files and creating the web interface for podcasts.

Bob will also discuss the Joomla Content management System (CMS) that ACFPL uses for its website.  This popular CMS, along with software components that can be added, allows you to offer a wide range of Internet services such as podcasts, RSS Feeds, Subscription Service, and more.

Stay for the free lunch an informal, free-flowing conversation on podcasting, Joomla, and general technology issues. 

Earn 2 Professional Development Hours for attending this program. 

CLICK HERE FOR REGISTRATION FORM

Five weeks to a Social Library

from: http://infotangle.blogsome.com/2006/10/07/call-for-participants-five-weeks-to-a-social-library/

Call for Participants - Five Weeks to a Social Library

We are now accepting applications for participants for the Five Weeks to a Social Library course which will take place online between February 12 and March 17, 2007.

We have a really fantastic program planned including webcasts, screencasts, podcasts and group chats, with a very talented group of presenters who will be teaching participants about Blogs, Wikis, RSS, Social Bookmarking, Flickr, MMOGs, and Selling Social Software. Application deadline is December 1,2006. The course will be limited to forty participants, but all of the course content including live Webcasts will be archived and made freely available to the public. Questions should be directed to the planning committee at sociallibrary@gmail.com.

You may also be interested in the "Learning 2.0" class that the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County recently offered. You can follow that class on their blog at your own pace.