findingEducation’s Digital Teachers’ LoungeTips and insights from the findingEducation team.

Last week, findingEducation spoke with Michael Stephens, an assistant professor at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Dominican University in River Forest, Ill. As the 2009 CAVAL Visiting Scholar in Australia, Stephens spent five weeks of his fall semester riding camels on the beach, as well as lecturing and researching the impact of the Learning 2.0 self-directed technology program.

Stephens coauthored a column in Library Journal for more than two years. He recently shared a column in Digitale Bibliotheek, a Dutch library journal, with Jan Klerk, and engages with readers on his blog, Tame The Web. In 2001, he published a book, “The Library Internet Trainer’s Toolkit, and between 2006 and 2007, wrote two library technology reports on Web 2.0.

fE: What made you choose to teach library science and why technology skills, specifically?

MS: I spent 15 years working in the public library setting. In 1995, the library that I was in was the second in the world to have a Web page. This was at St. Joseph County Public Library in South Bend, Ind. Some of the jobs that I had there revolved around teaching staff what the Internet was, and what we might do with it. I started doing public classes and found that I liked to introduce people to technology.

I got my Master of Library Science in 1995. I started teaching as an adjunct for Illinois University, and realized that this was something I wanted to pursue more. Luckily an announcement about the program funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) at the University of North Texas came into my inbox with a couple weeks left to apply. They funded 10 people to get a doctorate in information science, so they could go into teaching positions in library schools. I applied and got in!

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Subject: Integrated Technology, Uncategorized
Tags: Educator Profiles

Before the holiday break, findingEducation spoke with Sarah Houghton-Jan, also known as the Librarian in Black, about her roles as a blogger, lecturer and the digital futures manager for the San José Public Library.

Houghton-Jan told findingEducation that when she’s teaching a customer or student something new, she tries to pretend she’s speaking to her mother because “the unknown is really creepy. And that causes me to show a certain level of respect and patience,” she said. “[M]aybe that will work for other people [but] only if you like your mother,” she added with a laugh.

Houghton-Jan was chosen as a Mover & Shaker by Library Journal in 2009. She is also a consultant for the Infopeople Project and a member of the Library & Information Technology Association’s Top Technology Trends Committee.

fE: Could you tell us how you became the digital futures manager for the San José Public Library?

SHJ: I started out not even wanting to be a librarian, and not being very techy. I was just handed our library’s Web site, at the university where I went to library school, and they said, “You’re responsible for maintaining this part of the Web site. Have fun!” I had no HTML training. So I did just a lot of self-training. And I took what few Web-based classes were available.

When I got out of library school, I was looking to relocate to the San Francisco area and one of the jobs that was available was for a combination Web site manager and technology trainer.

I’d been a teacher for a while, and I’d also now managed a Web site, so that was perfect.

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Subject: Integrated Technology, Other, Uncategorized
Tags: Educator Profiles

The end of a month, year and decade seems like an opportune time to take stock of where Dulcinea Media fits into the ever-changing landscape of Web content.

Since I founded Dulcinea Media three years ago, the marketplace has gradually warmed to my view that uncurated, general search engines are a less-than-perfect tool for finding information online.  One study, showed that user satisfaction with search results declined from 78% in 2005, according to Pew Internet, to 62% in 2006, and again to 51% in 2008, according to the University of Southern California’s Center for Digital Technology. And a study from the UK exposed as a myth the notion of a “Google Generation” of young people with native ability to find information online.

Next, Nicholas Carr, who famously asked “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, and a number of other columnists bemoaned the reality that most users today read an Internet that is a mile-wide and an inch-deep. The center of their media world is a technology driven algorithm and “the wisdom of crowds” that simply uncover the same recycled headlines and updates from a slew of news sources. And Roger Schank, an artificial intelligence expert from Yale University, reversed his 30-year-old prediction that we would create machines as smart as humans in his lifetime. Schank came to recognize that “[h]umans are constantly learning … [e]very new experience changes what we know and how we see the world.”  Schank attributed this to “an unconscious indexing method that all people learn to do without quite realizing they are learning it.”

And now a growing chorus of observers is acknowledging that search engines often fail the user. The impetus is the rise of “content farms,” which all but assure that search engines are only going to get worse at delivering quality results on the first search results page. Demand Media, Associated Content, Mahalo, Bukisa, eHow, HubPages and a voracious pack of others are paying freelance writers a modest per-article fee to create tens of thousands of articles each day. And these companies excel at getting their content to rank high in search engines, regardless of quality.

What I see is that this avalanche of mediocre content will drive Internet users to the “new portals” - trusted sources that consistently deliver important, relevant, reliable and comprehensive information, from a wide variety of resources across the Internet, utilizing a human touch.

Naturally, Dulcinea Media is planning to be one of those trusted sources. findingDulcinea now offers Web Guides to only the best information about more than 700 broad topics, and we’ve created thousands of Beyond the Headlines and Features articles that provide a full context view of news stories. Our sister site, encontrandoDulcinea, replicates much of this content in Spanish. To make all this content easier to access, we’ve introduced SweetSearch, a custom search engine that harnesses Google’s technology and the 100,000+ hours of Web site evaluation that is the bedrock of findingDulcinea. SweetSearch returns results only from a “whitelist” of 35,000 sites that we’ve evaluated and approved. And we are constantly tweaking SweetSearch to ensure that it remains the best search engine for students, and indeed, the only one they can use effectively. Lastly, we introduced findingEducation, a free, easy-to-use blogging platform that enables educators to leverage our tools to find and share great links with their students and colleagues.

As our audience continues to grow, we’ve found that our “best customers” are college, high school and middle school students. And thus we’ve begun to focus our content on subjects that would be of interest to teachers, librarians, and students. Through our conversations at the AASL conference for school librarians, and the NCSS conference for social studies teachers we learned there is a critical need in the marketplace for free products that promote effective, efficient, safe and responsible use of the Internet, and that ours fit the bill magnificently.

We remain steadfast in one guiding principle:  we will not use technology to aggregate links for Web Guides or articles; everything will pass through the prism of human judgment.

To address scaling issues while holding form to this principle we plan to introduce a program early next year in which we invite librarians and educators to submit content. Practitioners of these professions are trained to find, evaluate and recommend outstanding information resources, and library Web sites have always been the closest comparable to our Web Guides. We envision findingDulcinea and SweetSearch becoming a repository of the knowledge and insight of tens of thousands of librarians and teachers.

And we’ll stick with that vision, for as long as it takes to make it a reality.

~Mark Moran, Founder & CEO Dulcinea Media

Subject: Integrated Technology
Tags: Integrated Technology

Helene Blowers is the digital strategies director for the Columbus Metropolitan Library in Ohio, which was recently rated a five-star library by Library Journal for the second year in a row. Named a “mover and a shaker” by the same publication in 2007, Blowers created the Learning 2.0 project, which has been duplicated by more than 700 organizations worldwide.

Blowers also writes a blog called LibraryBytes where she examines trends and offers constructive advice for other lifelong learners.

fE: What made you choose to become a librarian?

HB: By some people’s definition I may not be a librarian because I do not have formalized training. But I have worked in libraries for 17 years.

I work in libraries because I’m passionate about learning. I started as a library page at my hometown library when I was in high school and ended up also working in the library in college, processing interlibrary loans as part of my work-study program. My degree is actually in organizational communications and after college I started doing a lot of  technology training. That was in the early 1990s. From teaching technology at the community college, I then jumped back into libraries from an education standpoint, becoming Charlotte Mecklenberg’s public library’s first library resource trainer.

Now, I’m the digital strategies director for the Columbus Metropolitan Library and although my specific area of focus is mostly in the digital space, it’s really the learning  aspect that keeps me here.

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Subject: Integrated Technology
Tags: Educator Profiles

danah boyd in a photo by Gilad Lotan.

Last week, findingEducation caught up with Dr. danah boyd at the American Association of School Librarians National Conference in Charlotte, N.C. boyd is an internationally recognized social media expert researcher for Microsoft Research New England, a fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, and an ethnographer, blogger and contributing author to the book “Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media.”

boyd explains on her blog that “there are a lot of reasons … some personal and some political” as to why she decided to omit the capital letters in her name. A keynote speaker at the conference, she drew from her research on social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook to explain how kids use these tools to communicate and to “create digital bodies” to express themselves.

In her online biography, boyd describes herself as a bored and rebellious student that went to “smart kids camp” in the summer but had trouble fitting in until she went online. “The Internet opened the door of possibilities to me. I found other smart kids year round … Strangers taught me so much about the world and about myself,” she wrote.

“Unstructured environments are critical to social learning,” boyd said in her talk. Educators must “work with the grain, not against it.” She told findingEducation, “It’s not about getting kids to be passionate about the things that librarians and teachers are passionate about, but using what kids are passionate about as gateways to learning.”

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Subject: Integrated Technology
Tags: Educator Profiles

The 14^th American Association of School Librarians National Conference & Exhibition takes place Nov. 5 – 8, 2009, in Charlotte, N.C., at the Charlotte Convention Center. The conference aims to inspire and reinvigorate library media specialists as they implement learning guidelines and standards within their schools. According to AASL, it is “the only national conference devoted to the needs of school library media specialists!”

Many school librarians and teachers lack the time needed to create and update a complete a list of links to Web sites that their students may find useful. To support educators’ efforts to introduce their students to useful Web resources, we created our Web Links pages. These pages contain links to scores of useful Web sites, categorized by school level, and divided into teacher and student pages.

All of the links have been thoroughly evaluated and approved by Dulcinea Media’s staff of expert Internet researchers, or its librarian and teacher consultants. We hope the school librarian community adopts these Web Links pages as their own, and actively suggests new categories and Web sites.

Take a look at the Web Links pages today, and visit us at the AASL conference at booth #1069 on Nov. 5 – 7.

Subject: Integrated Technology, Other
Tags: findingEducation Updates

Rather than merely watching media or reading information on the Web, kids today want to interact with media and information—and create their own. Fortunately, the scope and quality of Web sites that provide a forum for child-generated content has never been better. Are you looking for kid-friendly sites that are both educational and entertaining? Read on to find sites that provide a portal for content created by kids that will keep them engaged while they learn.

Civic Involvement and Social Networks

PBS’ Speak Out Web site, which launched during the 2008 presidential election, “is a youth collaborative project to create a digital open letter to our presidential administration.” The site encourages 6 to 12-year-olds to share their ideas on how President Obama should deal with important issues, such as health care and education. Ideas are voted on, and those receiving the highest number of votes are then “featured on pbs.org/speakout in the form of a message to our President.”

Think social networking is only for adults? Not anymore. The My LEGO Network is a social networking portal for children that allows them to “create and control” their own Web pages. “You can collect, build, and trade with virtual items. You mail with your friends, and show off your creativity to the whole wide world!” the site explains. Users can also compose music and make stickers or virtual LEGO structures.

Documentary and Photography

BYkids encourages kids to create socially conscious films. Five kids per year are paired with “master filmmakers” that act as mentors in the making of “short documentaries that educate Americans about globally relevant issues.” Kids aged 8-21 are selected from around the world to participate in the month-long projects. Film subjects are decided on by “UNICEF and a group of nationally-recognized journalists, filmmakers, teens and non-profit leaders,” according to the nonprofit organization’s Web site. Once completed, the films are distributed at film festivals, for TV broadcast and “DVD distribution, school programs and web downloads,” targeting at least two million viewers.

The nonprofit organization Kids with Cameras “teaches the art of photography to marginalized children in communities around the world.” There are many benefits of photography, including empowering children by building their confidence and self-esteem, and giving them a sense of hope for the future by tapping into their imaginations, the organization’s Web site suggests. Kids with Cameras shares children’s photos in “exhibitions, books, websites and film,” and works to improve children’s communities by partnering with “local organizations” and donating print sales.

Subject: Art, Integrated Technology, Other, Social Studies, U.S. Government
Tags: Sites to Bookmark

David Lee King by Amy Miller Photography.

In Topeka, Kan., the library is the second favorite place for teens to hang out. “We’re sort of kicked out at the mall,” they tell David Lee King, the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library’s digital branch and services manager. As a result, the building, particularly the new media area and gaming room, are a little noisier than your average library. But King, a former DJ and assistant recording engineer, and now an author, blogger and librarian thought leader, takes pride in all the bustle. “Not too many people can say, ‘Yeah, teenagers think that the library’s cool.’”

On Oct. 28, King is launching the Library 101 Project with fellow information specialist Michael Porter. The project will include a music video, educator essays and 101 resources.

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Subject: Integrated Technology, Other, Uncategorized
Tags: Educator Profiles

When Wolfram|Alpha announced its first-ever Homework Day, we took notice.

Homework Day is a live, interactive Web event that will feature step-by-step tutorials showing educators how to use Wolfram|Alpha in the classroom. It will also present panel discussions on the future of education. The event takes place tomorrow, Wednesday, Oct. 21, starting at noon CDT.

What is Wolfram|Alpha, you ask? That’s the best part: Rather than a search engine, it calls itself a “computational knowledge engine” that makes “it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything.” By collecting and curating objective data, models, methods and algorithms, the site aims to provide “definitive answers to factual queries” in the areas of math, physics, chemistry, geology, geography and even history. Simply enter your “completely free-form input” and the site promises to deliver “powerful results … with maximum clarity.”

The news media loves to ponder whether Bing or anyone else can ever dislodge Google as the top commercial search engine. But as Wolfram Alpha’s promise of “definitive answers to factual queries” shows, while Google may forever be the best search engine to use in most cases, there are a number of specialty search engines that will almost always produce better search results than Google in particular cases.

That’s why we created SweetSearch. It’s a more selective search engine that was built with students and academic research in mind. All of the 35,000 Web sites included in SweetSearch have been evaluated for content, quality and reliability. By combining human insight with search engine technology, SweetSearch excludes distracting clutter. It allows students to focus on determining which results are most relevant to their research, rather than waste time evaluating sites that are not worth their consideration. Due to the fact that SweetSearch only searches a small slice of the Web, sometimes a broader search engine will be a better place to start a search. But for research queries, SweetSearch will often display on the first page a “Eureka” result that may be buried many pages deep in a broad search engine.

Now educators and students have two tools to add to their online research arsenal, for times when a broad, commercial search engine doesn’t quite get the job done: Wolfram|Alpha for computations and SweetSearch for information.

Subject: Integrated Technology, Other
Tags: Sites to Bookmark

Joyce Valenza in a photo by Jim Graham.

This week, findingEducation spoke with Joyce Valenza, an information specialist and author who manages the Springfield Township High School Library in Erdenheim, Pa. Valenza is also a blogger for School Library Journal, a former tech columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer and a lecturer on education issues and technology.

Valenza sets the bar exceedingly high for librarians. Inspired by the benchmarks set by the American Association of School Librarians (AASL), she recently published “14 Ways K-12 Libraries Can Teach Social Media” (Tech & Learning, 21 Sept. 2009) and her own Manifesto for 21^st Century School Librarians, which calls for librarians to acquire the necessary skills to guide learners in new and emerging information and communications landscapes.

“If you call yourself an information professional, you have to be a professional in the information landscape of your time,” says Valenza.

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Subject: English & Literature, Integrated Technology, Languages, Other
Tags: Educator Profiles