Blogging student research. Five good reasons

Just posted my five top reasons for blogging the research process.  Check it out in my SLJ post.

Copyright-friendly wiki pathfinder

Just wanted to alert those folks who don’t read my SLJ Blog to my latest post.

One of my most popular pathfinders in our high school, where media projects are fairly commonplace, has been the one that leads learners to images and sounds they can use easily in Web publishing, podcasting, and broadcasting.

As I worked on updating my pathfinder on copyright-friendly media, I thought I’d open it up to our library/edtech community.  Can we build together an uberwikipathfinder?  Let’s see.

In any case, feel free to use the resources in the pathfinder if you’d rather build your own.

SLJ SIGMS Podcasts from NECC

SLJ just posted podcasts of our SIGMS panel at NECC.

You can hear my 21st Century Librarian Manifesto, as well as David Warlick on 21st century literacies, Alice Yucht–who throws a lifeline to those drowning in an information ocean and suggests her new three Rs, and Lisa Perez–who urges us to explore the potential for libraries in Second Life.

Please listen and comment.

Database VoiceThread

In preparation for the Teachers Teaching Teachers webcast tonight, I put together a little VoiceThread called: Why I Love Databases. It’s a bit corny and it needs a little humor. I welcome your ideas!

Please try to join us tonight at 9 PM Eastern for an EdTechTalk conversation about using State Online Virtual Library Click on Listen to listen live. Participate in the live text chat by clicking on the CHAT link (no password needed).

Host Susan Ettenheim shares:

Joining us tonight, will be Nancy Keane, who taught the online class this past summer for YALSA about teens and database use and Michael Gorrell, the Chief Information Officer for EBSCO (thank you Karen Minton of GALILEO, Georgia for making the connection!) As a Dad of 5 boys, Michael understands our cries for support and greater understanding about using these resources. Join us to learn new info from the inside!

We also welcome back Kate Storms of NOVEL, New York, Sylvia Norton of MARVEL, Maine, Karen Minton and Courtney McGough of GALILEO, Georgia.
Join Lee Baber and I (Paul is still away) and Joyce Valenza and Kevin and TEB and all of the teachers who are sharing!

More on databases

Paul Allison, of Teachers Teaching Teachers, posted this entry on Databases and Research on his blog last night. Listen to the audio.

I think Paul’s comments honestly demonstrate the problems we have promoting databases. At one point Paul asks do students really need those old newspapers anyway?

Paul’s right about much of the access stuff. It’s too hard and too confusing.

But, like it or not, the fact is that not all scholarly content, not all content is free. The stuff in the lit databases, for instance, comes from books and journals that writers write and publishers publish to make a living. The books are not free, neither is the content within them. Nevertheless, in most cases the content is free to our users, most importantly our learners.

As for why folks in tech circles aren’t using databases more, this really bugs me.

I know tech people who spend far more time mastering a sexy new app, than it would take to get into and figure out how to search a database. These tools certainly have as much worth as Twitter. Why not give them a try?

As for “what is special about these resources”and as for “kids not needing old newspapers.” Hmmm.

Do we want kids to use homogenized texts only? Or do we want them to touch and explore more contemporaneous sources? At Springfield, we’ve explored the development of the Holocaust through the 1930s New York Times. We’ve also experienced Civil War reporting and the language of the Civil Rights Movement through a first hand approach. Has Paul seen the depth in Gale’s Literary Resource Center or Biography Resource Center or Opposing Viewpoints? Has he seen the specialized business and history databases in EBSCOhost? The radio and television transcripts and the video in elibrary? The educational video and supporting content in United Streaming or Safari Montage? The primary source content in the many ABC-CLIO databases? The scholarly archive of JSTOR? The comprehensive analysis in CQ Researcher? The 50,000 ebooks on all topics and levels in netlibrary?

He needs a tour. Everyone needs a tour, especially our tech people. I am screaming now. You are missing really good stuff. Maybe not for every information task, but for many of them.

Until you’ve tasted a really good bagel you don’t know what you are missing.

Take a look at the databases my students can access or browse them by subject. From school these resources are merely one click more for students. I make sure everyone (including all parents) have password lists. We do workshops for parents too. These resources are fabulous. My students love them.

Could they be easier to access? Absolutely. We MUST work on that.

Join the conversation at 9:00 PM Eastern tonight on Teachers Teaching Teachers.

Let’s work together on solutions.

***********************************************

For those of you who are truly interested in student response to database, in a school culture that values research, I am included transcripts from my focus group study published in Chelton and Cool’s Youth Information-Seeking Behavior, 2nd edition. Scarecrow, 2006. (I do exit interviews with seniors every year.)

“There’s a database for everything.” Virtual Library as Quality Filter (Q5 & Q6)
Students spoke often about the importance of discerning quality information, the importance of being able to locate primary and scholarly sources. They valued pathfinders as a way to quickly get to resources for specific assignments and to quickly access particular information formats. But perhaps the biggest revelation from the groups was the enormous appreciation students felt for access to online databases. Student voices gushed as they easily listed and described their favorites. GaleNet, especially its Opposing Viewpoints database, was universally acclaimed. A kind of “me too” syndrome emerged in each group as they discussed their most-loved databases. Though students had their favorites, they recognized that they each had particular strengths and choosing the right one for a particular information task was important. Some displayed surprising understanding of which database was provided by which vendor. (In a perfect virtual library world, that concept would be transparent to the user.)
A: I like e-library.
A: Me too.
A: I like GaleNet.
A: I love GaleNet.
A: I love EBSCOhost.
JV: Why do you like the databases?
A: Because they really give you good essays and good material. Like you’re not getting little flimsy thingies from Google, you’re getting good solid essays.
JV: So databases seem to be like the primary value.
All: Yes. (Heads nodding in agreement) (Group 1)
JV: What features of the library website do you value the most?
A: Catalogs and Databases. (Yes, all, laughter)
JV: It seems like that’s a value for everyone?
All: Yeah. (All responding at the same time) GaleNet—yes, GaleNet! EBCOhost, I like e-library. e-library is the best for Global.
JV: It’s interesting to see that it is such consensus over the databases. Why is that, do you think?
A: Cause they have everything. It links you to the whole world.
A: There’s a database for everything. Like if you need newspaper articles, there’s one for that. If you need like scholarly sources, there’s one for that too. If you need like pictures or reviews, there’s stuff for them too. (Group 2)
A: I use it when – actually, I’m a dork. I use it when I don’t know anything about that particular issue just to read up on it, or also if we have debates like the UN model that we did in one of our classes, I wanted to know a lot about my position that I was given, so I used Opposing Viewpoints and Research Gold (Student Resource Center Gold) which actually really helped me to get in-depth what I needed to learn.
A: I like how there’s like a myriad of different databases in there, because if I’m in GaleNet’s Opposing Viewpoints and I type in my topic and I only get three articles, I go search at e-Library and I find 20 articles. (Group 3) Why the universal acclaim for databases? They give students efficient access to the materials their teachers value and those they have come to value themselves. Students noted that databases offered greater searching flexibility and more options than free Web search tools. They knew that databases offered opportunities to filter for peer-reviewed materials and to search by media or document type.
A: And also because you can be really clear about what you’re searching for, and you can say like peer-reviewed or only magazines or only video pictures, primary sources. Just the options make it valuable. (Group 1)
And students appreciate the portability of their database options.
JV: So you appreciate search options in databases.
All: Yes.
A: A lot. And I also use them at home too since we have the passwords. And I usually go back and research further at home on the databases on my own computer. (Group1)
Students explained that their strategies for evaluation extend to examining database result lists. In Group 3, one young man a selection process that moves well beyond satisficing. He described the importance of the critical evaluation of results even when they appear in already filtered databases.
A: The other thing is the ability to differentiate. I mean, yes, you have something like GaleNet and Opposing Viewpoints. But even Opposing Viewpoints might have articles that don’t hold up to par as some others might, and you learn to look at those with a critical eye, learn to differentiate between good articles. I mean, it’s not like looking at Google and GaleNet. You’re looking at something that’s very good and then deciding between great and better. (Group 3)

“I really don’t have to Google things anymore, to aimlessly research.” Comparing Google to the Databases and Virtual Library Resources (Q6 & Q10)
Convincing students to look beyond the free Web and commercial search engines has been described by many researchers as an uphill battle. (De Rosa, Dempsey, and Wilson, 2003; Fallows, 2005; Griffiths, J.R. and Brophy, P., 2005; Mann, 2005). In fact, the OCLC Environmental Scan ( quotes one content vendor , “Google is disintermediating the library” (De Rosa, Dempsey, and Wilson, 2003 Introduction ¶ 2). For the students in the focus groups, there are times to use Google, and there are clearly times when Google does not quickly get them what they need. A student in Group 1 expressed an understanding of Google’s limits, noting, “Apparently there’s an invisible Web that I didn’t even know about.”
When searching options are no more than an extra click away, and when use of those options are highly valued by their teachers, the slope to develop a richer searching tool kit does not seem as steep. Without prompting, nearly all the students were eager to compare their experiences with the world’s most popular search engine to their experiences with the Virtual Library for academic research. Students compared their lack of success with Google to their positive experiences with the website 23 times.
While students continue to use Google’s significant information reach for other information tasks, their academic behaviors and attitudes fly in the face of the Pew findings relating to college students who ignore their university’s resources. The Pew researchers observed “students who were using the computer lab to do academic-related work made use of commercial search engines rather than university and library Web sites” (Jones and Madden, 2002). Each focus group repeatedly expressed the belief that their school library’s customized interface was better able to give them what they needed, as well as what their teachers hoped they would find. Google didn’t cut it for their school projects. It wasn’t efficient for their information needs; it didn’t filter for quality. It didn’t have the type of search features they found in their favorite databases.
A: When you research at the Virtual Library, you know that you’re getting like correct information and stuff. Like going to Google and getting someone’s like crap. Or a student project. (Group 3)
A: If you end up going to Google, you have all sorts, you have all this huge pile to sift through, but the library’s already sifted through all of those. (Group 4)
Students often compared Google to subscription databases. Though Google may have quality materials, students generally felt it would be more expedient to use databases. (Interestingly, these same students are linked on the Virtual Library to Google Scholar, Google Print, and Google’s Advanced search screens. In the short answer items of the Web-based survey, students noted appreciation for being introduced to these extended Google tools.) The focus group students appear to understand the difference between general free Web search tools and databases.
A: Google doesn’t really come up with…
A: Scholarly articles. That’s how the Virtual Library helps us out. (Group 1)
A: I think I understand more about like general Google searches versus the databases, like how they’re separate and how they each kind of do different things for you. (Group 2)
A: To me a good researcher is someone who doesn’t try to find the easiest way out. I mean, it can take you, yeah, ten seconds, whereas ten minutes you can find twice amount of articles, journals, scholarly articles than you could have found on Google or Jeeves. I mean, they’re search engines, and that’s what they’re specified for, search engines. They’re not in-depth scholarly articles. You’re not going to find Harvard Journal . . . and if you do, maybe Google’s stepping up their game. (Group 3)
A: I know that like before my boyfriend got into a different private school, the teachers don’t even know what a database is. They are just like go on Google or something. . .And then I compare it to students at this school, and it’s like this is real information, I see that it’s from a scholarly article rather than like someone’s website project or something. (Group 3)
A: I think it’s a waste to go on Google, because like five articles from Google equal one from GaleNet.
(Group 3)
Group 4 noted that other school websites may have limited resources and they feature prominent links to Google. The group laughed and wondered why a library would bother to link students to create such a link.
A: I went to sites from a different high school and they had like a website but it didn’t have any databases, good ones, they had maybe like two, it was like Ask Jeeves and Google. [All laugh]
A: A link to Google. (Laughter)
JV: Why do you laugh when you hear that?
A: Cause it’s so…
A: It’s like a joke to us.
A: Cause now we have all these resources.
A: All we go to Google is for pictures now.
A: When we started out to research, every time we’d go to the library to research, we hear, now don’t just go to Google.” And other schools are like, “Hey, go to Google.”
A: In eighth grade they used to tell us all Google, and sites like Dogpile.
A: And how when I go to Google and I actually read stuff, I’m like, did a 12-year-old write this?
A: And they’re just like weak. (Group 4)
Students sensed that the sources found using databases would be preferred by their teachers. Although the search engine would not likely to be visible in the URL in a standard citation, the here student refers to the general quality of the choices (Q4):
A: Well, the other thing is when your teacher looks at your citations he or she is not going to see Google, Google, Google, Google, Google, Ask Jeeves. It’s personally embarrassing for me to have that, so having something like New York University Medical Journal . . . that’s a very good thing to have. And the teacher says okay, this person took time to do it. (Group 3)

On hooding and babies and bathwater

I am back from Texas, from the UNT hooding ceremony and from visiting family in Houston. (Those of you who are already groaning, please keep reading, this post moves beyond the personal.)

First, let me say that I am grateful to the UNT SLIS faculty for offering me a precious gift–the chance to pursue the degree that eluded me through so many years of kids and work. I was able to graduate with two members of my wonderful cohort: Michael Stephens and Stacy Creel. And I am grateful to my committee: Carol Simpson, Brian O’Connor, Sam Hastings, and Marjorie Pappas for guiding me through an arduous process.

As I sat in the audience watching 72 doctoral candidates get hooded before it was my turn, I considered that arduous process.

I considered it in light of my recent post on databases in SLJ, the argument I’ve been following in Chronicle of Higher Education, Britannica’s Web 2.0 Forum, Prensky’s motto: “Engage me or enrage me,” our/my very honest passion for all things 2.0. And then Chris Sessums pointed to YouTube video based on an Alan Watts talk: Music and Life, fairly scornful of the arduous (empty) process.

I suspect the truth lies somewhere in between a scorn for the worn and the thrill of the new. Can we engage our learners without throwing out some of the 1.0 bathwater?

I grew up “paper trained.” But nearly every time I opened the bag I received (see that video), though I had to wait a bit, it actually did contain riches that allowed me to do the things I wanted to do and to grow as I did them. No one ever told me to sell insurance or wear a gray suit. Along the way there was time for music and dance and wine and friends.

Back in high school, I wrote carefully scrutinized papers, that were scanned for the quality of my argument and the quality of my evidence. I also worked on authentic projects; I tried to save the world; I created media (albeit primitive).

I am so impressed with Marco Torres’ students’ work. I want my students to create work like that, work is powerful and relevant and intelligent. I truly get the problems Marco’s students describe in Digital Students @ Analog Schools. I want my students to encounter university programs that allow them to continue to learn, to create in multiple media, to contribute.

But I want them also to learn to write a formal paper. I want them to develop the patience required to read serious nonfiction and journal articles. I want them to be able to carefully evaluate media and sources in any format. I want them to be ready and able to write an academic argument, an annual report, a carefully considered business plan.

As I work to engage them, as I look for projects that allow them to explore the power of media, to communicate effectively with expanded audiences, I want want them also to strive for quality. I want them to develop some more traditional skills.

I want them to have some level of academic patience. This work might take energy.

Though I want to make those databases I love way easier to find and use, I also don’t think asking students to go one more click beyond Google is too much to ask.

Teachers Teaching Teachers: Webcasts on Subscription Databases

Don’t miss the next two webcast chats on state subscription databases hosted by TeachersTeachingTeachers on the EdTechTalk channel. They’re coming up over the next two Wednesday nights at 9:00 PM Eastern time. Last night the TTT folks hosted representatives from Georgia’s Gallileo, New York’s NOVEL, Maine’s MARVEL!, and Florida’s FEL. Catch up with my SLJ post on the first chat (which I got to pretty late) and the things that keep me up at night. Thanks TTT for focusing on this important educational topic!

Thoughts on retooling

Last week I attended our leadership summit in State College, PA. As a whole, our organization has been slow to embrace 2.0 technologies. Perhaps this is true of most state school library organizations.

But this is a critical year for school librarians in Pennsylvania.  And it is wise that this year our organization is fully focused on professional development.

Our state is entering the second fully-funded year of the Classrooms for the Future grant. The grant will put a laptop on the desk of every student in high school English, math, social studies, and science classrooms.

Each school in the program has a technology integrator who is experiencing a rich professional development experience. He or she is responsible for spreading the knowledge they gain with their high school faculties.

What this means is that Pennsylvania high school librarians must retool as our schools retool. Wait a minute. We must retool before our schools retool. It’s not optional.

We must all figure out how to teach and lead in technology infused, one-to-one schools. We must figure out how to lead in the areas of information technologies and new strategies for communicating information products. We must figure out how to best collaborate with our technology integrators. We must figure out how to reach students who are researching and writing in their classrooms.

This can happen through our virtual libraries. This can happen when we physically leave our libraries to partner with classroom teachers.

To get our feet wet, one of our first strategies was to set up a PSLA Ning. We are also considering following California’s example, investigating a program that resembles School Library Learning 2.0.

Did I mention that this is not optional?

EBM (Esprosso Book Machine): ATM for books

This was just twittered (tweeted) by BudtheTeacher: First Espresso Book Machine Installed and Demonstrated at New York Public Library’s Science, Industry and Business Library

The machine, being demoed at New York Public, currently prints copies of public domain titles on demand.

The direct-to-consumer model of the EBM eliminates shipping and warehousing costs for books (thereby also eliminating returns and pulping of unsold books) and allows simultaneous global availability of millions of new and backlist titles in all categories and languages. These savings permit potentially lower prices to consumers and libraries, and greater royalties and profits to authors and publishers. Also, titles will never have to go out of print again.

Cool TL videos!

Elementary librarian Doug Valentine, a.k.a. Dr. Loopy, a member of our TeacherLibrarianNing, recently posted three very clever, tongue-in-cheek videos about our profession.  I later discovered that these are but three of his many funny efforts posted on TeacherTube.

He’s given me (us all?) some great ideas for new productions this fall and some cool material for inservices.

• Agent Codee Books fights an evil Lexile character who prevents children from reading books they themselves choose
• Blind Date explores classroom teacher/librarian collaboration in reality television, pop-up video format.
• Bionic Librarian shares the updated librarian image, as well as the potential super powers of collaboration.

Great fun. Thanks, Doug!

Note:  After writing this post I explored a little more of how school librarians and teacher librarians are represented in the world of teacher and student-produced video. Check out the longer post at my SLJ Blog.