Journal #7 - Professional Learning Network

I never thought about it before this class, but I guess I have always had a professional learning network. I read library journals (and now blogs) consistently and subscribe to library-related listservs where librarians ask and answer questions to help each other. I attend meetings of Southern California Instruction Librarians (SCIL) and workshops put on by a community college librarian group. Both groups are valuable for networking with colleagues and learning new/different techniques that will help me in my job.

For this class, I subscribed to lots of blogs that focused on educational technology, website design, and library technology. I ended up deleting several of the blogs: a few required a subscription to a publication (Ed Week, Chronicle of Higher Education), some were repetitious, and some covered esoteric topics that are beyond my current understanding of the subjects.

One of my favorites is Educational Technology and Mobile Learning. It has lots of tips for using technology for teaching. One recent post was about the best websites for creating infographics which followed a post a day earlier about why teachers should use infographics in education. The author has also discussed Google Forms and has written a number of posts on search strategies. EmergingEdTech is another interesting blog that also points out new technologies for teachers. One feature of this blog that I enjoy is the Education and Instructional Technology Tweet Wrap for each week that is a good way to keep up with current trends.

The affinity group that I joined, Instruction in Academic Libraries, is almost inactive. The Instruction Librarians listserv that I subscribe to sends out a digest several times a week (and sometimes day!) and lists new jobs available as well as upcoming conferences. Some of the recent topics discussed have been on assessing instruction, what type of instruction statistics different libraries collect, using tablets in library instruction, sharing examples of bad websites, and library instruction outreach to underserved academic departments. I learn so much from this listserv and have used many of the suggestions in my own library over the years.

I think having a professional learning network is essential today to keep up with new technologies and to keep current in your own field. This would be particularly true for someone who wants a new position. I have taken advantage of my personal network to get answers to questions and I think if I were looking for a new job I would have more opportunities because of my participation in affinity groups.

  

Journal #6 - Self Reflection

I am really enjoying this course. I learned how to do very basic html tags when the Internet was new but never really used it and had no idea what css was other than it determined the look of the whole website. Now I feel that I have a much better understanding of the difference between html and css. The html markup describes the structure of the web page content, that is, headings, paragraphs, and other divisions and elements. The presentation of the content (fonts, placement of different elements, colors, etc.) is determined by the style sheet. This makes it easier to make changes because each page no longer has to be changed individually if the style changes; a new style sheet can be applied and the html for each page remains the same. I was fascinated by all of the different styles applied to the same html on the css zen garden site. I have also realized that I should have learned how to use the styles in Microsoft Word--I see now that I could have saved a lot of time and frustration.

I think the assignments have been challenging rather than difficult. I have enjoyed spending countless hours doing the exercises and trying to figure out what went wrong and why. Figuring out how to get files uploaded to the Cal Poly server and synchronizing the local and remote sites was probably the most difficult concept for me. I am still having trouble getting the book exercises to link properly. Once I figure it out (and why the lab links do work) I think that will turn out to be the most rewarding assignment.

http://www.csupomona.edu/~swells/512/book_exercises/table.html

Journal #5: Try Twitter

I have never been able to "get" Twitter. I can see the value if there is a news story that is moving quickly and you want to get whatever news there is as quickly as possible. I have used Twitter this way myself but found it lacking. The majority of tweets did not seem to be of high quality. A number of bloggers I read ask to be followed on Twitter but why? I read their blog posts regularly. What will be added by getting several short tweets a day? Will they just alert me to new posts they have written or articles somewhere else that I have probably already found or don't want to read? Most of the uses I have seen of Twitter seem to be superficial and not terribly valuable.

I followed #edtech and #educationaltechnology this week and did not find the tweets useful. They were usually links to an article the tweeter had read and was passing on. The blogs I read regularly reported on many of the same articles.

I am not a teacher but I know a couple of college teachers who use Twitter to let students know if the assignment has been changed or needs clarification or if class is cancelled for the day. Those seem like legitimate uses. A couple of the ideas in Twitter articles posted for this week seemed like they might be good teaching tools, especially the ones that relate to geography. For the most part, though, it seems more like using the technology because it exists instead of because it has much to offer in a classroom.

Journal #4 - Project Plan

Site title - Information Competency at Rio Hondo College

Developer - Stephanie Wells

Rationale or focus - Most California community colleges now include information competency in their General Education Student Learning Outcomes. This website will introduce the concept of information competency to Rio Hondo College faculty and administration, present the rationale for adopting information competency SLOs across the curriculum, and provide suggestions for starting the process.

Main features outline - Definitions and history of IC, examples of how other colleges are implementing it, what has been done at Rio, actions needed. Text in one column, header and footer, sidebar navigation. A faculty survey and email form will be included as well as photos.

Content - At least 7 pages, following the site map below.

Target audience - Rio Hondo College faculty and administrators
Design considerations - The site should be easy to access and navigate, available from the library's home page, and follow the design of the college's website as closely as possible.
Limiting factors - The design and functionality of Rio Hondo's website is not particularly good which is why I prefer to make a separate site. I will still need to follow their design in some ways.

Site Map - Information Competency at Rio Hondo College

Wire Frame of Website

Journal #3: Commercial Concerns in the Social Web

Friesen, N. (2010, 6 December). Education and the social Web: Connective learning and the

      commercial imperative. First Monday: Peer-Reviewed Journal on the Internet 15(12). Retrieved

      from http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3149/2718

Friesen seems to be making the argument that social media companies such as Facebook and Google are not good for educational purposes because their first priority is making money from advertisers. They are trying to provide as large an audience as possible for ads so they can make more money. It almost seemed to me that he believes that the social media companies have deviously created a consumer desire for social networking sites so that they can steal consumer information and sell it to marketers. I think it's more probable that the consumer demand for social networking created an opportunity for selling information that has created the privacy issues. I think he has it backwards.

I couldn't really follow his argument that because there is only a "like" button social media sites are somehow lacking for educational purposes. I think that educators using "free" tools are smart enough to exploit the advantages of each tool and minimize the potential disadvantages. He is right, though, that everyone using social media should remember that companies do not develop products as a public service with no expectation of profit; consumers should always employ their critical thinking skills.

Q1. Does the fact that social media companies are profit-driven necessarily reduce their value for educational purposes?

A1. I don't think so. It depends on what the educator's purpose is. As a way to increase communication and student-student interaction and collaboration, social networking sites are great. Teachers need to use different tools for different objectives and not expect one tool to work for all purposes. Plus, teachers can help students understand the value and downside of social media, this helping them develop better critical thinking skills.

Q2. Should the social media privacy concerns (e.g., student personal data being harvested for sale to advertisers) deter teachers from using social media in the classroom?

A2. Students are already using social media in their private lives with all the potential privacy issues that could affect them. In addition to making school more relevant and fun, social media in the classroom can be used to teach students how to protect themselves and their privacy.

Journal #2

I didn't see any affinity groups for college librarians in Ning or the other suggested lists so I decided to join an affinity group on LinkedIn called "Instruction in Academic Libraries." It can be found at https://www.linkedin.com/groups/Instruction-in-Academic-Libraries-158779?gid=158779&mostPopular=&trk=tyah&trkInfo=tarId%3A1413834478850%2Ctas%3Ainstruction%20in%20a%2Cidx%3A2-1-2. There are 1,978 members of this group but it is not very active so I'm not sure how much I will learn. I already participate in a similar group through a listserv called "Information Literacy Instruction List." This is a very active group with members asking and answering questions and posting links to relevant websites, conferences, etc.

I used Google Reader for years and switched to Feedly when Reader went away. At that time I unsubscribed from all my library and technology feeds and kept only the personal feeds I was following. I have resubscribed to many of the library and technology feeds in Digg and added several new ones. I'm using the categories Educational Technology, Web Design, and Library Technology. I tried some feeds in a Technology category but found that most of the technology articles were too general--not to mention too numerous to follow. The Educational Technology and Library Technology blogs pick up enough articles on general technology news for my needs.

So far, I like Digg and actually prefer its interface to Feedly. I may move my personal feeds to Digg. It's nice to be following professional blogs again and I'm already learning a lot. I try to check for new articles every day or two. I skim the headlines and read those that seem to contain useful information.

Q1. Will the volume of articles from Digg feeds mean that I spend more time keeping up with them than doing actual work?

A1. I don't think this will happen this time. It certainly did when I used Google Reader. In the beginning I felt like I needed to at least skim every article from every blog. I have learned over the years to skim the titles and read only those posts that appear to contain new and useful content. After a few weeks it is easy to figure out which posts from each blog will probably be worthwhile and which blogs should be dropped for lack of useful content.

Q2. Is using a service like Digg the best way to keep current in my field?

A2. I think the answer is yes. I used to subscribe to many library journals to keep current. Many of those have folded over the years but those that remain seem to publish articles on "new" topics that I read about weeks ago on the blogs I follow. Plus, most blogs have a very narrow focus so it's easier to scan them than to read several journals that each have a wider scope for publication. The blogs contain links to articles that are relevant to the blog focus and are more closely targeted to topics relevant to me.

Chapters 1-3

Robbins, J. N. (2012). Learning Web design: A beginner's guide to HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and 

     Web graphics (4th ed.). Available from Cal Poly Pomona library.

Summary: The first three chapters of the book discuss the basics of what Web designers do, what tools they need, how the Web works, the different parts of a Web page, and considerations such as accessibility issues and how pages display differently on mobile devices (and indeed, across different browsers) and how these issues affect Web design. Some of this was review but most of it was new and very interesting, particularly the section on responsive Web design and the idea that the designer can never know how pages he or she creates will be viewed: on a desktop computer or a phone or tablet. The author also highlights the importance of User Interface design and User Experience, both areas that I am aware of but that have played little role in the online tutorials I have created so far.

Q1. What are the implications of responsive Web design for creating library tutorials for community college students?

A1. Many students use their phones as their primary access to the Internet. It will be very important to design tutorials that will work on phones as easily as on desktops. 508 compliance is also important to make sure that students with disabilities are also able to use the tutorials.

Q2. What are the best ways to ensure that a website is easy to use and meets user needs?

A2. Careful planning and taking time to survey potential users before designing a website will be invaluable in making sure the site is user-friendly. It is also a good idea to take the time to have users test the site several times during the design process so their feedback can be used to fine-tune the site.