TL Infobits - November 2007
Issue 17
ISSN: 1931-3144
Observations on Scholars' Use of Digitized Resources
Technology Standards for Students
Preventing Online Exam Cheating
Call for Papers on Academics in Virtual Environments
Recommended Reading
OBSERVATIONS ON SCHOLARS' USE OF DIGITIZED RESOURCES
"[D]o many 'producers' of technological tools and systems pay much attention to the unconvinced, indifferent, tired, frustrated, or thwarted academic 'consumers'? Or do they simply dismiss many nonadopters as aberrations, luddites, or dinosaurs, with little reflection about the complex reasons why many scholars have not yet embraced the promise of the 'new, new' technological thing?"
In "Use and Users of Digital Resources: A Survey Explored Scholars' Attitudes about Educational Technology Environments in the Humanities" (EDUCAUSE Quarterly, vol. 30, no. 7, 2007), Diane Harley, Senior Researcher in the Center for Studies in Higher Education at the University of California, Berkeley, reports on a survey of faculty in the humanities and social sciences devised to "map the universe of digital resources available to undergraduate educators . . . and to examine how understanding use, users, and nonusers might benefit the integration of these resources into scholarly environments." The survey asked such questions as
-- how often faculty use various types of digital resources in their undergraduate teaching
-- why they don't use digital resources in certain teaching situations
-- why they have difficulty using digital resources the way they would like
The paper, along with data from the survey, is available at http://connect.educause.edu/library/abstract/UseandUsersofDigital/45536.
EDUCAUSE Quarterly [ISSN 1528-5324], is a "practitioner's journal for college and university managers and users of information resources--information, technology, and services" published by EDUCAUSE (http://www.educause.edu/). Articles from current and back issues of EDUCAUSE Quarterly are available on the Web at http://connect.educause.edu/eq/.In "Future Reading: Digitization and its Discontents" (The New Yorker, November 5, 2007) Anthony Grafton writes that "Google's projects [Google Book Search, Google Publishing Partners], together with rival initiatives by Microsoft and Amazon, have elicited millenarian prophecies about the possibilities of digitized knowledge and the end of the book as we know it. . . . Others have evoked even more utopian prospects, such as a universal archive that will contain not only all books and articles but all documents anywhere--the basis for a total history of the human race." Grafton debunks the hypebole as he traces the history of information overload and the methods devised to control it through the millennia. He predicts that "for the foreseeable future" readers and scholars will rely on both digitized resources and the collections still physically in libraries. "[S]treams of data, rich as they are, will illuminate, rather than eliminate, books and prints and manuscripts that only the library can put in front of you."
The article is available online at http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/11/05/071105fa_fact_grafton.
The New Yorker [ISSN 0028-792X] is published 47 times a year by CondeNet. For more information, contact The New Yorker, Inc., 4 Times Square, New York, NY 10036 USA; Web: http://www.newyorker.com/.
TECHNOLOGY STANDARDS FOR STUDENTS
In 1998, the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) published the National Educational Technology Standards for Students (NETS-S), a "U.S. consensus defining what students needed to know about and be able to do with technology. The standards, used in every U.S. state and many countries, are credited by most with significantly influencing expectations for students and creating a target of excellence relating to technology."
In June 2007, ISTE released a new version of NETS-S that reflects the changes in technology since 1998 and the changing expectations of students' technical skills. The standard is available http://www.iste.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=NETS.
The new standards are part of ISTE's NETS Refresh Project which will introduce NETS for Teachers (NETS-T) in 2008 and NETS for Administrators (NETS-A) in 2009.
ISTE is a nonprofit membership organization which "provides leadership and service to improve teaching, learning, and school leadership by advancing the effective use of technology in PK-12 and teacher education." For more information, contact: ISTE, 1710 Rhode Island Ave NW, Suite 900, Washington, DC 20036 USA; tel: 800.336.5191; fax: 541.302.3778; email: iste@iste.org; Web: http://www.iste.org/.
PREVENTING ONLINE EXAM CHEATING
"An instructor cannot have the same degree of control over the online exam environment that they have for traditional classroom exams. For this reason, we must re-design our exams (to the extent possible) to ensure that they are effective in the online environment." In "Ways to Prevent Cheating on Online Exams" (Educator's Voice, vol. 8, issue 6, November 15, 2007), Gail E. Krovitz offers guidelines and tips to help instructors reduce cheating when they use objective exams in online courses. The article is available at http://www.ecollege.com/Educators_Voice.learn.
Educator's Voice is published monthly by the eCollege Instructional Design Team. For more information contact eCollege, eCollege Building, 4900 S. Monaco Street, Denver, CO 80237 USA; tel: 888-884-7325; fax: 303-873-7449; Web: http://www.ecollege.com/.
CALL FOR PAPERS ON ACADEMICS IN VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS
Innovate, edited by James Morrison, UNC-Chapel Hill Professor Emeritus, is a peer-reviewed e-journal that began publication with the October/November 2004 issue. The journal covers cutting-edge research and practice in the field of using information technology tools to enhance teaching and learning. Readers can also comment on articles, share material with colleagues and friends, and participate in open forums.
Innovate is soliciting manuscripts for a special issue on academics in virtual environments. This issue focuses on the use of Multi-User Virtual Environments (MUVEs) as an enhancement to education. A MUVE combines graphics and audio with the ability to communicate with multiple users in real time within the context of a 3-D virtual environment. MUVEs are not necessarily considered games, as programs like Second Life and There have no end goal or objective.
For more information go to http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=special_issues and click on the Academics in Virtual Environments paragraph.
To submit a manuscript go to http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=submit.
Recommended Reading
"Recommended Reading" lists items that have been recommended to me or that Infobits readers have found particularly interesting and/or useful, including books, articles, and websites published by Infobits subscribers. Send your recommendations to kotlas@email.unc.edu for possible inclusion in this column.
Infobits subscriber Karen Ellis, founder of the Educational CyberPlayGround (http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/), recommends the following:
Studio Thinking: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education
By Lois Hetland, Ellen Winner, Shirley Veneema, and Kimberly M. Sheridan
New York: Teachers College Press, 2007
$24.95
ISBN 978-0-8077-4818-3
"The authors set out to tell us why arts education is important and to give art teachers a research based language they can use to describe what they teach, and what is learned. They reached their conclusions after studying a number of well-taught studio classes in two schools. Over the course of a year, they observed what they call a 'hidden curriculum' that defines what art education is and what it does. Studio Thinking presents their findings in a cohesive model along with lesson examples and commentary. The authors say they want to 'change the conversation about the arts in this country' and that could happen if they can resurrect, or reinvigorate, some of their earlier work. Studio Thinking presents what the authors say is the right 'reason' for arts education as opposed to some other rationales, which they say, are just plain wrong."
-- Review by John Broomall, Executive director of the Pennsylvania
Alliance for Arts Education
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Arts/StudioThinkingArtsAdvocacy.html
