About INFOBITS
Infobits is an electronic service of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ITS Teaching and Learning's Center for Instructional Technology. Each month the CIT's Information Resources Consultant monitors and selects from a number of information and instructional technology sources that come to her attention and provides brief notes for electronic dissemination to educators.
Online Journal of Education Book Reviews
The Web as a Tool for Teaching Drawing
Asynchronous Learning Networks Publications
Ghosts on the Web
Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship
Who's Governing the Web?
Librarian's Links
ONLINE JOURNAL OF EDUCATION BOOK REVIEWS
Education Review (ER) provides reviews of recently-published books in education. ER contains sixteen departments covering the range of educational scholarship, including evaluation, teacher education, and technology; and is intended to promote wider understanding of the latest and best research in the field. All articles are published online, archived on the Web, and disseminated via a listserv. The listserv also provides a forum in which participants can discuss recent reviews. ER is on the Web at http://www.ed.asu.edu/edrev/
ER [ISSN 1094-5296] is supported by Arizona State University and the
University of Illinois-Urbana, Champaign. For more information contact
the editors: Gene V. Glass, College of Education, Arizona State
University, Tempe, AZ 85287 USA; tel: 602-965-2692; email:
glass@asu.edu
or
Nicholas C. Burbules, Department of Educational Policy Studies,
University of Illinois, 1310 South Sixth Street, Champaign, IL 61820
USA; tel: 217-244-0919; email: burbules@uiuc.edu
THE WEB AS A TOOL FOR TEACHING DRAWING
At the 1998 University of North Carolina CAUSE conference, Professor
Donald Sexauer (East Carolina University's School of Art) demonstrated
how he used the Web in his beginning drawing classes. The Web is
well-suited for illustrating concepts that are difficult to present
with slides or on the blackboard. For example, Sexauer created a series
of Web pages to show students how changing the direction of a light
source affects the shadows in a drawing.
See: http://ecuvax.cis.ecu.edu/~arsexaue/bagmenu.htm
Using a few tools (Web browser, hand scanner, digital camera) and some basic knowledge of HTML, Sexauer devised resources that he can reuse for each year's class, while adding new student work each semester to maintain the freshness of his Web site. The URL for his beginning drawing class pages is http://ecuvax.cis.ecu.edu/~arsexaue/art1020.htm
For more information contact: Donald Sexauer, School of Art, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC 27858 USA; email: arsexaue@ecuvm.cis.ecu.edu; Web: http://ecuvax.cis.ecu.edu/~arsexaue/sexauer.htm
ASYNCHRONOUS LEARNING NETWORKS PUBLICATIONS
ALN Web sponsors two publications covering asynchronous learning networks topics: Asynchronous Learning Networks Magazine (ALN Magazine) and the Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks (JALN).
Pedagogy is the focus of the latest issue (vol. 2, issue 2, October
1998) of ALN Magazine. Articles include: "Cultural Studies in
Cyberspace: Teaching with New Technology," by David Finkelstein and
Linda Dryden, Napier University, U. K.; "Models of Online Courses," by
Robin Mason, The Open University, U. K.; and "Web-Based Technology for
Engaging Students across Vast Distances," by A. J. Turgeon,
Pennsylvania State University.
The complete issue is available on the
Web at http://www.aln.org/alnweb/magazine/maga_v2_i2.htm
Back issues are at http://www.aln.org/alnweb/magazine/alnMaga.htm
Articles from the latest issue (vol. 2, issue 2, September 1998) of
JALN include: "Institutionalized Resistance to Asynchronous Learning
Networks," by David Jaffee, Department of Sociology, SUNY-New Paltz;
"The Impact of Student Verbal/Visual Learning Style Preference on
Implementing Groupware in the Classroom," by D'Arcy Becker and Meg
Dwyer, University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire; and "Net-Learning:
Strategies for On-Campus and Off-Campus Network-enabled Learning," by
John R. Bourne, Center for Innovation in Engineering Education,
Vanderbilt University.
The complete issue is available on the Web at
http://www.aln.org/alnweb/journal/jaln_vol2issue2.htm
Back issues are at http://www.aln.org/alnweb/journal/jaln.htm
ALN Magazine [ISSN 1092-7131] and JALN [ISSN 1092-8235] are published by Vanderbilt University for the ALN Web. For more information contact John Bourne, Editor, P. O. Box 1570, Station B, Nashville, TN 37235 USA; tel: 615-322-2118; fax: 615-343-6449; email: john.bourne@vanderbilt.edu; Web: http://www.aln.org/alnweb/
The objectives of the ALN Web are to provide "(1) a focal point for information interchange among researchers and practitioners in the field of asynchronous learning networks and (2) a scholarly reviewed on-line journal which captures the archival knowledge of the field."
"Beware of what you create. It may come back to haunt you."
At Ghost Sites, freelance writer Steve Baldwin documents Web pages that
are dead but continue to haunt the Internet. Ghost sites are "grim
digital apparitions reminding us of how perilous the voyage through
cyberspace has become. . . . Most of them die slowly, from degenerative
bit rot and months of atrophy." While many of the sites that fall into
disuse were created by companies that have gone out of business,
academic institutions also provide a big source of dead sites.
College-hosted student Web pages linger on after their owners graduate
or move on to other interests. Even department-sponsored sites are
subject to untimely ends when grant money for
their upkeep runs out or projects are completed.
Visit Ghost Sites at http://www.disobey.com/ghostsites/index.htm
And, in honor of Halloween, check out ghosts of a more spectral nature on The Ghost Web, the official Web site for the International Ghost Hunters Society at http://www.ghostweb.com/
ISSUES IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY LIBRARIANSHIP
Issues in Science And Technology Librarianship (ISTL) is an electronic
publication of the Science and Technology Section of the Association of
College and Research Libraries. Many of the publication's themes cover
topics of interest to faculty using electronic resources in scientific
and technical fields. Articles in recent issues include: "Selection
Criteria for Web-Based Resources in a Science and Technology Library
Collection," by Robert B. McGeachin, Agriculture Reference Librarian at
Texas A & M University; "Hooking into Fish Facts: Internet Resources in
Marine Fisheries," by Laurel Duda, Science Reference Librarian, Woods
Hole Oceanographic Institution; "Chemistry Resources on the Internet,"
by Charles F. Huber, University of California-Santa Barbara; and
"Designing the Next-Generation Chemistry Journal: The Internet Journal
of Chemistry," by Steven M. Bachrach, et al., Department of Chemistry
and Biochemistry, Northern Illinois University.
ISTL is available on the Web at http://www.library.ucsb.edu/istl/
Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship [ISSN 1092-1206] is published quarterly by the Science and Technology Section, Association of College and Research Libraries. For more information, contact Andrea L. Duda, Editor, Davidson Library, University of California, Santa Barbara CA 93106 USA; email: duda@library.ucsb.edu
This month the UNC-Chapel Hill Carolina Seminar on Internet and Society featured a talk by Harvard Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig on "Internet Governance." Lessig, a major thinker on Internet policy, taught the Supreme Court about the Internet. He was the Special Master to Judge Penfield Jackson in the Microsoft monopoly trial. Advocating a strong place for government in Internet governance, Lessig argued that removing government involvement will create a vacuum waiting to be filled by other parties who may not be committed to serving the public's interests, especially in the areas of privacy and access.
Lessig teaches and writes on the law of cyberspace; he is presently completing a book, Code, and Other Laws of Cyberspace. For more information about Lessig and texts of his talks on the Internet, see http://cyber.harvard.edu/lessig.html and http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/msdoj/
The theme for the November/December 1998 issue of Technology Review is
"The Unknown Internet." In "The Web's Unelected Government," by Simson
L.Garfinkel (pp. 38-47), Technology Review offers the first in-depth
look at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C): "the closest thing the Web
has to a central authority... [a] crucial player in the Web's future."
While keeping its meetings closed to outsiders, the W3C plays a major
role in deciding policy and determining the structure of the Web in the
next century.
The entire issue, as well as links related to the article, is available
on the Web at http://www.techreview.com/currnt.htm
Technology Review [ISSN 1099-274X] is published six times a year by the
Association of Alumni and Alumnae of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, MIT Bldg. W59-200; 201 Vassar St.; Cambridge, MA 02139 USA;
tel: 617-253-8250; fax 617-258-5850; email: trcomments@mit.edu; Web:
http://www.techreview.com/index.htm
Annual subscriptions are available for $30 (U.S.); $36 (Canada); $42
(all other countries).
Each month the UNC-Chapel Hill Center for Instructional Technology (CIT) receives many announcements of educational and information technology conferences, workshops, and seminars. A calendar of these events is now available on the Web. While many of the workshops are limited to the North Carolina area, national and international conferences are included. Check out the Calendar of World-Wide Educational Technology-Related Conferences, Seminars, and Other Events at http://atncalendar.depts.unc.edu:8086/
For more information on the CIT, go to our Web site at http://www.unc.edu/cit/