Ancient Rome is rebuilt digitally - Yahoo! News

A couple of projects have come to my attention lately that underscore the role digitization and virtual reality will have in making collections of all kinds available to scholars, students and the public.
Ancient Rome is rebuilt digitally - Yahoo! News with a link to Rome Reborn 1.0 is one and the article from associated press, Virtual Tours offer trips through time with links to other projects is another.

If you are wondering why you might bother with Second Life, I think this should give at least a partial answer. I think this could lead to an interesting integration of collections of artifacts that will be digitized not just in the traditional sense of creating an image, but actually rendered in a 3-d virtual sense that would allow them to be embedded in virtual world simulations and manipulated as objects in the virtual space.

Thoughts?

Wikpedia, once again

The subject of Wikipedia's accuracy and authority reared it's head again recently on the AASL (American Association of School Librarians) listserv. Librarians - many of them anyway - sure do seem to hate Wikipedia. The thread was prompted by a comment that said basically that school librarians should neither use it nor link to it, nor tolerate its use. I entered two responses, which I think are self explanatory, and I'll share them here.

The first post:
Well, RUSA named Wikipedia one of the best free reference sites in 2005 and it remains on the combined 1999-2006 index: "This is an index of the web sites included in the 1999-2006 annual lists issued by theMars Best of Free Reference Web Sites Committee of the Machine-AssistedReference Section (MARS) of the Reference and User Services Association(RUSA) of ALA to recognize outstanding reference sites on the World WideWeb."

The individual RUSA site review notes the well-known potential issues. There are potential issues with any reference source, which users should be aware of and consider. That's what becoming information literate is about, in part.

To dismiss everything in Wikipedia out of hand along with any open sourceweb site in general seems almost bizarre, given the studies that have found overall reliability and accuracy of Wikipedia on par with more traditionalgeneral purpose reference resources, and superior in some areas.

That Wikipedia is not considered sufficient as a primary research source for academic assignments in higher ed is an entirely different argument with an entirely different set of guiding principles. Traditional encyclopedias thatare not open source would be equally insufficient for these purposes.

That doesn't mean, though, that Wikipedia is not an outstanding reference resource when used appropriately with an understanding of its strengths and limitations. Even in higher ed, it's often quite suitable as a ready-reference resource and also serves to seed further exploration and examination of original sources that are often cited in article bodies.

Over the course of a semester or year, students should be exposed to a variety of information resources, and they should understand when each is appropriate for a given purpose.

To take one thing out of context and condemn an entire category of reference resources that is generally held in relatively high esteem by manydistinguished colleagues in library and information science seems extreme.
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And here is the second:

With all due respect, and I mean that sincerely, I don't think we can afford to be complacent about the changes that are occurring in online ready reference and the profound impact the read/write web has on our understanding of how information is mediated. Authority is important and students need to understand it. But it may not always be the best or only way to evaluate information resources.

Tomorrow, 5/31/2007 is a blue moon, say some. That would be the second full moon in a calendar month, according to conventional wisdom.

Today on NPR, I heard that Sky and Telescope finally 'fessed up about their complicity in fostering this wrong notion about the meaning of 'blue moon.' They tracked it back to an article originally published in Sky and Telescope that referenced an authoritative source (meaning that the sources were identified and deemed authoritative) dating to 1985. Sky and Telescope now spin it this way, "Where the authors, Margo McLoone-Basta and Alice Siegel, got it, no one seemed to know. Used in this way, the term was certainly very, very local before they included it in their book. It seemed never to have been written down before. Of course, authors sometimes "invent" information to protect themselves against plagiarists. Well, if that were the case they'd already lost, because the new "blue Moon" almost immediately entered the folklore of the modern world. It became as living a meaning as any of its predecessors."

Today alone, the Wikipedia article on Blue Moon [astronomical phenomenon] has been updated nearly a dozen times to reflect the new information. The article provides original source links to today's Sky and Telescope printed retraction and other sources reflecting scholars' interpretations of the phrase. There are a dozen citations and external links.

In contrast, searching Blue Moon in the University of Arizona's very expensive and restricted subscription to the Academic Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica references 94 articles on the query, none of which has anything to do with the blue moon topic in question. Restricting it to the phrase "blue moon" narrows the field to 13, not a single one of which is relevant. Linked articles to the phrase range from "beer" to "Mel Torme" to "Credence Clearwater Revival."

Telling students to "just say no" to Wikipedia does as much good as telling them to just say no to sex or drugs. They're perfectly capable of looking up Blue Moon both in Wikipedia and EB, and they will. We can peer down disapprovingly of their naiveté and insist on academic purity, but I think we owe them better than that. If we don't address the current environment honestly, take the time to understand it ourselves, and work with students to help them navigate it confidently, appropriately and with the requisite skepticism, we've failed.

Students today need to deal with a sea change in how information is collected, stored and accessed. As educators and information specialists, we need to mediate, not castigate. Authority is only one metric used to evaluate information resources. Today's students are tomorrow's information workers who will be using wikis and other community-based information resources and collaborative software along with both traditional and 21 st century tools to build the next generation of information resources.

Let's make sure we provide them with the analytical and higher order thinking skills to manage and use them effectively and work with them to bring them to a level of competence as knowledgeable consumers and creators of society's archive.
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What do you think? Let me know!

David Warlick is not usually on the short list of blogs followed by librarians, but this is relevant:

"While at the National School Boards Association Conference the other day, more than one school board member came up to me, a tech guy, and asked, "We're trying desperately to find ways to deal with budget crunches. With all of these computers and access to online information, do we really need librarians or libraries any more?" more at http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/2007/01/29/who-needs-em/ and the requisite discussion and followup.

Put David Warlick on your short list.

Librarians are obsolete; kill them.

In a dystopic future, what if the librarian is obsolete? What if there are no more books? In a totalitarian society, how does the librarian choose the manner of his execution for his obsolescence ?

These questions and more at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4992250387230373561

I admit to being a Twilight Zone fan and was watching it in my youth in original broadcast. I’m a fan and when there’s a TZ marathon, I’m there. OK, so I’m dating myself. I don’t remember this original broadcast (either 1959 or 1961, and to tell the truth, I was pretty young then) but then there’s Google and YouTube video to bring it back to us, legal or not. Watch it while you can ;)

This access point raises a number of questions. Even given its 1959 naiveté, still, it raises some issues we are debating a half century later, and how interesting it was anticipated that long ago. What do you think of the episode? What do you think of the idea that it’s important for LIS students to see it? What do you think of the notion that the only way LIS students might access it is through a video link that may violate the copyright owner’s rights? How is watching it replayed on Web video services different from Tivo’ing it from an obscure cable TV’s marathon and saving it? If I save it (legally?), how can I share it? If I’m researching topics for a paper, how do I find this, if not on a Google Video or Youtube site? You’re a librarian, how do you catalog this and provide your patrons access to it? Aaargh, the questions!

Free Google Tools?

The blog on ALA Techsource describing some of Google's new features is worth a read. I've been playing around with several of them including the docs and spreadsheets for group editing, picasa for photo sharing and storage, and of course YouTube and GoogleVideo. In general, I like them and they work pretty much as advertised. Now, there's an easy webpage creation tool and free hosting. Free for now, anyway. It's clear that Google has a cohesive strategy in mind after reading how they are bringing these things together both for education and for commerce. The question is, what is the business model?

Most people think Google is in the Search business, but then, most people think Rolex is in the watch business. Wrong on both counts. Rolex is in the lifestyle business and doesn't compete with watch companies. In a way, it's the same with Google. Google is in the advertising business and don't you forget it!

All the talk in the click-through user agreements about being beta and extending some of the freebie tools for beta testers at no charge after the beta period is over tells me that at some point, the beta period will be over and it won't be quite as free. What are they up to? It looks to me like Google is taking a page right out of Microsoft's book. Hmm.

Thoughts?

Do-it-yourself metasearch

The new Google co-op platform is interesting. Among other things, it allows one to create a custom search by entering a list of sites upon which a query will be executed. I have previously done this with excel spreadsheets (e.g. entering a list of sites, a cell to hold a search term, and a little bit of macro magic) but Google coop makes it easy. One search came back to mind immediately -- I put all the home pages from LIS schools as listed on the ALA web site into the source file. Enter a search term (e.g. "tuition") and all the LIS school pages are searched. These searches can be shared or embedded in web pages. You can try my LISSchoolSearch and let me know what you think.

If I have some time, I'd like to put together a simple-minded search using the pathfinders and subject guide pages of top libraries as the restricted set of resources. If you get to it before I do, let me know.

John Berry blogs

Former Library Journal editor John Berry has forayed into the blogosphere with his own column, Blatant Berry. I took a writing class from John as part of my MLS program at the University of Arizona School of Information Resources and Library Science. John doesn't pull any punches and he knows as much about the real world of libraries and librarianship as any. Needless to say, it's on my subscription list.

Personal Technology -- Personal Technology from The Wall Street Journal.

Personal Technology -- Personal Technology from The Wall Street Journal.

In his March, 2005 Wall Street Journal Tech Column, writer Walter S. Mossberg inveighs against Google's Autolink, which changes the rendering of the display of a web site to facilitate additional search. His argument, basically, is that we outght to be bound by the author's vision of how the page should look. Here is my response:

Regarding your column on Google’s Autolink Feature -- What a strange argument! By this logic, I shouldn’t be blocking those carefully placed pop up ads web authors so thoughtfully provide, so the blocker must go. The sight and hearing impaired must deactivate their HTML rendering software, which alters the real-time presentation of web content with alternate text and links useful to them. I must not turn off picture, hyperlink and audio file rendering options in IE or Foxfire, all basic browser options today. That is what would be required, at least, if the faithfully rendered argument stands.

This article is highly problematic in that it leads readers to assume, mistakenly, that somehow the toolbar is changing the author’s copy of the page. Nothing could be further from the truth. The only thing changed is a particular arrangement of binary data on a temporary memory chip in my own computer. And I’m changing it by my own will, not someone else’s. It has absolutely no effect on how others want to consume this information.

And that’s what it is – information that I have acquired and may choose to consume in any number of ways that all copyright principles of fair use and first sale permit and uphold. I can, of course, parse the data stream with an HTML rendering software program (a browser), which is what most people do. I can also, without ever consuming it through a browser engine, convert its words to audio (a text to speech converter), erase or delete any portions I like (e.g. graphics that may contain hostile agents, or unwanted pop-ups, frames, annoying midi tunes and other questionable practices), or analyze it with an agent to extract key words and build an index.

While a newspaper columnist might wish this morning’s opus not be used as a bird cage liner, neither does he have the right to prevent his readers from using it thusly. Once I’ve taken possession of the copy, its fate is of my choosing. In much the same way, while a web designer may indeed have put as much thought into his carefully placed links and destinations as the columnist his considered prose, once the packets hit my registers and render my own personal copy, it’s between me and my processor.

Now if you are talking about someone unethically hijacking my browser without my knowledge or will, that’s a different story -- one that has already been written, for which at least one technological solution is to scrub, preprocess and render in the manner I choose HTML code in which someone has carefully placed links and selected “special” destinations I may not want especially to visit. Altering my copy of someone else’s HTML isn’t always a bad thing, you know…

Bruce Fulton

Want a job? Hand over your SAT results | csmonitor.com

Want a job? Hand over your SAT results | csmonitor.com

The private sector has long complained that high schools do not turn out students with critical thinking skills and the kind of cognitive abilities -- such as communication, collaboration and problem solving -- that comprise an effective workforce. Colleges and Universities echo that cry and provide remedial courses designed to scaffold students to a level of performance prerequisite to success.

Presumably, students do learn over the course of acquiring a degree. The private sector thinks so too, and doesn't recruit SAT wizards right out of high school. So it is curious indeed that a high school SAT score would be considered relevant four or more years and 120+ credit hours later. Presumably, a college graduate with four years of college math would better a high school score achieved through perhaps less than exemplary courses and teachers who in many cases may not even have majored in math.

We are all looking for that magical assessment bullet. The one that provides a real measure of a person's ablility to solve real-world problems and perform real-world work. The SAT is not that, and wasn't designed for that purpose. Indeed, it can be argued that such a test doesn't exist. To force it into that mold is, in the end, an admission of laziness and an inability or unwillingness to expend the time and effort needed to evaluate and place individual holistically based on proven ability and work product.

And then the question becomes, who really loses here?

Slashdot | The Flickering Mind

Slashdot | The Flickering Mind
see also comments on this debate at http://www.weblogg-ed.com

An interesting thread.

I think the question is not really whether technology informs education, but rather how do we best assure that it does. In the real world, science, math, finance, international relations, and virtually all other disciplines embed technology intrinsically. Sometimes we forget that technology is more than general computing devices (pc’s) on the desktop. It is technology appliances, dedicated systems, assistive devices, scientific apparatus, communications infrastructures – all the range of 21st century tools.

In the real world, these shape the disciplines. Today, simple bookkeeping is not only computer-enabled but computer driven, and technology has changed fundamentally how accounting is done and what its impact on decision making systems really is. It is not so important that students learn a spreadsheet program, for example, as it is crucial that students achieve financial literacy. The spreadsheet program will happen if students are taught financial skills in a relevant and current context.

ICT literate teachers are an important part of the equation, but not the only solution. We need curriculum standards that incorporate knowledge of applications and tools within core subjects, not just within separate technology strands. We need policy decisions and leadership that value not just IT knowledge but an understanding of the contextual application of technology to solve real problems. And we need a unified vision that information and communication are the 21st century cornerstones of democracy – necessary for an individual to be informed and knowledgeable in the global village.

BBC NEWS | Education | 'Big improvement' in ICT teaching

BBC NEWS | Education | 'Big improvement' in ICT teaching

As this article illustrates, the notion that technology without context is insufficient to prepare students to thrive in a complex, global milieu of information, communication and change is universal. Clearly the measure of equitable access to technology in our schools today is not that of hardware distribution; rather it is access to information and communications literate teachers who can model 21st century learning for their students.

Arizona Charter Schools Lead The Way

Visionary step

As this article from the Arizona Republic illustrates, charter schools are becoming a significant element of the K-12 education landscape. One concern I have is the issue of access to technology. Here, I am not talking about classroom PCs so much as integration with statewide infrastructure, availability of educational resources, and assistive technologies for special needs students. Many charter schools are not plugged in to the network of resources and technologies available to traditional public schools. As the charter school movement continues to grow, what do we need to do to assure all students have equitable access to 21st century tools and how do we manage accountability for state supported education efforts that fall outside the traditional milieu?

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