Five Blogs for July 8th
Rumors of “Its” Demise Are Greatly Exaggerated by David Warlick
By “Its” David Warlick is referring to books. He is a bit worried about future students and their ability to focus on longer stories or really dig deeper into complex issues. He says that he’s seen some research projects that support his concerns. But, he loves to read and usually has at least one printed book and one audiobook going at all times.
He has not always loved reading. He’s not a great reader—it’s work for him and so he didn’t do much of it when he was young. He got most of his information from television. It wasn’t until he went to college that he discovered the joy of reading. He credits some friends and teachers with introducing him to some great writers like: Arthur C. Clark, Robert Heinlein, Kurt Vonnegut and Herman Hesse to name just a few. Reading a good book is still work for him, but he says that it’s worth it because he learns so much and grows as a person because of it.
When his wife mentioned wanting a way to keep track of what she was reading and that she wanted to be able to write her own reviews, Warlick sat down and introduced his wife to his favorite site, Library Thing. While searching the site, he ran across a page called Zeitgeist. This page lists the largest personal Library Thing libraries—that is patron libraries. They also list the patrons who have the largest personal reviews. Seeing the number of readers, books cataloged and reviews written, Warlick feels very confident that books will be around (in one form or another) for a long time to come.
Citation:
Warlick, David. “Rumors of “Its” Demise Are Greatly Exaggerated.” 2 Cents Worth 23 Jun 2011. Web. 7 Jul 2011. http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/
The People Who Want to Get Rid of Tenure & Say Teacher Experience Isn’t that Important Should Read This by Larry Ferlazzo
In this blog, Larry Ferlazzo talks about an interview between Gary Klein, a thirty-year expert in decision-making, and The Edge (I’m guessing it’s a magazine, but not sure). Even though he was talking about his research with firefighters, Larry equates it to teachers. “That became part of our model — the question of how people with experience build up a repertoire of patterns so that they can immediately identify, classify, and categorize situations, and have a rapid impulse about what to do.” He said that in the case of fires, a senior firefighter would instinctively know whether or not to put out the fire, or to protect the buildings on either side. This instinct comes only with experience.
I imagine that it takes years of experience to totally understand how all students learn, how to interact with different types of students, how to handle bad situations and how to anticipate problems before they arise. Ferlazzo says Klein’s research directly relates to the fact that teachers make .7 decisions every minute. He says that teachers can’t push insights onto their students or explain the insights—they help them gain the experience they need to arrive at the insights on their own. So, yes, experience is important—it does matter.
Ferlazzo Larry. “The People Who Want to Get Rid of Tenure & Say Teacher Experience Isn’t that Important Should Read This.” Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day . . . 8 Jul 2011. Web. 8 Jul 2011.
Celebrating the Power of Open by Joyce Valenza
There’s a downloadable PDF book called The Power of Open that Joyce Valenza says everyone who is involved in any form of Creative Commons should read. Did you know that there are over 400 million Creative Commons licensed works available on the Internet? These are everything from songs, clip art, photographs, research papers and so much more. “Creative Commons created the legal and technical infrastructure that allows effective sharing of knowledge, art and data by individuals, organizations and governments.” And lots of people have taken advantage of this sharing culture.
This book shares the stories of all different kinds of creators who have all profited from the communal sharing of the Creative Commons. Teachers and librarians need to be teaching students about the Creative Commons and about digital citizenship. If we want to keep this wonderful collaboration community, then it is up to us to make sure our students are not violating the copyright laws and are respecting the many and varied creators who are willing to share their work in the Creative Commons.
As Valenza says, “As we look ahead, the field of openness is approaching a critical mass of adoption that could result in sharing becoming a default standard for the many works that were previously made available only under the all-rights-reserved framework. Even more exciting is the potential increase in global welfare from the use of Creative Commons’ tools and the increasing relevance of openness to the discourse of culture, education and innovation policy.”
Valenza, Joyce. “Celebrating the “Power of Open” ”. Neverending Search. 4 Jul 2011. Web. 8 Jul 2011.
SJ/SLJ eBooks Summit—October 12, 2011 by spolanka
Last year, the Library Journal and School Library Journal hosted a virtual summit on ebooks called EBooks: Libraries at the Tipping Point. More than 2,000 librarians discussed ebooks and how they are changing our libraries. This year the one-day event will bring all different types of librarians together, along with publishers, vendors and other experts to talk about ebook collections, marketing the ebooks, transitioning from books to ebooks and much more. You can register on this blog for the virtual summit but you must be a member of Library Journal or School Library Journal to do so.
(Because this was so short, I also included another ebook blog.)
World eBook Fair—6.5 Million eBooks Available Through August 4th by spolanka
The World eBook Fair company is offering free access to 6.5 million ebooks from July 4th through August 4th! The collection includes science books, reference books, all different kinds of reading materials and even music. Two other collaborators, Project Gutenberg and Internet Archive will be contributing some selections including music, movies and more. You can join the World Public Library for $8.95 a year. “Members can download a selection of about 2,000,000 PDF eBooks.”
Spolanka. “World eBook Fair—6.5 Million eBooks Available Through August 4th.” No Shelf Required. 5 Jul 2011. Web. 8 Jul 2011.
eBooks Top School Library Focus at ALA Annual by Wendy Stephens
At the ALA convention in New Orleans, librarians were excitedly? anxiously? discussing eBooks and their relationship to libraries. Questions were asked about the role of ebooks in recreational reading, and the “possibilities for annotations and markup in a digital environment.” Anxiety was expressed over choosing the wrong technology and about what happened in Kansas. (The state librarian dissolved her contract with the company that supplied her library ebooks saying that her library bought the ebooks instead of licensing them. So now, some ebook vendors are changing the way they do business with new pay-per-access models. This will change the way librarians budget their resources. “And everyone was tryng to figure out how we were going to leverage Pottermore for our readers.” Not sure what that means, but I was fascinated to see the Pottermore free Web site that offers online experiences that revolve around the reading of the Harry Potter books. It looks very cool. The Web site will be open in October but you can go ahead and enter your email so you’ll be ready to go in October.
Back to the topic at hand—the author of this article says that each library is different and each librarian will have to decide what to do with ebooks. She believes that there are limitations to only going with one format like the school that chose to get rid of all their books. But she says that it was a great experience and she was excited that for once the librarians were leading the discussion not following it.
Stephens, Wendy. “eBooks Top School Library Focus at ALA Annual.” The Ultimate Classroom Library: Your School Media Center AASL Blog. 28 Jun 2011. Web. 8 Jul 2011.
I'm so glad you pointed out that School Library Journal is having another event on e-books. I've bookmarked it!
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