Digital Literacy for St. Cloud State University
Sandberg and her Option B co-author Adam Grant believe resilience is a skill you can learn.
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more on mindfulness in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=mindfulness
http://www.ala.org/alctsnews/features/e-forum-discovery-layers
Erika Johnson and Kristin E. Martin
by discovery layer, the moderators were referring to the variety of tools available to libraries that bring together article-level content, specialized databases, and the content traditionally found inside a library catalog (e.g., books and journal titles) into a single searchable index. Based on the survey, 67% of e-forum participants are using a discovery layer and 83% maintain this layer alongside the traditional catalog. During the e-forum participants identified a number of commercial systems in use at their libraries (Summon, Encore, EDS, WorldCat Discovery, Primo), as well as some customized or open-source products. Participants at some specialized and public libraries expressed opinions that discovery layers do not fit their institutional needs, either because of the lack of sophisticated searching or specialized content, or because of overemphasis on article content.
In academic libraries, discovery layers tend to be the preferred tool for undergraduates, while more advanced scholars (and some library staff) prefer the traditional library catalog for known items, additional search features, and more specialized content. Discussion about the different levels of user sophistication and varying research needs continued through the entire e-forum. One participant put the difference between searching in terms of recall versus precision. Discovery makes an ideal tool for quickly returning at least some relevant results—great for basic research—but often brings back a large number of irrelevant results in a huge set.
From a technical services perspective, discovery layers have led to changes in technical services operations.
Discovery systems are not one size fits all. Special collections librarians and consortial members shared some concerns about the way discovery systems display information.
Why is a discovery layer needed for libraries?
Without a discovery layer, users have to search many separate silos of information one by one – the library catalog for books and journals, publisher sites and individual ejournals in particular subjects for articles, and other specialized databases. Even for experienced users who know which databases and resources are likely to be most relevant to their needs, this is time-consuming and involves duplicating the same search over and over in different places. For novice users, or those who want a broad, interdisciplinary search, the initial choice of resource can be daunting and frustrating, unless users already know to ask their librarians for help. In addition, every database or resource interface is different – there are many similarities, but users have to learn different procedures and strategies for each information silo. While specialized interfaces deliver a lot of power for the advanced user, sometimes they can get in the way for other kinds of tasks.
Why not just use Google or another search engine?
Many library resources are difficult to find using search engines, even if a user is savvy enough to be using Google Scholar or Microsoft Academic Search instead of regular Google or Bing. In addition, almost all online library resources, such as full-text articles and ebooks, are most decidedly not free or open access – academic libraries pay quite a bit of money for them
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more on academic libraries in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=academic+library
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polling in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=polling
more on Kahoot: https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=kahoot
In computing, React (sometimes styled React.js or ReactJS) is a JavaScript library[2] for building user interfaces.
It is maintained by Facebook, Instagram and a community of individual developers and corporations.[3][4][5]
React allows developers to create large web-applications that use data and can change over time without reloading the page. It aims primarily to provide speed, simplicity, and scalability. React processes only user interfaces in applications. This corresponds to View in the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern, and can be used in combination with other JavaScript libraries or frameworks in MVC, such as AngularJS.[6]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/React_(JavaScript_library)
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more on Java script in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=java+script
the Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education – CASTLE
If a school’s reputation and pride are built on decades or centuries of “this is how we’ve always done things here,” resistance from staff, parents, and alumni to significant changes may be fierce. In such institutions, heads of school may have to steer carefully between deeply ingrained habits and the need to modernize the information tools with which students and faculty work
Too often, when navigating faculty or parental resistance, school leaders and technology staff make reassurances that things will not have to change much in the classroom or that slow baby steps are OK. Unfortunately, this results in a different problem, which is that schools have now invested significant money, time, and energy into digital technologies but are using them sparingly and seeing little impact. In such schools, replicative uses of technology are quite common, but transformative uses that leverage the unique affordances of technology are quite rare.
many schools fail to proceed further because they don’t have a collective vision of what more transformative uses of technology might look like, nor do they have a shared understanding of and commitment to what it will take to get to such a place. As a result, faculty instruction and the learning experiences of students change little or not at all.
These schools have taken the time to involve all stakeholders—including students—in substantive conversations about what digital tools will allow them to do differently compared with previous analog practices. Their visions promote the potential of computing devices to facilitate all of those elements we now think of as essential 21st-century capacities: confidence, curiosity, enthusiasm, passion, critical thinking, problem-solving, and self-direction. Technology doesn’t simply support traditional teaching—it transforms it for deeper thinking and gives students more agency over their own learning.
Fear
Another prevalent issue preventing technology change in schools is fear—fear of change, of the unknown, of letting go of what we know best, of being learners again. But it’s also a fear of letting kids have wide access to the Internet with the possibility of cyberbullying, access to inappropriate material, and exposure to online predators or even excessive advertising. Fears, of course, need to be surfaced and addressed.
The fear drives some schools to ban cellphones, disallow students and faculty from using Facebook, and lock down Internet filters so tightly that useful websites are inaccessible. They prohibit the use of Twitter and YouTube, and they block blogs. Some educators see these types of responses as principled stands against the shortcomings and hassles of digital technologies. Others see them as rejections of the dehumanization of the education process by soulless machines. Often, however, it’s just schools clinging to the past and elevating what is comfortable or familiar over the potential of technology to help them better deliver on their school missions.
Heads of school don’t have to be skilled users themselves to be effective technology leaders, but they do have to exercise appropriate oversight and convey the message—repeatedly—that frequent, meaningful technology use in school is both important and expected. Nostalgia aside, there is no foreseeable future in which the primacy of printed text is not superseded by electronic text and multimedia. When nearly all information is digital or online, multi-modal and multimedia, accessed by mobile devices that fit in our pockets, the question should not be whether schools prepare students for a digital learning landscape, but rather how.
Control
Many educators aren’t necessarily afraid of technology, but they are so accustomed to heavily teacher-directed classrooms that they are leery about giving up control—and can’t see the value in doing so.
Although most of us recognize that mobile computers connected to the Internet may be the most powerful learning devices yet invented—and that youth are learning in powerful ways at home with these technologies—allowing students to have greater autonomy and ownership of the learning process can still seem daunting and questionable.
The “beyond” is particularly important. When we give students some voice in and choice about what and how they learn, we honor basic human needs for autonomy, we enhance students’ interest and engagement, and we truly actualize our missions of preparing lifelong learners.
The goal of instructional transformation is to empower students, not to disempower teachers. While instructor unfamiliarity with digital technologies, inquiry- or problem-based teaching techniques, or deeper learning strategies may result in some initial discomfort, these challenges can be overcome with robust support.
Support
A few workshops here and there rarely result in large-scale changes in implementation.
teacher-driven “unconferences” or “edcamps,” at which educators propose and facilitate discussion topics, can be powerful mechanisms for fostering professional dialogue and learning. Similarly, some schools offer voluntary “Tech Tuesdays” or “appy hours” to foster digital learning among interested faculty.
In addition to existing IT support, technology integration staff, or librarians/media specialists, some schools have student technology teams that are on call for assistance when needed.
A few middle schools and high schools go even further and assign teachers their own individual student technology mentors. These student-teacher pairings last all school year and comprise the first line of support for educators’ technology questions.
As teachers, heads of school, counselors, coaches, and librarians, we all now have the ability to participate in ongoing, virtual, global communities of practice.
Whether formal or informal, the focus of technology-related professional learning should be on student learning, not on the tools or devices. Independent school educators should always ask, “Technology for the purpose of what?” when considering the inclusion of digital technologies into learning activities. Technology never should be implemented just for technology’s sake.
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more on digital literacy for EDAD in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=digital+literacy+edad
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more on “disconnect” and contemplative computing in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=disconnect
Discover the countries that hosted the most U.S. students in 2015-2016.
Kelly Mae Ross, Reporter Dec. 5, 2016, at 9:00 a.m.
2015-2016 did so in Europe, according to data from the Institute of International Education.
1. Technology that Increases Access Hits the Slow Lane
Innovations in videoconferencing and lecture capture technologies have allowed universities to provide flexible learning experiences to students no matter their location. However, if internet service providers are allowed to create “fast lanes” and “slow lanes” of access, experts worry these learning experiences will be in jeopardy.
“slow lanes” of internet access could make it difficult for students to access cloud software or applications without hitting data caps.
2. Inhibit Ability to Research and Access Materials
a 40-page commentary to the FCC explaining how a repeal would hurt universities, eCampus News reports.
“Institutions of higher education and libraries depend upon an open internet to carry out their educational and civic missions, and to serve their communities,” reads the commentary.
“almost everything” relies on the internet in higher education. Students use it for research, to take courses and turn in assignments while faculty use it for research and to create lesson plans. Roberts says his library needs it to archive and preserve materials. Slower internet could inhibit research and access to library resources.
high cost of attending a university might see a bump without net neutrality.
slower internet access would actually degrade the quality of education offered for a higher cost.
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more on net neutrality and education in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=net+neutrality
