The Charles G. Koch Foundation offered to give the university $1.5 million to hire two assistant professors and fund fellowships and undergraduate curriculum on free-enterprise topics.
“In exchange for his ‘gift,’ the donor got to assign specific readings, select speakers brought to campus and instruct them with regard to the focus of their lectures, shape the curriculum with new courses and specify the number of students in the courses, name the program’s director, and initiate a student club.”
How the Koch Brothers Are Influencing U.S. Colleges
The most notable difference: While some of Soros’ higher education grants go to programs aligning with his domestic policy priorities, the majority are focused overseas, tax records show.
Spreading the Free-Market Gospel
What’s new and interesting about the Koch brothers’ approach to funding academics
It is well-known that the Kochs’ network has invested hundreds of millions of hard-to-track dollars in conservative political nonprofits that influence elections. The brothers, who earned theirbillions leading private oil, chemical, and manufacturing conglomerate Koch Industries Inc., were dominant forces in recent election cycles
The Kochs educational giving, while rarefied, isn’t the most abundant in the United States. Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Intel, with his wife Betty, this year pledged $100 million to the California Institute of Technology—and offered to let the school to spend it as it sees fit.
At the College of Charleston in South Carolina, for example, documents show the foundation wanted more than just academic excellence for its money. It wanted information about students it could potentially use for its own benefit
Among the proposed conditions: Teachings must align with the libertarian economic philosophy of Charles Koch, the Charles Koch Foundation would maintain partial control over faculty hiring and the chairman of the school’s economics department—a prominent economic theorist—must stay in place for another three years despite his plans to step down.
Florida State University ultimately didn’t agree to the initial requests when, in 2008, it reached a funding agreement with the foundation. It’s also tightened and clarified policies that affect private donors’ contributions to the university.
To Charles Koch, Universities Are Propaganda Machines
how data is produced, collected and analyzed. make accessible all kind of data and info
ask good q/s and find good answers, share finding in meaningful ways. this is where digital literacy overshadows information literacy and this the fact that SCSU library does not understand; besides teaching students how to find and evaluate data, I also teach them how to communicate effectively using electronic tools.
connecting people tools and resources and making it easier for everybody. building collaborative, open and interdisciplinary
robust data computational literates. developing workshops, project and events to practice new skills. to position the library as the interdisciplinary nexus
what are data: definition. items of information, facts, traces of content and form. higher level, conception discussion about data in terms of social effects: matadata capturing information about the world, social political and economic changes. move away the mystic conceptions about data. nothing objective about data.
the emergence of IoT – digital meets physical. cyber physical systems. smart objects driven by industry. . proliferation of sensor and device – smart devices.
what does privacy looks like ? what is netneutrality when IoT? library must restructure : collaborate across institutions about collections of data in opien and participatory ways. put IoT in the hands of make and break things (she is maker space aficionado)
make and break things hackathons – use cheap devices such as Arduino and Pi.
data literacy programs with higher level conception exploration; libraries empower the campus in data collection. data science norms, store and share data to existing repositories and even catalogs. commercial services to store and connect data, but very restrictive and this is why libraries must be involved.
linked data and dark data
linked data – draw connections around online data most of the data are locked. linked data uses metadata to link related information in ways computers can understand.
libraries take advantage of link data. link data opportunity for semantics, natural language processing etc. if hidden data is relative to our communities, it is a library responsibility to provide it. community data practitioners
dark data
massive data, which cannot be analyzed by relational processing. data not yield significant findings. might be valuable for researchers: one persons trash is another persons’ treasure. preserving data and providing access to info. collaborate with researchers across disciplines and assist decide what is worth keeping and what discarding and how to study.
rich learning experience working with lined and dark data enable fresh perspective and learning how to work with data architecture. data literacy programming.
in context of data is different from open source and open projects. the social side of data science . advising researchers on navigation data, ethical compilations.
open science movement .https://cos.io/ pushing beyond licences and reframe, position ourselves as collaborators
analysis and publishing ; use tools that can be shared and include data, code and executable files.
reproducibility and contestability https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/events/series/summer-of-open-science
In the age of Big Data, there is an abundance of free or cheap data sources available to libraries about their users’ behavior across the many components that make up their web presence. Data from vendors, data from Google Analytics or other third-party tracking software, and data from user testing are all things libraries have access to at little or no cost. However, just like many students can become overloaded when they do not know how to navigate the many information sources available to them, many libraries can become overloaded by the continuous stream of data pouring in from these sources. This session will aim to help librarians understand 1) what sorts of data their library already has (or easily could have) access to about how their users use their various web tools, 2) what that data can and cannot tell them, and 3) how to use the datasets they are collecting in a holistic manner to help them make design decisions. The presentation will feature examples from the presenters’ own experience of incorporating user data in decisions related to design the Bethel University Libraries’ web presence.
silos, IT barrier, focusing on student success, retention, server space is cheap, if
promotion and tenure for faculty can include incentive to work with the librarian
lack of fear, changing the mindset.
deep collaboration both within and cross-consortia
don’t rely on vendor solutions. changing mindset
development = oppty (versus development as “work”)
private higher education is PALNI
3d virtual picture of disastrous areas. unlock the digital information to be digitally accessible to all people who might be interested.
they opened the maps of Katmandu for the local community and they were coming up with the strategies to recover. democracy in action
i can’t stop thinking that the keynote speaker efforts are mere follow up of what Naomi Klein explains in her Shock Doctrine: http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine: a government country seeks reasons to destroy another country or area and then NGOs from the same country go to remedy the disasters
A question from a librarian from the U about the use of drones. My note: why did the SCSU library have to give up its drone?
Douglas County Library model. too resource intensive to continue
Marmot Library Network
ILS integrated library system – shared with other counties, same sever for the entire consortium. they have a programmer, viewfind, open source, discovery player, he customized viewfind community to viewfind plus. instead of using the ILS public access catalogue, they are using the Vufind interface
Caiifa Enki. public library – single access collection. they purchase ebooks from the publisher and they are using also the viewfind interface. but not integrated with the library catalogs. Kansas public library went from OverDrive to Viewfind. CA State library is funding for the time being this effort.
types of content – publisher will not understand issue, which clear for librarians
PDF and epub formats
purchase content –
title by title selection – academia is tired of selections. although it is intended to buy also collections
library – owned ( and shared collections)
host content from libraries – papers in academic lib, genealogy in pub lib.
options in license models .
e resource content. not only ebooks, after it is taken care of, add other types of digital objects.
instead of replicate, replacement of the commercial aggregators,
Amigos Shelf interface is the product of the presenter
instead of having a young reader collection as SCSU has on the third floor, an academic library is outsourcing through AMigos shelf ebooks for young readers
Harper Collins is too cumbersome and the reason to avoid working with them.
security issues. some of the material sent over ftp and immediately moved to sftp
decisions – use of internal resources only, if now – amazon
programmer used for the pilot. contracted programmers. lack of the ability to see the large picture. eventually hired a full time person, instead of outsourcing. RDA compliant MARC.
ONIX, spreadsheet MARC.
Decision about who to start with : public or academic.
attempt to keep pricing down –
own agreement with the customers, separate from the agreement with the Publisher
current development: web-based online reading, shared-consortial collections and SIP2 authentication
An article in The Conversation recently argued universities should ban PowerPoint because it makes students stupid and professors boring.
Originally for Macintosh, the company that designed it was bought by Microsoft. After its launch the software was increasingly targeted at business professionals, especially consultants and busy salespeople.
As it turns out, PowerPoint has not empowered academia. The basic problem is that a lecturer isn’t intended to be selling bullet point knowledge to students, rather they should be making the students encounter problems. Such a learning process is slow and arduous, and cannot be summed up neatly. PowerPoint produces stupidity, which is why some, such as American statistician Edward Tufte have said it is “evil”.
Of course, new presentation technologies like Prezi, SlideRocket or Impress add a lot of new features and 3D animation, yet I’d argue they only make things worse. A moot point doesn’t become relevant by moving in mysterious ways. The truth is that PowerPoints actually are hard to follow and if you miss one point you are often lost.
While successfully banning Facebook and other use of social media in our masters programme in philosophy and business at Copenhagen Business School, we have also recently banned teachers using PowerPoint. Here we are in sync with the US armed forces, where Brigadier-General Herbert McMaster banned it because it was regarded as a poor tool for decision-making.
Courses designed around slides therefore propagate the myth that students can become skilled and knowledgeable without working through dozens of books, hundreds of articles and thousands of problems.
A review of research on PowerPoint found that while students liked PowerPoint better than overhead transparencies, PowerPoint did not increase learning or grades
Research comparing teaching based on slides against other methods such as problem-based learning – where students develop knowledge and skills by confronting realistic, challenging problems – predominantly supports alternative methods.
PowerPoint slides are toxic to education for three main reasons:
students come to think of a course as a set of slides. Good teachers who present realistic complexity and ambiguity are criticised for being unclear. Teachers who eschew bullet points for graphical slides are criticised for not providing proper notes.
Slides discourage reasonable expectations
Measuring the wrong things
If slide shows are so bad, why are they so popular?
Exams, term papers and group projects ostensibly measure knowledge or ability. Learning is the change in knowledge and skills and therefore must be measured over time.
When we do attempt to measure learning, the results are not pretty. US researchers found that a third of American undergraduates demonstrated no significant improvement in learning over their four-year degree programs.
They tested students in the beginning, middle and end of their degrees using the Collegiate Learning Assessment, an instrument that tests skills any degree should improve – analytic reasoning, critical thinking, problem solving and writing.
Join the Blended Librarians Online Learning Community for the second webcast in a series of conversations with Blended Librarians. This session explores the role of Blended Librarians by discussing with our panel how they developed their skills, how they obtained their positions, what their work is like, what their challenges are and what they enjoy about being a Blended Librarian. This panel conversation takes place on Thursday, March 2, 2017 at 3 p.m. EST with our guests J. Lindsay O’Neill, Francesca Marineo, Kristin (Miller) Woodward, Julie Hartwell, and Amanda Clossen.
Panelists
Lindsay O’Neill is the Instructional Design Librarian at California State University, Fullerton’s Pollak Library, where she designs and develops tutorials related to information literacy and library research using Articulate Storyline, Adobe Captivate, and Camtasia. She is also a faculty member in CSUF’s Master of Science in Instructional Design and Technology program. Lindsay regularly consults on effective pedagogy, instructional design, educational technology, open licensing, and accessibility. Lindsay holds a Master in Education, specializing in Educational Technology/Instructional Design, as well as a Master of Library and Information Science.
Francesca Marineo is an instructional design librarian at Nevada State College. She received her MLIS from the University of California, Los Angeles, where she discovered her profound passion for information literacy instruction. Currently pursuing a Master in Educational Psychology, she focuses on improving teaching and learning in higher education through innovative pedagogy and data-driven design.
Kristin Woodward is Online Programs and Instructional Design Coordinator at UWM Libraries. In this role Kristin consults with faculty and teaching staff to build information competencies and library resources into the framework of online, hybrid and competency based courses. Kristin also serves as the campus lead for the student-funded Open Textbook and OER Project as well as the library team lead for Scholarly Communication.
Julie Hartwell is an Instructional Design Librarian at the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s Miller Nichols Library. She serves as liaison to the Sociology, Criminal Justice, and Instructional Design departments. She contributes to the creation of library learning objects and instruction for the library’s Research Essentials program. She is a content creator and instructional designer for the New Literacies Alliance, an inter-institutional information literacy consortium. Julie is a Quality Matters Peer Reviewer. She received her masters of library and information science from the University of Iowa.
Amanda Clossen has been working as the Learning Design Librarian at Penn State University Libraries for the past five years. In this position, she has worked on projects spanning the micro to macro aspects of learning design. She has created award-winning videos, overseen Penn State’s transition from an in-house guide product to LibGuides, and was deeply involved in integrating the Libraries in the new LMS, Canvas. Her research interests include accessibility, video usability, and concept based teaching.
continued practice, clear goals and immediate feedback
project-based learning, Minecraft and SimCity EDU
Gamification of learning versus learning with games
organizations to promote gaming and gamification in education (p. 6 http://scsu.mn/1F008Re)
the “chocolate-covered broccoli” problem
Discussion: why gaming and gamification is not accepted in a higher rate? what are the hurdles to enable greater faster acceptance? What do you think, you can do to accelerate this process?
Gaming in an academic library
why the academic library? sandbox for experimentation
the connection between digital literacy and gaming and gamificiation
Gilchrist and Zald’s model for instruction design through assessment
Discussion: based on the example (http://web.stcloudstate.edu/pmiltenoff/bi/), how do you see transforming academic library services to meet the demands of 21st century education?
Gaming, gamification and assessment (badges)
inability of current assessments to evaluate games as part of the learning process
“microcredentialing” through digital badges
Mozilla Open Badges and Badgestack
leaderboards
Discussion: How do you see a transition from the traditional assessment to a new and more flexible academic assessment?
Future Trends Forum hosted by Bryan Alexander will address the most powerful forces of change in academia. The founder of the online blog Future Trends in Technology and Education has begun this weekly forum to enliven the discussion around the pressing issues at the cross roads of education and technology through weekly online video chat conversations where practitioners in the field can contribute and share their most recent experiences.
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Paul Signorelli, co-author of Workplace Learning & Leadership with Lori Reed, helps clients and colleagues explore, foster, and document innovations in learning to produce concrete results. He also is heavily engaged in supporting team-building and communities of collaboration. As a San Francisco-based writer, trainer, instructional designer, and consultant, he designs and facilitates learning opportunities for a variety of clients, helps others become familiar with e-learning, social media, MOOCs, mobile technology, innovations in learning spaces, and community partnerships (onsite and online) to creatively facilitate positive change within organizations. He has served on advisory boards/expert panels for the New Media Consortium Horizon Project documenting educational technology trends and challenges since 2010; remains active locally and nationally in the Association for Talent Development (formerly the American Society for Training & Development); and facilitates webinars for the American Library Association and other learning organizations. His most recent work remains focused on connectivist MOOCs (massive open online courses) and building sustainable onsite and online communities and partnerships. Signorelli earned an MLIS through the University of North Texas (with an emphasis on online learning) and an M.A. in Arts Administration at Golden Gate University (San Francisco); blogs at http://buildingcreativebridges.wordpress.com; and can be reached at paul@paulsignorelli.com.
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First-time users: upon entering the room, click “Allow” to the Flash prompt requesting access to your webcam. (Chrome users may need to click Allow a second time).
Note: The Shindig app currently only supports interacting with the featured speakers through text. To fully enjoy the Shindig experience and be enabled to ask video chat questions of the speaker or video chat privately with other participants, please log in from a computer with webcam and microphone capabilities.
Joelle Pitts is an Instructional Design Librarian and Associate Professor at Kansas State University Libraries. She is responsible for the creation and maintenance of web-based learning objects and environments aimed at improving the information literacy of the Kansas State University community. She leads the New Literacies Alliance, an inter-institutional information literacy consortium. Her research interests include distance education and e-learning theory and design, library user experience (UX), as well as the design and implementation of games-based learning environments.
my note: Avoid using infographics for purposes, which toodoo can serve. Infographics are for about visualization of stats, not just visualization. #FindTheRightTool
By Vicki E. Phillips
As instructors, we are constantly looking for new ways to capture our students’ attention and increase their participation in our classes, especially in the online modalities. We spend countless hours crafting weekly announcements for classes and then inevitably receive multiple emails from our students asking the very same questions that we so carefully and completely answered in those very same announcements! The question remains, how do we get them to read our posts?
It was precisely that problem I was trying to solve when I came across several articles touting the benefits of comics in higher education classrooms. I knew I couldn’t create an entire comic book, but I wondered if I could create a content-related cartoon that would not only capture students’ attention and maybe make them laugh, but also interest them enough that they would read the entire announcement or post. In doing so, I would be freed from responding to dozens of emails asking the same questions outlined in the announcements and students could focus on the homework.
A quick Internet search led me to a plethora of free “click and drag” cartoon making software applications to try. I started posting my own cartoons on characters, themes, etc. on the weekly literature we were studying in my upper division American and Contemporary World Literature classes, as well as to offer reminders or a few words of encouragement. Here’s an example of one I posted during week 7 of the semester when students can become discouraged with their assignment load: http://www.toondoo.com/cartoon/10115361
After a positive response, I decided to provide my online students the opportunity to try their hand at cartoon creation. I created a rubric and a set of instructions for an easy to use, free program that I had used, and I opened up the “cartoon challenge” to the students. The results were nothing short of amazing—what intrigued me the most was the time and effort they took with their cartoons. Not only did they create cartoons on the story we were reading, but they also wrote additional posts explaining their ideas for the creation, discussing why they chose a particular scene, and identifying those elements pertinent to the points they were making. These posts tended to receive many more substantial comments from their peers than the traditional discussion board posts, indicating they were being read more.
When students in my face-to-face course heard about the cartoons, they asked to try this approach as well. Their cartoons, shared in class via the overhead projector, led to some of the most engaging and interesting discussions I have ever had in the residential literature classes as students explained how they came up with the elements they chose, and why they picked a certain scene from the reading. The positive student feedback has been instrumental in my continuing to offer this option in both my online and face-to-face classes.
How does one get started in making these cartoons? The good news is you do not have to be an artist to make a cartoon! There are free programs with templates, clip art, and all the elements you would need to click and drag into place all those wonderful ideas you have simmering in your brain. My favorite to use is ToonDoo, available at http://toondoo.com. I like it because there are literally hundreds of elements, a search bar, and it lets me customize what I want to say in the dialog bubbles. It is very user friendly, even for those of us with limited artistic ability.
The whole experience has been overwhelmingly positive for me, and judging from the feedback received, for the students as well. It has also reminded me of one of my teaching goals, which is to incorporate more activities which would fall under assimilating and creating aspects of Bloom’s Taxonomy (Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy, 2001). If that is your goal as well, then try inserting a cartoon in those weekly announcements and ask for feedback from your students—I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised!
References:
Armstrong, Patricia (n.d.) Bloom’s Taxonomy, Vanderbilt University, Center for Teaching. Retrieved from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/#2001
Pappas, Christopher (2014) The 5 Best Free Cartoon Making Programs for Teachers. Retrieved from: https://elearningindustry.com/the-5-best-free-cartoon-making-tools-for-teachers
Vicki E. Phillips is an assistant professor of English and Literature at Rasmussen College, Ocala, Fla.
Content Curation, Not Content Aggregation
Scoop.it is not just another place to drop your RSS feed. It could be, but then it’s just another content aggregator.
curation online also has to demonstrate: mastery, passion, knowledge and expertise. Without such additional layers, a curated collection of links is just a collection of links.”
Using Scoop.it for Content Curation, Branding and Authority Building
Using Relative Keywords to Pull Content
When you read an article you think would do well for your Scoop.it topic, click the Scoop.it bookmarklet, enter the information you want, and publish. This is a handy feature to have when you’re reading or researching about your favorite topics.
Suggestion Engine for Sifting Through Content
Sometimes you don’t have time to search for content to curate. Scoop.it’s suggestion engine provides you with a list of suggested sites based on the keywords you enter. When you’re ready to add more content to your Scoop.it, simply scroll down the list of RSS feeds.
Adding Your Own Sources for Reliable Content
Everybody has their favorite reads and twitter users or lists to follow. Scoop.it allows you to add your own sources, making it easier to find good content – not quite so much crud to weed through. RSS feeds, Twitter users, Twitter lists, Twitter searches, a Facebook page, and Google News, Blogs, or Video search: these options give you a variety of ways to include your favorite sources in your “suggested sources” box.
Curation is not original content. There is a place for curation. It’s right between content creation and content syndication. It’s an approach, placed neatly under the whole “strategic content use” outline. I don’t cut and paste the whole story on my page (I’m not a douche bag); I give my readers the reason I chose a particular post. I ask them questions, and let them know why I agree or disagree. Not on every post, but on most.
10 Steps To Curate Your Social Media Content With Scoop.it for Increased Value
Social media curation is when you filter, select, review and reposition quality content on the web for a specific audience and/or topic.
Scoop.it is a semi-automated curation platform. Scoop.it crawls the web according to apre-determined criteria and then allows the curator to review and reposition the filtered material prior to publishing. This repositioning could be in the form of contextual reorganization and/or commentary of the material to provide an overall perspective. Once the material has been curated, Scoop.it allows the curator to publish the material in an attractive web-magazine by topic. This web-magazine organizes each curated article into “sticky posts” on a digital interactive interface as shown in the examples below.
do you fall into any of the following categories 1) struggling to provide fresh consistent quality content for your audience; 2) cannot invest the time to write your blog; 3) looking for ways to expand your audience; 4) want to increase your service offering to your customer base; 5) want to establish yourself as a thought leader on a specific topic; 6) want to increase your social media visibility; 7) looking for other distribution channels to spread your word; and/or 8 ) looking for a curation option that is not automated so you can leave “your finger print”. If the answer is “yes” to one of any of the above, you should consider this option.
Here is how to curate your social media content using Scoop.it
Ungerer, L. M. (2016). Digital Curation as a Core Competency in Current Learning and Literacy: A Higher Education Perspective. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 17(5). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v17i5.2566
metaliteracy
Technology considerably impacts on current literacy requirements (Reinking, as cited in Sharma & Deschaine, 2016). Being literate in the 21st century requires being able to decode and comprehend multimodal texts and digital format and also engage with these texts in a purposeful manner. Literacy is not merely based on a specific skill, but consists of a process that embraces the dynamic, social, and collaborative facets of digital technology (Lewis & Fabos, as cited in Mills, 2013).
Mackey and Jacobson (2011) suggest reframing the concept of information literacy as metaliteracy (supporting multiple literacy types) because of a tremendous growth in social media and collaborative online communities. They propose that information literacy currently involves more than a set of discrete skills, since active knowledge production and distribution in collaborative online communities are also necessary.
Mackey and Jacobson (2011) position metaliteracy as an overarching and comprehensive framework that informs other literacy types. It serves as the basis for media literacy, digital literacy, ICT literacy, and visual literacy.
According to Mills (2013, p. 47), digital curation is the sifting and aggregation of internet and other digital resources into a manageable collection of what teachers and students find relevant, personalized and dynamic. It incorporates the vibrancy of components of the Internet and provides a repository that is easily accessible and usable.
Pedagogies of Abundance
According to Weller (2011), a pedagogy of abundance should consider a number of assumptions such as that content often is freely available and abundant. Content further takes on various forms and it is often easy and inexpensive to share information. Content is socially based and since people filter and share content, a social approach to learning is advisable. Further, establishing and preserving connections in a network is easy and they do not have to be maintained on a one-to-one basis. Successful informal groupings occur frequently, reducing the need to formally manage groups.
Resource-based learning. Ryan (as cited in Weller, 2011) defines resource-based learning as “an integrated set of strategies to promote student centred learning in a mass education context, through a combination of specially designed learning resources and interactive media and technologies.”
Problem-based learning. Problem-based learning takes place when learners experience the process of working toward resolving a problem encountered early in the learning process (Barrows & Tamblyn, as cited in Weller, 2011). Students often collaborate in small groups to identify solutions to ill-defined problems, while the teacher acts as facilitator and assists groups if they need help. Problem-based learning meets a number of important requirements such as being learner-directed, using diverse resources and taking an open-ended approach.
Communities of practice. Lave and Wenger’s (as cited in Weller, 2011) concept of situated learning and Wenger’s (as cited in Weller, 2011) idea of communities of practice highlight the importance of apprenticeship and the social role in learning.
My note: this article spells out what needs to be done and how. it is just flabeghasting that research guides are employed so religiously by librarians. They are exactly the opposite concept of the one presented in this article: they are closed, controlled by one or several librarians, without a constant and easy access of the instructor, not to mention the students’ participation
