Augmented reality can be described as experiencing the real world with an overlay of additional computer generated content. In contrast, virtual reality immerses a user in an entirely simulated environment, while mixed or merged reality blends real and virtual worlds in ways through which the physical and the digital can interact. AR, VR, and MR offer new opportunities to create a psychological sense of immersive presence in an environment that feels real enough to be viewed, experienced, explored, and manipulated. These technologies have the potential to democratize learning by giving everyone access to immersive experiences that were once restricted to relatively few learners.
In Grinnell College’s Immersive Experiences Lab http://gciel.sites.grinnell.edu/, teams of faculty, staff, and students collaborate on research projects, then use 3D, VR, and MR technologies as a platform to synthesize and present their findings.
In terms of equity, AR, VR, and MR have the potential to democratize learning by giving all learners access to immersive experiences
downsides :
relatively little research about the most effective ways to use these technologies as instructional tools. Combined, these factors can be disincentives for institutions to invest in the equipment, facilities, and staffing that can be required to support these systems. AR, VR, and MR technologies raise concerns about personal privacy and data security. Further, at least some of these tools and applications currently fail to meet accessibility standards. The user experience in some AR, VR, and MR applications can be intensely emotional and even disturbing (my note: but can be also used for empathy literacy),
immersing users in recreated, remote, or even hypothetical environments as small as a molecule or as large as a universe, allowing learners to experience “reality” from multiple perspectives.
According to the email below, library faculty are asked to provide their feedback regarding the qualifications for a possible faculty line at the library.
In the fall of 2013 during a faculty meeting attended by the back than library dean and during a discussion of an article provided by the dean, it was established that leading academic libraries in this country are seeking to break the mold of “library degree” and seek fresh ideas for the reinvention of the academic library by hiring faculty with more diverse (degree-wise) background.
Is this still the case at the SCSU library? The “democratic” search for the answer of this question does not yield productive results, considering that the majority of the library faculty are “reference” and they “democratically” overturn votes, who see this library to be put on 21st century standards and rather seek more “reference” bodies for duties, which were recognized even by the same reference librarians as obsolete.
It seems that the majority of the SCSU library are “purists” in the sense of seeking professionals with broader background (other than library, even “reference” skills).
In addition, most of the current SCSU librarians are opposed to a second degree, as in acquiring more qualification, versus seeking just another diploma. There is a certain attitude of stagnation / intellectual incest, where new ideas are not generated and old ideas are prepped in “new attire” to look as innovative and/or 21st
Last but not least, a consistent complain about workforce shortages (the attrition politics of the university’s reorganization contribute to the power of such complain) fuels the requests for reference librarians and, instead of looking for new ideas, new approaches and new work responsibilities, the library reorganization conversation deteriorates into squabbles for positions among different department.
Most importantly, the narrow sightedness of being stuck in traditional work description impairs most of the librarians to see potential allies and disruptors. E.g., the insistence on the supremacy of “information literacy” leads SCSU librarians to the erroneous conclusion of the exceptionality of information literacy and the disregard of multi[meta] literacies, thus depriving the entire campus of necessary 21st century skills such as visual literacy, media literacy, technology literacy, etc.
Simultaneously, as mentioned above about potential allies and disruptors, the SCSU librarians insist on their “domain” and if they are not capable of leading meta-literacies instructions, they would also not allow and/or support others to do so.
Considering the observations above, the following qualifications must be considered:
According to the information in this blog post: https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2016/06/14/technology-requirements-samples/
for the past year and ½, academic libraries are hiring specialists with the following qualifications and for the following positions (bolded and / or in red). Here are some highlights: Positions
digital humanities
Librarian and Instructional Technology Liaison
library Specialist: Data Visualization & Collections Analytics
Qualifications
Advanced degree required, preferably in education, educational technology, instructional design, or MLS with an emphasis in instruction and assessment.
Programming skills – Demonstrated experience with one or more metadata and scripting languages (e.g.Dublin Core, XSLT, Java, JavaScript, Python, or PHP)
Data visualization skills
multi [ meta] literacy skills
Data curation, helping students working with data
Experience with website creation and design in a CMS environment and accessibility and compliance issues
Demonstrated a high degree of facility with technologies and systems germane to the 21st century library, and be well versed in the issues surrounding scholarly communications and compliance issues (e.g. author identifiers, data sharing software, repositories, among others)
Bilingual
Provides and develops awareness and knowledge related to digital scholarship and research lifecycle for librarians and staff.
Experience developing for, and supporting, common open-source library applications such as Omeka, ArchiveSpace, Dspace,
Responsibilities Establishing best practices for digital humanities labs, networks, and services
Assessing, evaluating, and peer reviewing DH projects and librarians
Actively promote TIGER or GRIC related activities through social networks and other platforms as needed.
Coordinates the transmission of online workshops through Google HangoutsScript metadata transformations and digital object processing using BASH, Python, and XSLT
liaison consults with faculty and students in a wide range of disciplines on best practices for teaching and using data/statistical software tools such as R, SPSS, Stata, and MatLab.
In response to the form attached to the Friday, September 29, email regarding St. Cloud State University Library Position Request Form:
Title
Digital Initiatives Librarian
Responsibilities:
TBD, but generally:
– works with faculty across campus on promoting digital projects and other 21st century projects. Works with the English Department faculty on positioning the SCSU library as an equal participants in the digital humanities initiatives on campus
Works with the Visualization lab to establish the library as the leading unit on campus in interpretation of big data
Works with academic technology services on promoting library faculty as the leading force in the pedagogical use of academic technologies.
Quantitative data justification
this is a mute requirement for an innovative and useful library position. It can apply for a traditional request, such as another “reference” librarian. There cannot be a quantitative data justification for an innovative position, as explained to Keith Ewing in 2015. In order to accumulate such data, the position must be functioning at least for six months.
Qualitative justification: Please provide qualitative explanation that supports need for this position.
Numerous 21st century academic tendencies right now are scattered across campus and are a subject of political/power battles rather than a venue for campus collaboration and cooperation. Such position can seek the establishment of the library as the natural hub for “sandbox” activities across campus. It can seek a redirection of using digital initiatives on this campus for political gains by administrators and move the generation and accomplishment of such initiatives to the rightful owner and primary stakeholders: faculty and students.
Currently, there are no additional facilities and resources required. Existing facilities and resources, such as the visualization lab, open source and free application can be used to generate the momentum of faculty working together toward a common goal, such as, e.g. digital humanities.
metadata: counts of papers by yer, researcher, institution, province, region and country. scientific fields subfields
metadata in one-credit course as a topic:
publisher – suppliers =- Elsevier processes – Scopus Data
h-index: The h-index is an author-level metric that attempts to measure both the productivity and citation impact of the publications of a scientist or scholar. The index is based on the set of the scientist’s most cited papers and the number of citations that they have received in other publications.
The era of e-science demands new skill sets and competencies of researchers to ensure their work is accessible, discoverable and reusable. Librarians are naturally positioned to assist in this education as part of their liaison and information literacy services.
Research data literacy and the library
Christian Lauersen, University of Copenhagen; Sarah Wright, Cornell University; Anita de Waard, Elsevier
Data Literacy: access, assess, manipulate, summarize and present data
Statistical Literacy: think critically about basic stats in everyday media
Information Literacy: think critically about concepts; read, interpret, evaluate information
data information literacy: the ability to use, understand and manage data. the skills needed through the whole data life cycle.
Shield, Milo. “Information literacy, statistical literacy and data literacy.” I ASSIST Quarterly 28. 2/3 (2004): 6-11.
Carlson, J., Fosmire, M., Miller, C. C., & Nelson, M. S. (2011). Determining data information literacy needs: A study of students and research faculty. Portal: Libraries & the Academy, 11(2), 629-657.
embedded librarianship,
Courses developed: NTRESS 6600 research data management seminar. six sessions, one-credit mini course
NEW ROLESFOR LIbRARIANS: DATAMANAgEMENTAND CURATION
the capacity to manage and curate research data has not kept pace with the ability to produce them (Hey & Hey, 2006). In recognition of this gap, the NSF and other funding agencies are now mandating that every grant proposal must include a DMP (NSF, 2010). These mandates highlight the benefits of producing well-described data that can be shared, understood, and reused by oth-ers, but they generally offer little in the way of guidance or instruction on how to address the inherent issues and challenges researchers face in complying. Even with increasing expecta-tions from funding agencies and research com-munities, such as the announcement by the White House for all federal funding agencies to better share research data (Holdren, 2013), the lack of data curation services tailored for the “small sciences,” the single investigators or small labs that typically comprise science prac-tice at universities, has been identified as a bar-rier in making research data more widely avail-able (Cragin, Palmer, Carlson, & Witt, 2010).Academic libraries, which support the re-search and teaching activities of their home institutions, are recognizing the need to de-velop services and resources in support of the evolving demands of the information age. The curation of research data is an area that librar-ians are well suited to address, and a num-ber of academic libraries are taking action to build capacity in this area (Soehner, Steeves, & Ward, 2010)
REIMAgININg AN ExISTINg ROLEOF LIbRARIANS: TEAChINg INFORMATION LITERACY SkILLS
By combining the use-based standards of information literacy with skill development across the whole data life cycle, we sought to support the practices of science by develop-ing a DIL curriculum and providing training for higher education students and research-ers. We increased ca-pacity and enabled comparative work by involving several insti-tutions in developing instruction in DIL. Finally, we grounded the instruction in the real-world needs as articu-lated by active researchers and their students from a variety of fields
Chapter 1 The development of the 12 DIL competencies is explained, and a brief compari-son is performed between DIL and information literacy, as defined by the 2000 ACRL standards.
chapter 2 thinking and approaches toward engaging researchers and students with the 12 competencies, a re-view of the literature on a variety of educational approaches to teaching data management and curation to students, and an articulation of our key assumptions in forming the DIL project.
chapter 4 because these lon-gitudinal data cannot be reproduced, acquiring the skills necessary to work with databases and to handle data entry was described as essential. Interventions took place in a classroom set-ting through a spring 2013 semester one-credit course entitled Managing Data to Facilitate Your Research taught by this DIL team.
chapter 5 embedded librar-ian approach of working with the teaching as-sistants (TAs) to develop tools and resources to teach undergraduate students data management skills as a part of their EPICS experience.
Lack of organization and documentation presents a bar-rier to (a) successfully transferring code to new students who will continue its development, (b) delivering code and other project outputs to the community client, and (c) the center ad-ministration’s ability to understand and evalu-ate the impact on student learning.
skill sessions to deliver instruction to team lead-ers, crafted a rubric for measuring the quality of documenting code and other data, served as critics in student design reviews, and attended student lab sessions to observe and consult on student work
chapter 6 Although the faculty researcher had created formal policies on data management practices for his lab, this case study demonstrated that students’ adherence to these guidelines was limited at best. Similar patterns arose in discus-sions concerning the quality of metadata. This case study addressed a situation in which stu-dents are at least somewhat aware of the need to manage their data;
chapter 7 University of Minnesota team to design and implement a hybrid course to teach DIL com-petencies to graduate students in civil engi-neering.
stu-dents’ abilities to understand and track issues affecting the quality of the data, the transfer of data from their custody to the custody of the lab upon graduation, and the steps neces-sary to maintain the value and utility of the data over time.
Consider the information they handle every day. School districts in America today are complex, sophisticated businesses, not only managing multiple applications across multiple platforms, but also managing people and equipment in the real world, like bus fleets, library systems, and cafeterias.
you will find admins working with an average of 30 onsite and online platforms. That’s 30 systems to feed with data and update. The kicker is that those systems might not be on speaking terms with each other.
Interoperability is a multi-headed issue for any IT professional, but in the K-12 education world it is especially complex. These unique complexities can be distilled down to eight truths, and may explain why vendors who have been very successful in other IT verticals never seem to meet expectations in K-12.
The Solution Cannot Be Point-to-Point
Data from many active sources is profoundly difficult to keep current, especially when considering the different protocols used for each particular point-to-point integration.
There Must Be Multiple Ways of Moving Data
A successful broker/dashboard must be able to accommodate all of these integration methods. The broker needs to support it as well as the industry’s existing standards, such as SIF and CSV.
The System Must Merge Disparate Feeds
Data comes into educational systems from a variety of feeds, including CSVs and file sharing. Handling all these feeds develops a vital function, coveted by IT professionals and system admins everywhere: a comprehensive representation of the data truth of your district.
Your Data Solution Must Be Bidirectional
Different systems don’t always talk to each other politely, and with some districts using as many as 30 applications, writing grades back to the SIS can get thorny.
We Need a Flexible Data Model
some of those free or low-cost integrations are profoundly rigid and can’t accommodate the data reality of school districts.
We Must Deal with “Dumb” End Points
In the world of district data, we are moving toward REST APIs and other unintelligent end points. There is no inherent logic in an API that tells the system how to move data. And as mentioned earlier, many legacy systems still depend on CSV’s for data.
Integration Belongs in the Cloud but Must Accommodate On-Premise Apps
know the cloud actually is an ideal setting for interoperability, especially since so many of our applications are cloud-based. It gives you maximum visibility, maximum diagnostic capability and manageability. You can manage from anywhere, anytime.
Be Multi-Tenant with Supervisory Capability
For areas where intermediate units or a Board of Cooperative Educational Standards (BOCES) provide IT services to districts, the system admins need a big picture approach. The integration platform must allow the IU or BOCES to troubleshoot, diagnose, manage, and support multiple districts in one dashboard, but only show district personnel data belonging to their organization. State education agencies also have this need.
There are several reputable companies that provide an iPaaS–in fact Gartner compared 20 of them in their 2017 Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Integration Platform as a Service. However, without a deep understanding of education data models, even these vendors may fall short, and may be expensive.
My note: sometimes around 2011, the Chronicle had a report on Berkeley students listening to coursecasts at 2X (can’t find the reference). Here some other sources about #speedlistening:
the introduction of Overcast, a podcast-playback app designed by the creator of the text-bookmaking app Instapaper. One of Overcast’s key selling points is a feature called Smart Speed. Smart Speed isn’t about simply playing audio content at 150 or 200 percent of the standard rate; it instead tries to remove, algorithmically, the extraneous things that can bulk up the play time of audio content: dead air, pauses between sentences, intros and outros, that kind of thing.
Forward-thinking educators are finding that technology can enhance their teaching methods, infuse new energy into their courses, and improve student learning.
But the latest cool technology is only cool if you know where, when, why, and how to use it. Join us in Baltimore for the 2017 Teaching with Technology Conference to learn best practices for effectively integrating technology into your courses.
Request from Plovdiv University faculty and teachers from the Plovdiv school district for literature on the issue of online reading for K4 students
Putman, S. M. (2014). Exploring Dispositions Toward Online Reading: Analyzing the Survey of Online Reading Attitudes and Behaviors. Reading Psychology, 35(1), 1-31. doi:10.1080/02702711.2012.664250
Research continues to emerge that pro-vides us with information about the cognitive skills and strategies relevant to the proficient use of the new literacies of the Internet, but conclusions regarding dispositions and affective variables are notably limited. For this reason, it is important that researchers begin to focus concurrently on both areas to inform the educational community regarding how to meet the rapidly changing needs of our current and future students.
Coiro, J. (2011). Talking About Reading as Thinking: Modeling the Hidden Complexities of Online Reading Comprehension. Theory Into Practice, 50(2), 107-115. doi:10.1080/00405841.2011.558435
Hutchison, A. C., Woodward, L., & Colwell, J. (2016). What Are Preadolescent Readers Doing Online? An Examination of Upper Elementary Students’ Reading, Writing, and Communication in Digital Spaces. Reading Research Quarterly, 51(4), 435-454. doi:10.1002/rrq.146
he performance of 1,262 fourth and fifth graders on the Survey of Internet Use and Online Reading.
(c) despite reporting a preference for using the Internet, preadolescent students believe that it is more difficult to use it than to read a book, and believe that they would learn
more from a book than from the Internet;
Huang, S., Orellana, P., & Capps, M. (2016). U.S. and Chilean College Students’ Reading Practices: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. Reading Research Quarterly, 51(4), 455-471. doi:10.1002/rrq.144
My note: this may seem peripheral study to the request in terms of age, but the cross-cultural study can help the Bulgarian research
Due to the impact of the Internet on reading resources, students’ reading patterns today are different from how they were in the past. College students’ reading practices have moved to different venues with the advent of Internet technology, and the modality has migrated to online reading.
Naumann, J. (2015). A model of online reading engagement: Linking engagement, navigation, and performance in digital reading. Computers In Human Behavior, 53263-277. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2015.06.051
model of online reading engagement is outlined. This model proposes that online reading engagement predicts dedication in digital reading. Dedication in digital reading according to the model is reflected in task-adaptive navigation, and task-adaptive navigation predicts digital reading performance over and above print reading skill. Information engagement is assumed to positively predict task-adaptive navigation, while social engagement is assumed to negatively predict task-adaptive navigation. These hypotheses were tested using OECD PISA 2009 Digital Reading Assessment data from 17 countries and economies ( N = 29,395).
Alvermann, D. E., & Harrison, C. (2016). Are Computers, Smartphones, and the Internet a Boon or a Barrier for the Weaker Reader?. Journal Of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 60(2), 221-225. doi:10.1002/jaal.569
If boys are spending nine hours a day media multitasking and prefer computers to books, shouldn’t they be successful at online learning? Online learning requires online reading, which means that boys, who are significantly poorer readers than girls in every nation in the world, may well be struggling to keep up. an online student may not have access to the learning that can come from group interaction, nor to the social and emotional support that can come from peers or a teacher, and the online reader could be heading for a learning apocalypse
Park, H., & Kim, D. (2017). English language learners’ strategies for reading online texts: Influential factors and patterns of use at home and in school. International Journal Of Educational Research, 8263-74. doi:10.1016/j.ijer.2017.01.002
five fourth and fifth-grade English language learners’ (ELLs) strategy use when they read online texts at home and in school. We also identify factors that play a role when these learners read online texts, as well as similar and different patterns in reading strategies at home and in school. The findings show that three factors influence the ELLs’ selection of online texts and use of reading strategies. In addition, the ELLs used nine reading strategies to enhance their reading online texts. Based on these findings, we discuss (a) the ELLs’ online reading strategies in different contexts, (b) the multidimensional zone of proximal development, and (c) collaboration between parents and teachers.
Leu, D. J., Forzani, E., Timbrell, N., & Maykel, C. (2015). Seeing the Forest, Not the Trees. Reading Teacher, 69(2), 139-145. doi:10.1002/trtr.1406
a primary goal is to develop the ability to read in order to learn with online information. Technologies that support this goal, especially the Internet, and instructional practices that support the development of online reading should be our primary consideration for reading and literacy education, beginning in the primary grades.
Brynge, E., Case, H., Forsyth, E., Green, G., & Hölke, U. (2015). Libraries: Sustaining the Digital Reader Experience. Scholarly & Research Communication, 1-10.
Bornett, C. C. (2016). Leseförderung digital genial: WieTablets die Bibliothekspädagogik verändern / Tipps nicht nur für Bilderbuch-Apps. (German). Bub: Forum Bibliothek Und Information, 68(10), 606-608.
Correlation and regression analysis based on survey data revealed that the attributes of digital natives are poor predictors of IL. information and communication technologies (ICT) experiences expressed as the sum of the use of different applications do not necessarily contribute to IL; some applications have a positive and some a negative effect; personal ownership of smartphones, portable computers and desktop computers has no direct effect on IL, while ownership of a tablet computer is actually a negative predictor; personal ownership of ICT devices has an impact on ICT experiences and Internet confidence, and, therefore, an indirect impact on IL; and ICT-rich university courses (if not designed to cultivate IL) have only a marginal impact on IL, although they may have some impact on ICT experiences and Internet confidence. The overall conclusion is that digital natives are not necessarily information literate, and that IL should be promoted with hands-on and minds-on courses based on IL standards.
Sharman, A. (2014). Roving Librarian: The Suitability of Tablets in Providing Personalized Help Outside of the Traditional Library. New Review Of Academic Librarianship, 20(2), 185-203. doi:10.1080/13614533.2014.914959
keywords: Media production, media literacy, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), executive
functioning, Media Production Hive
the theoretical framework of Universal Design for Learning (Rose & Meyer, 2002), teaching the same material via various strategies that cumulatively address needs and learning types of each student in the classroom (p. 126). acknowledge all the various types of learners in his class, such as visual learners, auditory learners, write-read learners, and kinesthetic learners, following Gardner’s (1983) multiple intelligence theory.
various ways of receiving, processing, and expressing information by different learners
various ways students can chose to engage in the process of learning
(p. 127) multiple means of representation guarantees each learner processes information in the best way they can, but it also provides repetition of the topic in various ways to deepen understanding
Students need to organize recently acquired knowledge in a strategic way and communicate their understanding to the teacher. Rose and Meyer (2002) created a detailed pathway for teachers to apply UDL using assistive technology.
Media education practices involve demystifying media messages and learning to use
media wisely through activities of evaluation, composition, introspection, and civic engagement. the links between the instructional design of lessons for all students and
the critical analysis, expression, and reflection on media messages are gradually
explored (Dalton, 2017).
Dalton, E. M. (2017). Universal design for learning: Guiding principles to reduce
barriers to digital & media literacy competence. Journal of Media Literacy Education, 9(2).
p. 128 Media production is the process of composing a message via a single or various media platforms. Media production includes creating videos, podcasts, presentations, posters, drawings, and books. With the increasing use of digital devices and applications, students are engaged in various ways to convey their messages using multiple ways of expression and multiple types of representations.
digital and media literacy competencies (Hobbs, 2010)
p. 137 challenges
Group dynamics often reveal power struggles among team members (Friesem, 2014). The responsibility of the media educator, who is not a mediator by training, is to find the way to mitigate the tension caused by differences among group members (Friesem, 2010). In addition, students have the tendency to use media production as a transgressive practice (Moore, 2011; Grace & Tubin, 1998). Facilitating the process of production involves constant reflection on the classroom power relationship using critical and pragmatic lenses.
Grace, D., & Tobin, J. (1998). Butt jokes and mean-teacher parodies: Video production
in the elementary classroom. In D. Buckingham (Ed.), Teaching popular culture: Beyond radical pedagogy (pp. 42-62). London, UK: University College London Press.
The discourse about the implementations of UDL with digital technology has been broad and used for several research studies (Rose & Meyer, 2002).
Rose, D. H., & Meyer, A. (2002). Teaching every student in the digital age: Universal
design for learning. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD).
Alexander zeroed in on the finding that library directors feel increasingly less valued by supervisors such as chief academic officers.
Not surprisingly, the survey illustrates a broad shift toward electronic resources, Wolff-Eisenberg noted, with an increasing number of libraries developing policies for de-accessioning print materials that are also available digitally.
library directors are increasingly recognizing that discovery does not always happen in the library. Compared to the 2013 survey results, fewer library directors believe that it is important that the library is seen by its users as the first place that they go to discover content, and fewer believe that the library is always the best place for researchers at their institution to start their research.
There is also a substantial gap between how faculty members and library directors perceive the library’s contribution in supporting student learning. Both tend to agree that students have poor research skills, Wolff-Eisenberg noted. The faculty members see it as more of a problem, but they are less likely than library directors to see librarians contributing to student learning by helping them to develop research skills
The positions for which respondents anticipate the most growth in the next five years are related to instructional design (my note: this is IMS), information literacy and specialized faculty research support involving digital humanities, geographical information systems (GIS) and data management.
