Brian's Final Blog

Hello everybody its been quite a semester. LIS568 is one of those classes that in 10 years I'll probably still remember. Sometimes its necessary to throw you into new resources to learn how to use them. Nearly all the assignments were appropriate and got me doing things I normally wouldn't do. I'd actually never heard of JING before, nor did I ever have a class that communicated exclusively through wikis and podcasts. To Mrs Allen thank you very much I learned much from your class and your grading was mostly fair. I feel GREAT!!!!

Week 13 blog

This is my week 13 blog for LIS568 There was a lot of reading to do with the three websites assigned. I read through the first one entitled "Getting Started" and it took so long that I kind of got lost in it. It was kind of hard to read all the aps for something you don't have (an ipad) Also because the other two websites were so lengthy instead of reading cover to cover (which would have taken hours given they were each 90 pages long) I scanned through them trying to find the most important points.
The Richardson and Simpson chapters were useful and fitting ends to a semester full of learning.
If this is my last blog I want to say I learned a lot in this class and it was very useful. I have a new appreciation for things like blogs, wikis. diigos, and podcasts which I had only heard about before.

Week 12 blog

Hello everybody this is my week 12 blog for LIS568 This weeks main topic is social networking sites. It is clear that there are many social networking sites out there that may be useful. The biggest and probably the most important is Facebook. I've read that in July 09 Facebook was adding 70,000 accounts per day which is very impressive. As a result more and more kids are subscribing to these sorts of sites. The big question is should networking sites have a place in todays schools. There are pro's and con's either way. Some people think that using Facebook is a great way to get students into and using the library. While others say not all parents will let them join or that it is beyond the purview of schools. Either way Facebook is a real source that continues to grow and will probably be a part of your or your kids lives.

Hello everybody this is my week 11 blog for LIS568. This week is all about Google. I have to say I love using Google for maps, news, images, and videos. For me its an indispensable source for quick searches, that has a surprisingly rich amount of information. It is usually one of the first places I suggest when a client has a simple straight forward question. It is true for some searches you would be better to go to a more concentrated source (for things like medicine, law, government, or census information), but for basic searches it is the Real Mccoy. In many ways search engines like Google have transformed the way we as a culture search.

Hello everybody this is Brian's blog for week 10. This week we talked about professional development and blogs. The parts about blogging were not new to me. I also felt like the website links were useful but kind of short, I would have liked to have known exactly what parts were most important to know.
As always the Richardson and Simpson chapters were interesting. I had actually used flickr before in another class, however I am a little reticent about sending pictures out (because as one of the ISafe modules says) "once you post something on the Internet it is there forever".
I will keep on working on my presentation and I'll see you next week.

Hello everybody this my week 9 blog for LIS 568 This chapter we talk about professional development and wikis. I found most of the readings kind of short I was looking to read a lot more but I found I myself checking out all the other features of them instead.
I liked the wiki matrix website and while I've never actually created a wiki this seemed like an excellent tool for when I do. As always the Simpson chapters were informative. I hadn't realized how complicated something like distance learning could be.
In reading the Richardson chapter I learned what RSS feeds are and how to use them.
Lastly I liked the Marc Isseks presentation. Presentations are never easy but this describes ways to make them better. I made sure to print them out because they seem like simple, straight forward tips that would help not only me but my students as well.

Brians Week 8 blog

Hello everybody this is Brian’s week 8 blog for LIS 568. The main topic for this week is TPACK which stands for the complex interplay of three primary forms of knowledge technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge. Like I said in my post I had never heard of this word so it was kind of new to me. The first reading on the weekly readings list explained TPACK best. I particularly liked the graph showing the interplay of these three forms of knowledge and each of the four overlapping regions.

There were seven Harris and Hofer articles to read but I have to say they were hard to access it took me a while to scroll down the page, get the relevant pages, and enlarge it enough to be able to see them. As a result it made it harder to understand them and I found my concentration drifting because of this.

The Richardson article about wikis was very interesting. I hadn’t realized that Wikipedia is in fact a wiki I ‘ve used it for years not realizing that. .One of the things I liked in this chapter was when Richardson mentioned the University of Buffalo study that tested Wikipedia by sending inaccurate information and finding that within 24 hours all the misinformation was corrected. This emphasized how important Wikipedia is as an online encyclopedia. I cant think of anything else so I’ll see you next week

Week 7 blog

.Hello everybody this is Brian’s week 7 blog for LIS 568. This weeks topic is Cybersafety, Cyberethics, and Cybersecurity and the Simpson chapter on Music Materials in the School. To tell you the truth before I read this weeks readings on Cyberissues I didn’t really think of it as a major issue for todays school librarians, but it really is. We as technology experts need to understand what students are doing online to ensure their safety and protect their innocence.

Of the readings my favorite was the article by Pruitt-Mentle, Davina, and Portia Pusey because I loved the statistics and graphs that dealt directly with Cyberissues. The two facts that stuck out most to me were. Nearly all technology coordinators, school administrators, and teachers thought that Cyberethics, Cybersafety, and Cybersecurity should be taught in schools. But only about half schools/school districts actually require content coverage of these issues

The article also brought up the issue of Cyberbullying which is becoming an increasingly important problem because now children can be bullied not just at school but also in their homes through the Internet. We as school librarians need to be cognizant of what out students are doing online so we can steer them away from things that might be harmful.

See you next week.

Week 6 blog

Hello everyone this is Brian and this is my week 6 blogging post for LIS 568. This week we looked at websites and website design and read Simpsons chapter on Audiovisual Methods in Schools. It was about bookmarking, tagging, folksonomies, and taxonomies. I liked the part on Diigo but I think it might have been better to learn about this before we setup our accounts there.
As always the Simpson chapter was very thorough. I liked the Audiovisual Performance Worksheet that asks 5 Yes/No questions to determine if you can use a video without getting public performance rights. It also explains what to do if one of the answers is no. I was also shocked to find out showing a video to reward students violates copyright. I don't know how many times as a student I got to watch movies as a reward and I heard nothing about copyright issues. I think I have to research this particular instance more thoroughly.

Week 5 Searching and Communicating

Hello everyone this is Brian’s week 5 blog for LIS 568. This weeks topic is searching and communicating. One of the most interesting things I read this week was found at the 21^st century Information Fluency website and was a blog written by Dennis O’Connor it is called Teach Your Kids the Secrets of Smart Web Searching. It includes 4 sections 1)Helping Your Child Search Like a Pro, 2) Why it [searching] Matters, 3)Tips for Effective Online Searches, and 4)Great Google Searching Shortcuts. This blog describes great tips to help students do searches faster and more effectively and many I had not heard of before

The two Google Game articles I found to be very useful and effective. In fact I may try employing a similar game to get my students excited about searching. However, for the winners I might give away prizes like pencils, erasers, or books as rewards

Lastly I found the Google Squared site to be a little complicated. I don’t know if I’ll actually try it. That’s it for now I’ll write again next week.

Brian's Week 4 blog

Hello everybody this is my week 4 blog for LIS 568. This week we focus on copyright law especially those that fall under “Fair Use” (and Richardson’s chapter on blogging) Fair Use is such a complex thing but I feel Simpson does a pretty good job of explaining the law behind it. Obviously there is no easy solution to explain to teachers how the law works every time. Instead as the book explains each case requires a weighing of the pros and cons and only then can a decision about its legality be made.

As always the Richardson chapter does a great job of showing why blogging can be so useful and how to get started. For anyone unsure about what blogs are or how to use them they should read this chapter.

I also watched the Lawrence Lessig presentation. Its kinda long (about an hour) However he raises some important questions about how copyright law has changed and the inherent problems that we as librarians will continue to face.

Blog for Week 3

I’d like to discuss this weeks readings. As always I loved the Richardson’s chapter. He has a knack of making complicated things seem understandable. I especially liked how he showed how to integrate blogging into a typical class. If you read my post I discuss this a little bit more.

I was looking for the “Living and Learning with New Media” web site (found on the syllabus) but I could not find it in this weeks reading so I figured it must have been dropped. It’s a shame because I enjoyed reading it.

I have to admit I found Gordon’s article hard to understand. It might have been because the topic was so complicated but reading it was kind of a chore.

Listening to Eli Pariser was interesting and fascinating how different forms of media send different messages to different people was something that I didn’t even know happened.

Lastly the Alan November questionnaire was a good source (and while I only got a few of the questions) it was very informative and the answers were easily found and accessible.

Cant think of anything else so hope to talk to you again next week.

Hello everybody this is Brian Caiola's first blog for LIS 568 For this week I'd like to focus specifically on the Richardson and Simpson readings
In Richardsons first chapter Richardson hits upon some highly interesting things. He talks about how the worldwide web was created, how its changed and why it is so important. I found it to be very easy to read and entertaining. It gives an account that made me better understand why its important to librarians to know about the Web and all its assets and shortcomings.
The Simpson readings are about US copyright law and the Public Domain. I found it to be very technical not just in its explanations but in the specific cases that it sets up and answers.