The Distant Librarian RSS feed

I found a link to an article from The Blog Libific in The Distant Librarian which is one of my RSS feeds that I just added to my Bloglines account at: www.bloglines.com/public/campanella. The article is about federated searching using library databases and Google. Federated searching allows someone to search several databases at one time. It is a wonderful tool for a person researching something to be able to search many databases and an internet search engine all at the same time and review the results retrieved. But Google does not want libraries setting up federated searching and showing the Google results along with the library database results. Google does not want a researcher to get to Google results without going through the Google page first. Some people believe that Google sees federated searching as a competitor and does not want to see their results alongside results from other content providers. Perhaps Google is most worried about showing their advertising products that support their business model, and that is why they will not allow their search results to show alongside other database results. I found this article so interesting because our library staff just had a meeting the other day and we discussed federated searching and how search results would be displayed and we discussed Google in our conversation.

The Learner of Today is like an octopus

The octopus has its central body and its arms are like branches stretching out in many directions. The learner of today has its central body and extending out from that that are all of the different aspects of learning and the tools available to learn in today's world. Each of the branches represents one of those tools or types of learning. I couldn't use an octopus as my example in the old way of learning because in the old way, we learned in much more of an individual way. In George Siemens article, Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age, he states "Connectivism presents a model of learning that acknowledges the tectonic shifts in society where learning is no longer an internal, individualistic activity."

Siemens, G. (2005). "Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age." International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning. Retrieved August 19, 2008.

Social Networking

http://library20.ning.com/

I picked "Library 2.0" as my social networking group because I am a librarian and am interested in Library 2.0 tools for information literacy classes that I teach and also to use in supporting our distance learning students. I am a librarian in a community college where our students are commuting students and many students are taking online classes exclusively. I believe that the library 2.0 tools will be beneficial in helping us to support our library users. Participating in this group will be beneficial to me because I can connect with other librarians who are probably in the same boat as I am. Also, Bill Drew, who created Library 2.o social networking group on ning is a community college librarian at a college not too far from my school.

Your Library - More Than Meets the Eye

3 Ways I can use Blogs In My Information Literacy Class - Library 102

1) Post my syllabus, class assignments, due dates,semester calendar listing any vacation or other days when school will be closed.

2) Use the blog to have class collaboration on assignments, a place where students can interact with each other and the instructor. I can see a benefit also in having a blog to collaborate with my colleagues who are teaching similar courses in college or in high schools.

3) Have students keep up on assignments even when they miss class or I have to cancel a class. I believe that using the blog will encourage students to be more accountable. I also believe that students will have more of an ownership in the class because of the interactiveness of the blog. It is also a great place for students to post assignments.