HTML and Yola

This new class I'm in at CSUEB is crazy busy. This week we coded and HTML page, created a quiz and a survey and created and put up a website. Luckily, I've done most of this before, although it's been a few years. Refreshers never hurt and I always learn something new. If you want to view my new website its at http://academic-cybrarian.synthasite.com/ . I used Yola which was really easy to set up and navigate.

A pile of Information Literacy books

Thanks to MelCat, I have a hoard of information literacy books on my desk right now all published in the last 5 years. They cover topics such as: assessment, integrating IL into higher ed curriculum, strategies for teaching IL online, and building an IL program. The one that has quickly become my favorite is "Teaching Information Literacy: A Conceptual Approach" by Christy Gavin (2008). Christy is the coordinator of Instructional Services at California State University - Bakersfield (which is incidentally part of the University system where I am working towards my MSEd-OTL). Her chapters are relevant and logical with many exercises and examples included. The first chapter on selecting an narrowing topics is especially well done with a discussion about brainstorming, classifying and clustering. Gavin approaches it in a way that enables the instructor to interact more fully with the students which is always a good thing. Several of the chapters go more in depth than I do for my sessions. Even in my personal research I hardly ever use some of the complicated search strategies that are proposed. However, it's good to have them on hand in case a needful situation ever arose. I will definitely buy this one to add to my collection.

Photobucket saves the day!

I couldn't get my SWF converted successfully so I found a site that can host SWF.
Here's the link:
Database Tutorial

The adventure of creating tutorials

For some time I've played around with screencasting software. I started with WINK because it is free and my institution doesn't provide software tools like this. WINK kept crashing though and it was hard to work with. I tried to use it to capture a website usability study, but I think the files were just too large for my system. Anyway, I put it aside for a while. In the last week or so I downloaded a trial of Adobe Captivate and I love it so far. It's so easy to work with, but I only have access to it for 28 more days...The other problem is that it creates a .SWF file, but I can't upload that to the website, even YouTube and Blogger won't take it unless it is converted into an MPEG or AVI. So.... I downloaded the free version of Sothink's SWF Converter, but it will only let me convert 9 seconds of the tutorial! Sheesh! I did convert it into a PDF, but I can't upload a PDF either apparently. There's got to be a way to do this!

Grad school here I come...again!

So I start in just a few weeks. I'm excited, scared, and all that. It'll be a good experience to remember what it's like to be a student again. It's so easy to forget on the other side of the fence. I'm looking forward to gaining more knowledge about learning theory and teaching strategies as well as new ways to use technology in teaching.

MSEd - OTL

I'm thinking about getting my second masters in education with an emphasis on online teaching and learning. It seems like a good fit for an academic librarian. I enjoy technology and I already teach online so it makes sense.
MS - OTL

Beloit College Mindset List

The Beloit College Mindset List was released this week. I was struck by #55 "MTV has never featured music videos." What?! What do they show then? Is there still an MTV? Wow...

One year later....

Wow, freaky but true! One year ago today I started this blog.. and then left for a year and now exactly one year later I'm back! And guess what?? The dropbox is frozen again. We're in the middle of a blizzard and those books will just have to wait. That's life in the frozen North. Just a few weeks ago people were saying that we haven't had much of a winter....