April 2008 Archives
Beginning researchers often write their paper based on their own thoughts and experiences, then find some sources and include them in the bibliography. They may not understand how the sources fit in with the writing and research process; they may not read the sources carefully, or at all. Zotero encourages users to read their sources online (avoiding printing charges), and make notes as they read right on the same screen.
I was a little daunted a first by Zotero's busy homepage, and by the three-paneled window Zotero uses to organize its functions. But once I started using it, everything fell into place.
Even native speaking students may not know what we mean by these terms. I think we should try to make our website and our publications as jargon-free as possible. In class, if I use a term I think the students may not know, particularly with international students, I give a quick definition.
I've also tried giving students a set of index cards with library terms printed on them, and another set with definitions. With a partner or in a small group students match the terms with the definitions. There are also some free sites you can use to create virtual flashcards and vocabulary games. I've created some library vocabulary card sets using Quizlet and Study Stack.
You can see my library jargon tag cloud here:
jargon tag cloud.ppt
I’ve heard the term “digital natives” bandied about quite a bit in higher education lately, as well as its counterpart, “digital immigrants.” The cut-off date for those with “native status” seems to be a birthdate of 1982 or later. As someone born long before 1982, I don’t feel like an immigrant in a digital world. I have a blog (obviously), a facebook page, and a flickr account. I use IM, iGoogle, and delicious on a regular basis. And many of my colleagues, regardless of their birthdates, use these tools in their daily lives.
I’m not particularly technically inclined. I’ve been known to have trouble putting a cassette in a tape player properly (thank goodness for MP-3 players). But the beauty of the Web 2.0 tools is that anyone can figure out how to use them in seconds. If you can click a mouse you can create a blog. If you can type, you can send IMs. It seems to me that “technology fluency” (since we’re going, for the moment, with the “immigration” theme), is more dependent on attitude and inclination than on ability.
Are college students today really that different from college students from any other era? Has the structure of their brains really been altered from years of video games and YouTube? Of course, they think anyone over 25 doesn’t understand their generation, but didn’t you think the same thing? When my daughter hits puberty in a few years she’ll probably think I’m just as old-fashioned and clueless as I thought my parents were. They thought you had to wait until marriage to have sex, for heaven’s sake!
I’ve worked a lot with what I guess we must now call “geographic immigrants,” and many of them have been through incredible struggles. They left their native countries, often not by choice but out of necessity, and arrived in a foreign land where they knew no one and couldn’t speak the language. I can’t compare my experience as a “digital immigrant” with theirs. Like most people who didn’t grow up with computers, I just sat down and figured it out.
In 1994, following a short-lived flurry of media attention focused on Generation X, Russell Baker wrote a piece in The New York Times questioning the whole idea of labeling generations (April 16, 1994, p. 21). He said, and I quote: “…isn’t it time to hang up the generations? Dividing people into generations can help a reader of the Old Testament keep track of the story, but who needs to distinguish, say, the beat generation from the hippie generation?”
Would you cite Wikipedia as a source for a peer-reviewed journal article? Well, no. Would you cite the Encyclopedia Britannica, or any other encyclopedia? Probably not. Not because those sources are not reliable, but because they are fact-based summaries rather than the kind of critical analysis found in books and journals that is required for sophisticated academic research.
I'll illustrate with an example. I have a long-standing interest in Irish history and culture, and recently during a lull at the reference desk I got curious about the Irish language, sometimes referred to as Irish Gaelic. So I checked Wikipedia, and found a very interesting and informative entry that satisfied my curiosity. You can read it here.
What was even more interesting was the discussion among the various contributors. Language, like many things, is a political issue, and there are not always clear-cut answers to linguistic-related questions. If I wanted to explore for myself some of those issues raised in the Wikipedia discussion, where would I go? The journal literature, the library catalog. Or better yet, to Ireland, where I could interview people and collect my own data.
When I got ready to write up my results, would I include a reference to that Wikipedia entry? I don't think so. That was just the beginning, the first step on the trail. What I've described above is the research process, from initial curiosity to basic fact-finding to literature review, original research, and summary of findings.
It all starts with a question, that leads to more questions. What is Irish Gaelic? Where is it spoken today? What other languages is it related to? Wikipedia can provide some of the answers, but the bigger questions can only be addressed through a much broader analysis of information.
Are undergraduates capable of this kind of research? Absolutely. But the process has to start with a genuine question, to which there is not an easy Wikipedia-produced answer.
I'm intrigued by the idea of a video contest here at the Penn State University Libraries. Not only could such a contest raise the Libraries' visibility, it could also promote the University's Digital Commons.
Creating a good video is a lot of work, and it's true that students already have plenty of work. But with the right incentives and encouragement, I think students could come up with some cool stuff, as evidenced by the contests sponsored by the libraries above. Even if every entry can't win the grand prize, students who enter still get a chance to express their creativity, and promote the Library and the University at the same time. What's to lose?
Could this idea of a googleganger be used somehow as a classroom exercise? I often ask students to search for their own name in Google, both with and without quotes, to illustrate the use of quotation marks as a search technique. Students could be asked to find a googleganger, and determine whether using quotation marks changes or improves the search. This activity might also help reinforce the idea that you must examine Google search results closely. Is the Tom Jones you found through a search engine really the one you want?
You can even use ReWorks to create a list of books you want to read this summer on the beach. While you're searching Amazon for something good to read, you can pull the metadata into RefWorks using the RefGrab-It feature, and have a list ready when it's time for vacation.
RefWorks is available as a trial to Penn State users at www.libraries.psu.edu/refworks
Recent Comments