19.070 new on WWW: CIT Infobits; National Digital Newspaper Program (U.S.)

From: Humanist Discussion Group (by way of Willard McCarty willard.mccarty_at_kcl.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 07:11:58 +0100

                Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 19, No. 70.
       Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
                   www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
                        www.princeton.edu/humanist/
                     Submit to: humanist_at_princeton.edu

   [1] From: "Carolyn Kotlas" <kotlas_at_email.unc.edu> (171)
         Subject: CIT Infobits -- May 2005

   [2] From: "Laura Gottesman" <lgot_at_loc.gov> (31)
         Subject: National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) Announces
                 New Program Web site

--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
         Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 07:03:15 +0100
         From: "Carolyn Kotlas" <kotlas_at_email.unc.edu>
         Subject: CIT Infobits -- May 2005

CIT INFOBITS May 2005 No. 83 ISSN 1521-9275

About INFOBITS

INFOBITS is an electronic service of The University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill's Center for Instructional Technology. Each month the
CIT's Information Resources Consultant monitors and selects from a
number of information and instructional technology sources
that come to her attention and provides brief notes for electronic
dissemination to educators.

......................................................................

Are Instructors Essential?
Synchronous Collaboration Tools
Simulation Software and Physical Collaboration
Online Facilitation E-Book
EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative
Deliberations Website Revived
Recommended Reading

......................................................................

ARE INSTRUCTORS ESSENTIAL?

"In the commercial sector, learner-content interaction is often seen as
the only essential learning transaction, with instructors viewed as a
cost rather than a necessity." With courseware software, online
discussion tools, and instructional designers performing many tasks
related to instruction, what is left for instructors to do? This
question was recently discussed in a Sloan-C forum. In "Are Instructors
Essential?" (SLOAN-C VIEW, vol. 4, issue 5, May 2005, pp. 5-6), forum
participants cited many roles for instructors, including:

-- Meaning makers: "explaining how and why information is important,
          helping learners integrate disparate content and make sense of
          it so that information can become 'knowledge and maybe even
          wisdom'"

-- Growth agents: "pushing [learners] . . . 'beyond their level of
          comfort and into areas of improvement'"

-- People builders: "instructors serve as a bridge=97in some situations,
          the only bridge=97between learners and the society in which they
          seek a place"

The article is online at
http://www.aln.org/publications/view/v4n5/blended4.htm.

Sloan-C View: Perspectives in Quality Online Education [ISSN:
1541-2806] is published by the Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C). For more
information, contact: Sloan Center for OnLine Education (SCOLE), Olin
College of Engineering and Babson College, Olin Way, Needham MA
02492-1245 USA; tel: 781-292-2524; fax: 781-292-2505; email:
publisher@sloan-c.org; Web: http://www.sloan-c.org/.

Sloan-C is a consortium of institutions and organizations committed "to
help learning organizations continually improve quality, scale, and
breadth of their online programs according to their own distinctive
missions, so that education will become a part of everyday life,
accessible and affordable for anyone, anywhere, at any time, in a wide
variety of disciplines." Sloan-C is funded by the Alfred P. Sloan
Foundation.

......................................................................

SYNCHRONOUS COLLABORATION TOOLS

"Most of us experience more satisfying interactions when we can see and
hear each other in the same space and at the same time. While online
interactions support flexibility and convenience, synchronicity
provides for more efficient and natural interaction." In "Designing for
the Virtual Interactive Classroom" (CAMPUS TECHNOLOGY, vol. 8, no. 9,
May 2005, pp. 20, 22-3), Judith V. Boettcher reviews several
synchronous collaboration tools used for Web or video conferencing,
interactive classrooms, and screen sharing. She presents several
scenarios and which tools are most appropriate for each situation. The
article is online at
http://www.campus-technology.com/article.asp?id=3D11046.

Campus Technology [ISSN: 1089-5914] is a monthly publication focusing
exclusively on the use of technology across all areas of higher
education. Subscriptions to the print version are free to qualified
U.S. subscribers. For more information, contact: Campus Technology,
101communications LLC, 9121 Oakdale Ave., Suite 101, Chatsworth, CA
91311 USA; tel: 818-734-1520; fax: 818-734-1522; Web:
http://www.campus-technology.com/.

......................................................................

SIMULATION SOFTWARE AND PHYSICAL COLLABORATION

Laboratory dissections provide opportunities not only for
subject-matter learning, but also opportunities for cooperative
learning. In "Virtual Dissection and Physical Collaboration" (FIRST
MONDAY, vol. 10, no. 5, May 2005), Kenneth R. Fleischmann uses the
example of dissection simulation software to illustrate how such
educational tools can limit a student's learning experience. By
focusing on human=ADcomputer interaction rather than human=ADhuman
interaction, the software leaves out the socialization component that
is part of traditional lab practice. Until these tools are redesigned
to encourage collaboration, Fleischmann gives suggestions for adapting
these tools to provide more interaction among students. The paper is
available online at
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue10_5/fleischmann/index.html.

First Monday [ISSN 1396-0466] is an online, peer-reviewed journal whose
aim is to publish original articles about the Internet and the global
information infrastructure. It is published in cooperation with the
University Library, University of Illinois at Chicago. For more
information, contact: First Monday, c/o Edward Valauskas, Chief Editor,
PO Box 87636, Chicago IL 60680-0636 USA; email: ejv_at_uic.edu; Web:
http://firstmonday.dk/.

For more thoughts on educational software, see also:

"Next-Generation Educational Software: Why We Need It & a Research
          Agenda for Getting It"
by Andries van Dam, Sascha Becker, and Rosemary Michelle Simpson
EDUCAUSE REVIEW, vol. 40, no. 2, March/April 2005,
pp. 26-8, 30-4, 36, 38, 40 42-3
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0521.pdf

......................................................................

ONLINE FACILITATION E-BOOK

"How do people make the transition to facilitating online? What have
they learned about it? What issues do they struggle with? Why do they
do it?" Tammy Dewar collected their "stories" and presents them in
KEYBOARD VOICES: REFLECTIONS ON ONLINE FACILITATION AND COMMUNITY
BUILDING (Calliope Learning, 2003). The e-book is available at no cost
at http://www.calliopelearning.com/resources/papers/Keyboard.pdf, and
permission is granted to distribute electronic versions in its entirety
and without modification.

......................................................................

EDUCAUSE LEARNING INITIATIVE

EDUCAUSE announced in May that its teaching and learning program, the
National Learning Infrastructure Initiative (NLII), has a new focus and
a new name -- EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) -- with the mission of
advancing learning through IT innovation. Programs and services include
extensive online resources; member-only Web seminars; and the "7 Things
You Should Know About..." publication series, which provides "concise
information on emerging learning practices and technologies." For more
information about ELI program themes, activities, and membership go to
http://www.educause.edu/eli/.

The first offering in the "7 Things You Should Know About..." series,
"Social Bookmarking," addresses a "community-or social-approach to
identifying and organizing information on the Web. Social bookmarking
involves saving bookmarks one would normally make in a Web browser to a
public Web site and 'tagging' them with keywords." The paper is
available online at
http://www.educause.edu/LibraryDetailPage/666?ID=3DELI7001.

EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher
education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology.
For more information, contact: EDUCAUSE, 4772 Walnut Street, Suite 206,
Boulder, CO 80301-2538 USA; tel: 303-449-4430; fax: 303-440-0461;
email: info@educause.edu; Web: http://www.educause.edu/.

......................................................................

DELIBERATIONS WEBSITE REVIVED

The "Deliberations on Learning and Teaching in Higher Education"
website has been inactive for a couple of years. The site was recently
redeveloped and moved to a new home. The website is now based in the
Centre for Academic Professional Development (CAPD) at London
Metropolitan University and is currently funded and fully supported by
the university. Content includes extracts of published articles; case
studies; articles, comments, and discussion contributed by readers; and
links to related resources.

For more information, contact: The Editor, Deliberations, Room 27b,
London Metropolitan University, 31 Jewry Street, London EC3N 2EY United
Kingdom; tel: 020-7320-3074; email: deliberations_at_londonmet.ac.uk; Web:
http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/deliberations/.

......................................................................

RECOMMENDED READING

"Recommended Reading" lists items that have been recommended to me or
that Infobits readers have found particularly interesting and/or
useful, including books, articles, and websites published by Infobits
subscribers. Send your recommendations to carolyn_kotlas_at_unc.edu for
possible inclusion in this column.

Infobits subscriber Arun-Kumar Tripathi
(tripathi_at_amadeus.statistik.uni-dortmund.de) recommends his article in
a recent issue of UBIQUITY:

"Reflections on Challenges to the Goal of Invisible Computing"
Ubiquity: An ACM IT Magazine and Forum, vol. 6, issue 17, May 17 - May
24, 2005
http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/views/v6i17_tripathi.html

"Some years ago, I ran across an article on the Challenges to Invisible
Computing in the November issue of COMPUTER, which has inspired me to
write this short essay. In this essay, I shall try to explore the
challenges of invisible computing and simplify them, to make them
visible for research on Ubiquitous Computing. First of all, I will
discuss what ubiquitous computing is and what it is not. Then, I will
attempt to refine some paramount issues of invisible computing: What
are the impacts of this kind of computing in our society? What are the
embedded computers and how are they of consequence to human beings?"
-- Arun-Kumar Tripathi

[...]=20

--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
         Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 07:03:51 +0100
         From: "Laura Gottesman" <lgot_at_loc.gov>
         Subject: National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) Announces New
Program Web site

Please excuse any cross-postings:

The Library of Congress is pleased to announce a new Web site,
http://www.loc.gov/ndnp, providing an overview and technical specifications
for the development phase of the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).
This program, a partnership between the National Endowment of the
Humanities (NEH) and the Library of Congress (LC), is a long-term effort to
develop an Internet-based, searchable database of all U.S. newspapers with
descriptive information and digitization of select historic
pages. Supported by NEH, this rich digital resource will be developed and
permanently maintained at the Library of Congress. An NEH grant program
will fund the contribution of content from, eventually, all U.S. states and
territories.

An initial development phase will run through 2007, and will include
content from 6 NEH state awardees (University of California, Riverside;
University of Florida Libraries, Gainesville; University of Kentucky
Libraries, Lexington; New York Public Library, New York City; University of
Utah, Salt Lake City; and Library of Virginia, Richmond) providing 100,000
pages each of historic material published between 1900-1910. In addition,
the Library of Congress will contribute 100,000 pages from its own historic
collections, representing the District of Columbia.

Program information for the National Digital Newspaper Program is available
from the Library of Congress's Preservation Web site:
http://www.loc.gov/preserv/ .

Please direct any questions regarding this Web site to the LC NDNP program
contacts at:
ndnptech_at_loc.gov.

>>>>>>>>>>>

Laura Gottesman
Reference Specialist
Digital Reference Team
The Library of Congress
Received on Fri Jun 03 2005 - 02:26:33 EDT

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.2.0 : Fri Jun 03 2005 - 02:26:33 EDT