I have noticed that several publishers have decided to offer books for free online. One of the first of these was Neil Gaiman's American Gods (EDIT: It appears that it is still online!).  Granted this was only for a short time (1 month I believe) it is an interesting phenomenon.

TOR has put up Sun of Suns by KARL SCHROEDER. How long it will be up is beyond my knowledge.   Mothers & Daughters another free book available.  Also John Campbell's Grey and the audiobook of it.  Lastly Beautiful Children by Charles Bock from Random House.

Libraries have also taken it upon themselves to include e-books within their digital library collections. I have seen that OCPL, BPL, and NYPL all have e-book offerings. It would be hard to mention this topic without mentioning Project Gutenberg which is attempting to give access to those books which have fallen out of copyright.

Another fine example would be WOWIO which includes many books, comics, animated comics, and much more.  For anyone in the United States pdfs of all of these items can be downloaded with a bit of advertising.  Creators of theses get $.50 per download.  FREE...I was amazed as this because a lot of amatur comic artists cannot afford to self-publish their works and many of their readers would not be able to donate.  This is the perfect solution.  Some of my favorite comics on WOWIO:  Inverloch, Lullaby, Phoenix Requiem, Earthsong, The Imaginaries, and lastly Shadowgirls.  Interestingly these are made by well known and unknown authors.  If only it were also available to everyone (overseas included). 

What books would you like to see offered online for free?  Would you read them online if they were offered?

In the final week of my presentation of BuILder I will give you all some insider knowledge.  Yesterday I found out that it is Dr. Ruth and not Dr. Arnone who does the first approval.  If you are in dire need for your buILder to become searchable please e-mail her with your builder title and link.  She has over 500 to review at current.  I for one was not aware of the amount of buILders that had been submitted.  On top of that 500 are all the lesson plans that also need to be reviewed.  Phew...that certainly is a large undertaking and to my knowledge approval is not something done by student volunteers.  I can understand their feelings on this issue.  Those lesson plans that are searchable should have a certain level and quality.  As much as it is frustrating I think it is much better than the alternative which would mean automatic approval.  Even in the small amount of time that I randomly typed in numbers several were not anywhere near completion.

In conclusion I think that the goals set out for buILder and SOS for Information Literacy are good ones.  The implementation and review process need to be updated in order to degree the wait time between submission and approval.  Sites such as this are important to create because we as teacher librarians need a source we can go to with excellent lesson plans.  It is a collaborators dream and I am sure each of you will find use of it at somepoint during your library careers. 

It has been fun and I hope you have gained more knowledge in buILder.  If you were to start from scratch and create a site like SOS for Information Literacy what would you all do?

This week I think I will give some links to some articles about buILder. 

http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:Nd1fCfSud_UJ:gradsch.syr.edu/brochures/ist_brochure.pdf+sos+for+information+literacy+ruth+small+marilyn+arnone&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=38&gl=us&client=firefox-a (Brochure on SOS)

http://www.acrl.org/ala/aasl/aaslpubsandjournals/kqweb/kqwexclusives/schooltools/ALA_print_layout_1_412089_412089.cfm (An article from the ACRL American College Research Libraries)

http://www.infolit.org/meetings/nfil_summary_May2001.html (Short blurb when the process was just beginning)

http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:XAF6lStRNEAJ:www.mpla.us/documents/handouts/2003/SOS1.doc+sos+for+information+literacy+ruth+small+marilyn+arnone&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=8&gl=us&client=firefox-a (Paper on the development)

http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/index.cfm?i=36601&CFID=4725950&CFTOKEN=68575712 (eSchool news article on SOS)

Something I found interesting about the articles is that fact that nothing has been written new about buILder or SOS for Information Literacy for about three years.  Has this resource started to stagnate?  Are the only new buILders being created by students who take the Motivation class?  It is hard to tell because on the buILder website there is not a date as to when the buILder was added to the site.  I would be interested to see how many buILders are approved a year.  Upon having the Motivation class we were told that the approval process did not take long at all.  Yet we still wait. 

A resume tool or a portfolio tool.  Do you all think you would use buILder to create your portfolio?  Why or why not?  The links can get kind of long but one could use TunyURL! to shorten them.  I am unsure if I would want my portfolio on a educational medium.  Even if I never published it people could still randomly find it. 

What do you all wish that buILder could do in terms of programming?

I wish it did not open everything in a new window or force you to download it as I have said before.  Are there usability issues are that are unnecessary.  Is the software not customizable enough?

This is a site note (not included in blogs for the week)

From AMP member Kitty Diggins:

An "artist" from Costa Rica - Guillermo Habacuc Vargas - as an installation piece took a dog from the street and caused it to suffer and starve to death in the name of Art.

While I do not believe in censorship, I do believe that a line must be drawn when it involves taking an unwilling model and using them against their wishes. Maybe it is not very humane of me, but I strongly believe that people who use and abuse animals, or people for that matter, for any reason, deserve to have the same thing happen to them. It may be an old cliché that many artists suffer in various ways for their work, but causing another being to suffer is another story.

I did not compose the following letter. I believe it was composed by a British artist. I am reposting it and encourage you to examine it and do something about it. Read on, as more information follows the letter.

EXHIBITION IS TAKING PLACE AT:

info@madc.ac.cr

Centro Nacional de la Cultura
Antigua Fábrica Nacional de Licores.
Avenida 3, calle 15/17. San José, Costa Rica.
Teléfono: (506) 257 7202 / 257 9370
Fax: (506) 257 8702

INFORMATION ABOUT EXHIBIT
What he says on his blog (translated):

I knew the dog died on the following day from lack of food. During the inauguration, I knew that the dog was persecuted in the evening between the houses of aluminum and cardboard in a district of Managua. 5 children who helped to capture the dog received 10 bonds of córdobas for their assistance. During the exhibition some people requested the freedom of the small dog, which the artist refused. The name of the dog was Natividad, and I let him die of hunger in the sight of everyone, as if the death of a poor dog was a shameless media show in which nobody does anything but to applaud or to watch disturbed. In the place that the dog was exposed remain a metal cable and a cord. The dog was extremely ill and did not want to eat, so in natural surroundings it would have died anyway; thus they are all poor dogs: sooner or later they die or are killed.

VIEW AND SIGN THIS PETITION: http://www.petitiononline.com/13031953/petition.html
http://www.petitiononline.com/ea6gk/petition.html

Here is another hint when trying to find buILders. There are so many buILders that are not searchable (from the argument last blog post). A really cool way to find more buiILders is to type a random number at the end.

For example here is a buILder address: http://www.informationliteracy.org/builder/view/956

Just change the 956 to another number and off you go. Sometimes you find some real diamonds in the rough. Note: bookmark these because remember they are not searchable.

I found a really interesting one: http://www.informationliteracy.org/builder/view/1023 about Poetry writers

Another one here: http://www.informationliteracy.org/builder/view/1605 which is about The Midlakes Art Museum Project Library Research.

The number of builders is around 1620 or so therefore you cannot go any higher than that until more are made.

SOS for Information Literacy is an amazing collaboration of Syracuse University, Center for Digital Literacy, AASL (American Association of School Librarians), ACRL (Association of College and Research Libraries), IMLS (Institute of Museum and Library Services), and Data Momentum.  It is interesting to see such different entities gather together and create a database for information literacy lesson plans.  I have search online and there is not an e-mail resource for librarians in existence. 

Have fun and post some buILders you find via the hint I gave you above.

This article seriously scared me....an completely automated library using RFID tags. 

"BEIJING, April 8 -- Locals in Shenzhen, a booming city in southern China, no longer need to visit libraries in person. Instead, they can borrow and return books from a library automation system much like banks' ATMs."

Can you imagine just going up to a terminal to get a book rather than being able to browse and talk to people.  I feel like China has forgotten what a library entails.  I think of a library as a place that is more than the books contained within.  Just because you can build something does not mean you should...case and point many weapons.

"The ILAS system includes self-checkout and return, security gates, and programming and circulation stations. All forms of media available at the library will be RFID tagged, from books to CDs to videos to library cards."

Now I do not know if I have as large a problem with it if it existed in conjunction with a traditional library.  Sometimes it would be nice to just be able to go up to the something and get a free-reading book at a time when the library is closed.  But to completely be replaced by such a unfriendly and sterile instrument is appalling to me.  Yes there is computer help on book selection of course but we all know how reliable computers are.....what do you all think?

The Library of Congress has just release a rather cool site:  Historic Baseball Resources

This includes images, text, audio, and videos.  There are teacher resources and Did you know which might be interesting to students.  I for one constantly see students take out books on different sports and the addition of such information in one place is rather exciting.

Also a resource of note:  SimplyGoogle

A wonderful resource that gives all of the various resources on Google...though as the Librarian in Black says, "Here you can find all of the various Google sites and searches all in one place.  This site could prove to be a librarian's good friend.  It is important to remember, though, that one shouldn't only use one search engine all the time, and even within one reference transaction if you're looking for comprehensive or research information.  Try Ask, or Yahoo!, or Dogpile, or Gigablast.  Show your professional awesomeness!"  It is extremely important to use more than one search engine of course because they index differently.  Those differences could give you the difference between finding the information in a minute or twenty.

Are there any negatives to buILder?  Are the improvments that need to be looked at for the sustanability of buILder.  I think these are valid questions when thinking about buILder.  I think the ability to create unique items is sadly lacking in the program.  I do not think I should have to create powerpoint presentations to have a nice layout that is not linkable within the interface.  I also think that pdf, documents, and other items should not have to be opened in a new window in order to be viewed.  And change in screen can blow kids minds.  In fact such a thing happened when I used builder with 5th graders in a city school.  I ended up using Portaportal for the remainder of the project because it was a bit like information overload. 

I think buILder is an excellent start but it needs to be more adaptive and customizable if it is going to to get a lot of use.  I know that my lesson plans and buILders I created last fall have not been approved.  I got full credit from Dr. Ruth so I do not know what the hold up is.  I even e-mailed to ask that it be approved but alas nothing has come of it.  I do understand that the site is run completely non-profit but there is a certain expectation online.  Without lessons being approved they are not searchable by other librarians.  I know that SCDS is creating their own database of links to the buILders they create and are specifically not sending them in for review because they can no longer be updated.

The ability to continually update is an important feature missing when one's project has been reviewed.  I understand that it is a bit like a journal and once it has been "published" it cannot be altered but this is not conducive to the type of environment that school librarians work in.

What do you all think?  What would you like to see improved in the working of buILder?

Articles of Note on SOS:
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6286453.html -- Article on SOS from 2005
http://technicallibrarian.blogspot.com/2007/05/slms-2007-sos-for-information-literacy.html -- Blog entry from Technical Librarian about SOS
http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/?i=36601 -- Article on eSchool on SOS

A few days ago the LibrarianinBlack.net posted a story about Santa Cruz and their switch to a open source integrated Library system. Here is the story about it (link)

"Santa Cruz County Public Library (SCPL) has a central library and 9 branches, and boasts an annual circulation of approximately 2 million items. The library has approximately 235,000 titles in its collection and 61,000 active borrowers. Koha ZOOM is the next-generation release of the award-winning Koha open-source integrated library system. Notably, it includes a powerful search engine based on Zebra, a high-performance indexing and retrieval engine. Koha ZOOM's search engine can read structured records in practically any input format (e.g., email, XML, MARC) and allows access to them through exact boolean search expressions and relevance-ranked free-text queries. It supports large databases (more than ten gigabytes of data, tens of millions of records) as well as incremental, safe database updates on live systems."

This really is an exciting time because for so long ILS have not been held accountable for the lack luster service given to libraries. They are not encouraged to make improvements in a timely manner because few libraries will pay the expense it would take to switch ILS. I am thinking in particular of large and small libraries. Even SU is suck with Voyager because at this point it would not be cost effective to switch. But if open source technologies continue to grow as anticipated there will be a much needed healthy competition.

Though the problem with Open Source is usually that you do not get the tech support that libraries have become accustom to in other ILS. Are we willing to become self-reliant? Are we moving toward a in-house run ILS? What do you all think?

At AASL this spring Dr. Ruth presented buILder to the librarians that went to the conference.  Therefore I think the lessons and buILders offered will start to balloon into a massive database to aid us in our quest for unique lessons. 

There are many uses for buILder and one of them is to create your portfolio.  Dr. Ruth actually recommended that I use buILder in order to do this.  Also you do not have to submit your lessons for approval.  When you submit for approval you can no longer edit them which can cause frustration when you want to change things for a different lesson.  I just used one for a project that I am doing in my practicum (www.informationliteracy.org/builder/view/1661/)

How to make your buILder sing:

1. Put powerpoint presentations into you buILders by printscreening the slides and inputting them into buILder as an image.  I have found powerpoint to be much more versitile in their design choices (a good program to use is PrintKey2000)
   
2. Save and save often!  The site does not have an automatic save at all.
3. Include videos -- The BlipTV tab on Creativecommons.org is an excellent source

Please reply with buILders that you have created and what you have used them for.  Were they successful?

And reading that headline you thought I was joking.  I read this on Boing Boing and went so far as to watch the video on the original website.  So what happen you ask?

A man cut off his finger tip while working on a model plane. His brother, a medical research scientist, sent him a vial containing powdered pig bladder and told him to sprinkle on the severed finger tip. It grew back -- "flesh, blood, vessels and nail" -- in four weeks.

That powder is a substance made from pig bladders called extracellular matrix. It is a mix of protein and connective tissue surgeons often use to repair tendons and it holds some of the secrets behind the emerging new science of regenerative medicine.

"It tells the body, start that process of tissue regrowth," said Badylak.

Badlayk is one of the many scientists who now believe every tissue in the body has cells which are capable of regeneration. All scientists have to do is find enough of those cells and "direct" them to grow.

"Somehow the matrix summons the cells and tell them what to do," Badylak explained. "It helps instruct them in terms of where they need to go, how they need to differentiate - should I become a blood vessel, a nerve, a muscle cell or whatever."

Link (Thanks, Lex10!)

Now the real interesting thing is the comment on BoingBoing about how children under the age of 5 can do this normally.  It would be interesting to see what might happen for other parts.  According to the video on the link they are trying this with Hearts and possibly regeneration of limbs in vets.  We shall see...if it works wow a whole new type of medicine. For more detailed info try this site:  http://health.howstuffworks.com/extracellular-matrix.htm

Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader Locked Up: Why Your Books Are No Longer Yours

If you buy a regular old book, CD or DVD, you can turn around and loan it to a friend, or sell it again. The right to pass it along is called the "first sale" doctrine. Digital books, music and movies are a different story though. Four students at Columbia Law School's Science and Technology Law Review looked at the particular issue of reselling and copying e-books downloaded to Amazon's Kindle or the Sony Reader, and came up with answers to a fundamental question: Are you buying a crippled license to intellectual property when you download, or are you buying an honest-to-God book?

In the fine print that you "agree" to, Amazon and Sony say you just get a license to the e-books—you're not paying to own 'em, in spite of the use of the term "buy." Digital retailers say that the first sale doctrine—which would let you hawk your old Harry Potter hardcovers on eBay—no longer applies. Your license to read the book is unlimited, though—so even if Amazon or Sony changed technologies, dropped the biz or just got mad at you, they legally couldn't take away your purchases. Still, it's a license you can't sell.

But is this claim legal? Our Columbia friends suggest that just because Sony or Amazon call it a license, that doesn't make it so. "That's a factual question determined by courts," say our legal brainiacs. "Even if a publisher calls it a license, if the transaction actually looks more like a sale, users will retain their right to resell the copy." Score one for the home team.

There's a kicker, though: If a court ruled with you on that front, you still can't sell reproductions of your copy, an illegal act tantamount to Xeroxing your Harry Potters. You'd have to sell the physical media where the "original" download is stored—a hard drive or the actual Kindle or Sony Reader. Our guess is that it only gets more complicated from here. What happens when the file itself resides only on some $20-per-month Google storage locker?

 

So what do you all think about the Kindle?  Or the Sony Book Reader?  Would you get one? 

A new week and a new topic: BuILder. BuILder is part of the S.O.S for Information Literacy toolbox arsenal for teacher librarians. What is S.O.S.? "The S.O.S in the title of the project does represent a call to action to enhance information literacy instruction. It also refers to the job that IL instructors must accomplish in preparing IL instruction. That is, they must consider the specific Situation (e.g., grade level, curricula area for integrating IL instruction, etc.), the desired Outcome(s) (e.g., information skill(s) to be learned), and what Strategies (e.g., teaching ideas or specific techniques and methods) they need to include in their instruction in order to achieve the desired outcome (SOS for Information Literacy."

I am sure both of you are familiar with the technology from the Motivation class with Dr. Ruth. If not buILder is a tool much like webquests which we have been discussing this week. In the coming weeks I will discuss the different aspects of buILders and gives some examples of some of my favorite buILders.  They are online lesson that can incorporate many types of media. I have made quite a few and I find the tool to be absolutely amazing and very versatile.

The website defines buILders as follows, "A new feature, buILder (stands for Information Literacy Builder), will allow users to translate lesson plans into actual online lessons for their students. That is, instructors will be able to actually build an online lesson with menus, links, and of course, the research challenge. BuILder is continuing to be tested (SOS for Information Literacy)."

Check out www.informationliteracy.org today and explore the Teacher Librarian tool that our predecessors only wished they had.  A tool beyond mere listservs.

As we near the end of this discussion on Learning Objects what is it that I want you all to take away?  Well I guess that learning objects really are a new way to think about learning and creating puzzle pieces that turn into a lesson.  They are interlocking and interchangeable.  By looking at teaching like taking items off a shelf I think that a fludity will occur and teachers can more fully collaborate both in our own schools and beyond.  The ability to reuse such items is continuing to change as was written in a recent article:

"While the training industry sees the value of content reuse, most practitioners are generally skeptical of the reality of it. According to leading analysts, learning content reuse today is limited to simple reuse in e-learning formats. The project at SDSU will explore the promise of XML to enable true learning-object reuse across multiple delivery formats and within multiple audience contexts  (Chief Learning Officer)."

I also found an article that talks about how schools are using technology in general to help there students that talks about learning objects.  I thought it relevant to this discussion.  The idea and discussion of learning objects can start to get a bit technical and abstract....yet Kansas schools are using technology to manipulate learning objects (MorningSun).
 
***Remember***

The 3 “R’s” -- The “three R’s” of learning objects are Reduce, Re-purpose and Recycle.

• Learning objects reduce content into manageable bites. These bites are then tagged, cataloged and stored for later and varied uses by others. A traditional course on negotiating might include modules on why people negotiate, how to negotiate, how to recognize opportunities for negotiation, tips for negotiators and role-playing activities. From a learning-objects perspective, trainers create and maintain a collection of useful and small assets about negotiation. They can be found and moved in ways that transcend the flexibility of conventional learning assets.
• The people who create learning objects often re-purpose existing assets to be useful with a wider audience. A professional might go to the “negotiation skills” library, for example, and take a 20-minute videotape of a negotiation interaction in order to carve it into examples or even an assessment opportunity.
• Learning objects become successful when recycled as new forms, uses and contexts. For example, the same video clip extracted from the library can be used in a classroom presentation and in an executive briefing  (Source).
  

In conclusion, this topic was challenging for me to try to encompass in blog entries but I hope that you learned from my blogging and came away with knowledge of what learning objects are and their importance to us as teachers.

From Boing Boing.....I thought this was an interesting article on why ebooks continue to do poorly.  It has more to do with price than you would think.....

My latest Locus column, "Put Not Your Faith in Ebook Readers," just went live. In it, I discuss the fact what while there's plenty of programmers who'll hack you a little ebook business that runs on a phone, handheld game device or PDA; there's a genuine shortage of high-quality manufacturers who'll build you a great, cheap, hardware-based ebook reader, and that that's likely to continue for some time.

( Read more... )

Original Link

Tell the EU: Keep Copyright Sound!

The time has come Dr. Seuss is going to go Digital.

"The Cat in the Cat, Horton Hears a Who!, Green Eggs and Ham, Hop on Pop and other Dr. Seuss classics are going digital, thanks to a partnership between Dr. Seuss Enterprises and kidthing, a new content distribution platform. Digital versions of the books—with extras such as voiceovers, sound effects and music—will roll out on kidthing.com starting in March, along with digital games based on the characters.

Content is downloaded on an à la carte basis, with fees ranging from $.99 to $10.00; content owners determine the prices. It is then played offline on kidthing’s free digital media player. Hitchcock says the service was designed to provide a safe environment where children can use digital content at home and in school, and to provide publishers and other content owners with a secure way to distribute and monetize their content (from Publisher's Weekly )."

Although you have to pay for this service I think it is interesting how so many children's books are going online.

For more information about Kidthing check out their website here

I just came across a rather unique idea and one I had not heard of before. It is called Virtual High School and they say about themselves on their website:

"Imagine classrooms without walls, where students are able to attend their classes 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Imagine students working cooperatively online with others from a wide variety of ethnicities, backgrounds and geographic locations. What you are beginning to imagine is the reality of the Virtual High School, a non-profit organization that offers content-rich, credit-bearing high school courses to students across the country and around the world."

This in itself is a bunch of learning objects. For those schools strapped and cannot hire a teacher to teach some AP classes or offer them all this would be a wonderful alternative I think and introduce students to online learning which continues to grow exponentially each year ( Virtual High School ) It would also be an excellent choice for home schooling students. As for libraries I could see this be another space that libraries could be used for in terms of aid students in their research as well as simply a place for students to work on the classes beyond the computer lab.

What do you think you would do with such a program if it were offered at your school?