SLAV Connects is a blog by the School Libraries Association of Victoria (SLAV), formerly named Bright Ideas when a collaboration between SLAV and the State Library of Victoria (SLV). Its aim is to share news from the Association and to encourage teacher librarians, librarians, school library staff, educators and all interested persons to actively engage with the school libraries, to share tools and experiences; to network on a global scale; and to embrace dynamic teaching and learning opportunities.
We’ve all done pathfinders for our students. They take quite a bit of time, but they are so useful to point students (and teachers) in the right direction when researching a topic. Now teacher librarian Dr Joyce Valenza has come up with the brilliant idea of hosting a wiki where anyone can upload their pathfinders and in return, find completed pathfinders by other educators. Pathfinder Swap is the result.
Encompassing the topics of
Art
Books and Reading
Business
Current Events
ESL
Geography
Health
Language Arts
Literature
Math
Media
Music
Science
Social Issues
Social Studies
US History
World History
World Languages
Interdisciplinary
Professional Development
as well as tools to use to build online pathfinders, this wiki is a sensational idea. What a great way to save time and to share and collaborate with others. Please consider sharing your pathfinders via this great initiative.
The State Library of Victoria has just relaunched its website. With an amazing wealth of information, activities and events, checking out the new SLV website is a must.
Homepage
Hamish Curry, Education & Onsite Learning Manager in the Learning Services area of the State Library of Victoria explains:
This revamped site opens up a great deal of new opportunities to bring our collections and services to the surface; be sure to check out the ‘Learn’, ‘Explore’ and ‘What’s On’ sections.
CLIP is a partnership between Western Oregon University, Oregon State University, Willamette University, and Chemeketa Community College whose mission is to design and develop sharable, web-based tutorials to assist in library instruction and information literacy.
The following tutorials may be of use to your students and you are able to embed them into your own website.
Evaluating Internet Sources:
Developing a topic:
Incorporating Sources into your Research Assignment:
What is a Library Database?
Generating Search Terms:
Why You Need to Cite Sources:
Internet Searching Tips:
Popular and Scholarly Sources:
Primary and Secondary Sources:
Also included are guides to compiling both APA and MLA style bibliographies.
Librarians can also request access to the CLIP quiz page as well as apply to become a writer for the site (you must join the site before you can apply.
Archivd is a collaborative research tool that enables users to “automatically extract images, videos, phone numbers, emails, mailing addresses, prices. Group pages by project and subject. Search the full text of every page and custom field. Research with and get feedback from your coworkers.”
Homepage
It provides a central space for people with common interests, be they colleagues or not, to save, comment on and extract information from web pages, quickly and easily. Students working in groups on research projects could use this tool and as Archivd is available in English, French and Spanish, it could be useful for LOTE teachers and classes.
FAQs explain more and here is a video demonstration of how Archivd can be used:
The people from Archivd have also provided an example of a saved search:
Example page
There is a trial version of Archivd for anyone who wants to test it out without signing up. Archivd is free, but also has premium services that do cost.
Wolfram Alpha has now been launched. What is it? More than just a new search engine, Wolfram Alpha intends to answer your questions rather than direct you to other websites as per other search engines.
Homepage
Students are bound to latch onto this site quickly as it can answer mathematical equations as well as other school-related questions. Wolfram Alpha acknowledge this and as listed below, they encourage students to acknowledge Wolfram Alpha as a source.
What educational levels is Wolfram|Alpha suitable for?
Any level, from kindergarten to graduate school and beyond. On the elementary end, Wolfram|Alpha can do arithmetic showing steps, make clocks, work with colors, and so on.
Can I use Wolfram|Alpha to do my homework?
That depends on your teacher. If you do use it, don’t forget to cite it as a source.
Why does Wolfram|Alpha give a different answer from my textbook?
Check to see if your book’s answer appears under “Alternate forms”. It’s pretty common for some forms to look different but be effectively equivalent.
Should I cite Wolfram|Alpha when I use results from it?
Yes. For academic purposes, Wolfram|Alpha is a primary source.
How should I cite results from Wolfram|Alpha?
The citable author is Wolfram|Alpha. Don’t forget to include the time and/or place at which the query was made, as it can affect the result. You can reference results in individual pods by giving their names.
How can I find out what to cite when I use data from Wolfram|Alpha?
Wolfram|Alpha should be considered the source, just as an encyclopedia or other reference would be. If you include the Wolfram|Alpha URL in your document, your readers can go to the “Source information” button to get further references. Note that Wolfram|Alpha often combines and adapts data from multiple sources.
Is the content of Wolfram|Alpha peer reviewed?
Yes, the content is reviewed by domain experts. It is also extensively validated using automated testing. For external data, we strive to use the most reliable sources available.
Can I find out how specific results in Wolfram|Alpha were derived?
Elementary math results often have “Show steps” buttons, and combinations of data have “Details” buttons. “Source information” buttons give information on background sources for external data.
Does Wolfram|Alpha contain “adult content”?
No. It has no adult images or narrative. It gives only factual answers to factual questions.
The Digital Research Tools wiki is a collection of tools that is arranged by task, preceded by a definition of that task.
Wiki homepage
A great example is that of screencasting. The DiRT wiki gives the following information:
Definition: A screencast is a recording of actions taken on a computer screen, often with accompanying narration. It is essentially a movie of what is happening on a monitor. Screencasts are often used as tutorials or instructions of how to perform certain actions or operate certain programs on a computer.
Tools:
Adobe Captivate: Windows-based software that “enables anyone to rapidly create powerful and engaging simulations, scenario-based training, and robust quizzes without programming knowledge or multimedia skills” (commercial)
CamStudio: Open source Windows software records your computer’s screen and audio activity into AVI format. Can save into Flash format (swf) (free, GPL)
iShowU: Mac-based software for recording audio & video on a computer screen (commercial)
Jing: Available for Windows or Mac, Jing is “the always-ready program that instantly captures and shares images and video…from your computer to anywhere” (commercial)
ScreenFlick: “features high performance screen capturing for smooth, fluid motion up to 60 fps” (Mac, commercial)
ScreenFlow: well-reviewed screencapture/screencast software for the Mac (commercial)
SnapZProX: make quicktime movie or screen shot (Mac, $)
uTIPu: Download the uTIPu TipCam, record a video of your computer screen, share online publicly or privately, and even embed into a web site (commercial)
WebSlides: Turn Diigo bookmarks and feeds into slide shows. Add background music or voiceover. (Free, web-based)
Wink: Wink is a freeware screen recording and editing software to create software tutorials (Windows/Linux, freeware).
DiRT is licenced under creative commons. The contributors include librarians and researchers. Well worth a look!
Bibme is an online tool that helps students (and teachers, in fact anyone who needs to) compile a bibliography.
Bibme homepage
There are two ways to enter the data needed for Bibme to automatically create your bibliography:
Scan or type in the ISBN
If the ISBN cannot be found by Bibme, enter the publication details into the template
Once this has been done, click “Add to my bibliography”. Bibliographies can be saved to your Bibme account or downloaded directly into Microsoft Word. MLA, APA, Chicago, & Turabian styles are supported by Bibme.
Books, magazines, films, newspapers, website and journals are all supported, although some Australian publications are not catered for. In this instance, simply use the manual fill mode explained in step two above.
Bibme has a citation guide, so that if appropriate, students can learn how to write their own bibliographies without Bibme’s help.
Citation guide
We all know how difficult it can be to get students to complete a bibliography (correctly or even at all), so Bibme may be a useful resource for teachers who require a bibliography to be submitted with schoolwork. Please note that users must be over 13 years of age.
A new way to research? Zotero is a revolutionary Mozilla Firefox (an alternative web browser to Internet Explorer) extension that helps users ‘collect, manage and cite’ research sources.
With the results of a recent survey where 49% of Cambridge students admitted plagiarism, that sounds fantastic. How does it work?
The Zotero website says that it:
‘automatically captures citation of information from web pages
has a playlist like library that keeps a record of saved searches
saves records and notes in many languages
integrates with Microsoft Office, WordPress and other blogging software
has formatted citation export
stores web pages, PDFs, files, images, links and other attachments.’
Like Diigo, you can create ‘sticky note’ annotations that ‘stick’ onto the webpage you are using. The Zotero website explains how to create bibliographies; ‘For example, you can drag and drop references into any text field as either HTMLor plain text. You can also print bibliographies directly from Zotero or copy them to your clipboard. In addition, MS Word and OpenOffice plugins offer more precise control for integrating bibliographic information in your writing projects.’
Zotero provides a lot of information about how to use it as a research tool. There are screencasts that give demonstrations of how to use Zotero, as well as lots of links that explain just about everything you’ll need to know. Once downloaded, the Zotero icon lives in the bottom right-hand corner of the Firefox window. Just click on the Zotero icon when you want to use it. With the click of the mouse, Zotero saves the bibliographic information of a website to file.
Zotero in action
Zotero can also be used with Netscape Navigator (no link as Netscape are no longer developing their product) and Flock web browsers as well as Firefox. Zotero 1.0 is the current version, but when version 2.0 is released, it will allows users to share collections, notes and documents, allowing better collaboration. Although Zotero is downloaded to a particular computer rather than generating a user login, it can be used on multiple computers. Version 2 should enable user logins for better portability.
Zotero really is an amazing tool for those who want to organise their research, searches or topics. It could be the new way to take notes and to teach students how to notetake online! Also a wonderful tool for anyone doing graduate or post graduate studies.
Diigo (pronounced Deego) is a Web 2.0 tool that lets users bookmark, highlight and add sticky notes to web pages. You can add and share (or not share if you don’t want to) annotations and get recommendations from other users. You are able to publish easily from Diigo to your blog or email and all references will automatically appear. That’s a huge bonus in this day of plagiarism. Diigo even call their tools ‘the best companion for online research’ and that’s a big call. Is it warranted?
Diigo
The Diigo blog states ‘We are happy to announce the release of Diigo Educator Accounts, a suite of features that makes it incredibly easy for teachers to get their entire class of students or their peers started on collaborative research using Diigo’s powerful web annotation and social bookmarking technology.’ You do have to apply to Diigo for an educator account upgrade and it can take up to 48 hours for them to process your application (you have to fill out how/why you want to use Diigo in your school).
Diigo has to be downloaded to your toolbar, but it is a very quick process. Diigo says,‘Once approved for a Diigo Educator Account:
A teacher can create student accounts for an entire class with just a few clicks (and student email addresses are optional for account creation)
Students of the same class are automatically set up as a Diigo group so they can start using all the benefits that a Diigo group provides, such as group bookmarks and annotations, and group forums.
To protect the privacy of students, student accounts have special settings which only allow their teachers and classmates to contact them and access their personal profile information.
Ads presented to student account users are limited to education-related sponsors.’
Sounds like it’s worth a look and a trial with a class. Anything that helps students research and acknowledge sources is worth pursuing. Have a look at the video that explains how Diigo works: How to use Diigo. And thanks to John Pearce of Salty Solutions for this guide to Diigo.
