This past week I packed up and moved myself to Albany to take a course as part of my second Master’s program.  The program is CDIT (Curriculum Development and Instructional Technology).  This class was ETAP626 with professor Seeley.  I did learn a lot in the course, mainly the theory of web design in education and how usability effects students.  My project for the course is available online at http://www.albany.edu/~lr396784.  It’s a Toolkit for Educational Web Design as well as my professional portfolio as an instructional designer.

Here’s a 7-minute long (7:41) clip on using cell phones to teach.

Powerful thoughts.  Comments?

While trying to find a copy of The Four Hour Work Week, I came across an advertisment for the WorldCat.org Citation tool.  I have to give credit to WorldCat.org for saying, at the end of the video, that their service is an automatic citation and that all citations should be checked manually before submitting the work.

I have redesigned my professional web presence today: http://www.acs.brockport.edu/~lrath.  It was about time I gave my personal site a new look.  Now I just need to add a professional looking picture.

I am now the 1st Vice President/President-Elect of the State University of New York Librarians’ Association.  Our annual conference was a lot of fun this year.  Here are some discussion points to move forward on (again, like CIT, these may become break-out blog post):

• Official Business: SUNYConnect database renewals are coming.  Library Directors have been informed.
• Official Business 2: The new membership form will be online.  Details to follow.
• Students like screencasts, but only if they’re relevant.  2.5-3 minutes max.
• Function is a better measure of library health than satisfaction.  Turn already quiet (etc.) areas into purposed spaces for those functions.
• The library work week should be Sunday afternoon through Thursday early evening.
• The rules of a sandbox server: Play, Update, Secure & Verify.
• The Keynote speech (photos: 1, 2, 3) , by Joe Janes, was very funny, yet poignant.

In addition to my discussion points, there are some fun points, too:

• Potsdam is “decentrally isolated.”
• The road signs in Potsdam are brown posts with light brown lettering in a vertical pattern on them.  You will find it on the opposite corner than where expected.
• You never know when someone has a camera. Example.

I’m gearing up to give my presentation about Second Life at SUNYLA.  It’s not a formal presentation, but rather a discussion session for help librarians determine our role in SecondLife.

• What interesting things have you found in SecondLife?
• Do students WANT library services in SecondLife?
• What form should library services in SecondLife?
• What would you like to see as far as SUNY Librarians in SecondLife?

Want information on the conference? Go here.

Here are some discussion points for CIT 2008. I may break some out into further posts.

• Open Access journals could provide additional funds to encourage faculty to publish to open access.
• World of Warcraft is different than Second Life because it’s based on Ludology Theory.
• There are several portable applications that could be used to develop a lab instance on a flash drive (Buffalo State’s IC2go project using Firefox, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon and Zotero)
• Should Google Books go into the business of the library catalog?
• Should Universities give students a sandbox where they can create their own “personal learning environment?”  Does this include a domain name?
• Should Universities trust more in 3rd party software/hosting?
• We assume too much when expecting students to do research
• We shouldn’t use technology just to use technology; it must have a purpose and enhance what we’re doing

The above bullet points are just starters for discussion.  What are your thoughts?

So, I just upgraded this blog to version 2.5. Hopefully it will work!

Update: It didn’t.  But it does now, some nifty server permissions changes and then we’re good to go.

95% of students have some sort of hand held device which puts them online. Many of these have the Internet, but not a full-fledged version thereof. So, my question for the day is: should we have the full website available for mobile users, or a basic subset of pages (hours, important contact information, location information)?

Any thoughts?

Okay, it’s Sunday. I hope everyone remembered to turn their clocks ahead (I know I cursed as I woke up an hour early to come open the library).

We’ve got our typical Sunday crowd in here. I wonder: do other librarians enjoy working the weekend as much as I do? There’s just something about the climate of the Sunday opening shift. I could get used to it. Luckily this is my “month of weekends” in which I’m working every weekend that we don’t have a break. Next Saturday, 2-6 is my last weekend shift at this library.