Yesterday there was uproar in the law library community over this charming ad Westlaw sent to some of its subscribers:
Click to enlarge; the fine print punchline reads "If so, chances are, you're spending too much time at the library. What you need is fast, reliable research you can access right in your office. And all it takes is West."
Yes, I agree. It's insulting and offensive. But beyond the outrage, I'd love to see it lead to more discussion of the positive things we as law librarians are going to do to change things so that next time a major legal publisher makes such a blunder, we all just laugh it off. And more important than discussion, action. What do we, the legal information experts, do to take more control of legal information back from vendors?
Do we start at home, encouraging our in-house reviews and journals to publish in accordance with the Durham Statement (have you signed yet?): commiting "to keep the electronic versions available in stable, open, digital formats"?
Do we continue to advocate for better and easier access to government information that ought to be free anyway? How many law librarians have signed the Improve PACER petition yet? There are definitely more than 682 of us.
Do we get more active finding creative ways around such shortcomings, like creating RECAP?
Do we help come up with more tools like handy LibX, the brainchild of a Virginia Tech librarian collaborating with a VT computer science professor?
Do we go continue to call for better user interfaces from vendors? How about going beyond critiquing the vendors to become expert interface designers on our own, making more useful library websites, less sucky OPACs, and engaging institutional or regional repositories?
There's obviously not any set answer here, just lots of possibilities we need to get serious about exploring and implementing so we don't have any reason to get freaked out next time a vendor encourages users to make an end-run around us.
I'm not big on sports metaphors, but in his AALL 2009 keynote, Jonathan Zittrain mentioned the concept of library defense. Even I know enough about sports to know that you can't win only playing defense. So what's our offense?
Law librarians: for those who haven't heard, the ABA is revising its accreditation standards and sadly lacking in input from us on Chapter 6.
I've glanced at the law library standards before, but had never given them a really close reading. Having done so, I highly recommend it. It's entertaining to read through antiquated language and then remind yourself that it's talking about the place you work everyday. Rule 606-5(8), I'm looking at you.
But seriously, I do think it's important to send our feedback on this, and in that spirit, here's what I sent to Becky Stretch (stretchc AT staff*abanet*org) at ABA HQ:
601 (c) Keeping the library "abreast of contemporary technology" is vague, and I don't know what it means. Keeping the library equipment current? Informing library staff about developments in technology?
If the former, I'm in favor of it, but hope the statement will be revised for clarity.
If the latter, the statement does not reflect reality. In some law schools, the technology departments report to the library director, thus the library is officially the unit keeping the law school aware of technology developments. And that aside, many law librarians are individually well ahead of the technology curve, helping to keep their law schools (and faculty) abreast of technology, rather than the other way around.
602 (c) Typo: this one should begin "the director of the law library…" rather than "the directory of the law library…" [Blog note: it is REALLY embarrassing that this has passed unnoticed.]
605 In both the text and interpretation of this standard, the word bibliographic stands out as outdated. I would suggest replacing it with information literacy, which applies to information regardless of format.
606 (c) It would be wonderful if this standard had an addendum promoting the public sharing of our collection development policies to enable better collaboration as libraries deal with continued pressure from budgets and vendors.
606-5(8) The focus on citators and periodical indexes puts this one out of date as well. Perhaps changing it to "electronic citators, finding aids and periodical databases…" I'm surprised that library OPACs/catalogs/discovery tools are not mentioned here, as they are the primary means of finding monographs in the library collection.
While I was in D.C., a library director whom I'd just met wondered why there weren't more younger people at the Academic Law Library of 2015 workshop. I didn't have a ready answer, and I've been thinking about it ever since. There were actually a number of reasons.
First, I confess that my (possibly superficial) impression of the pre-workshop listserv discussion was that many of the issues on it were things that had been hashed and rehashed for years with little action. No thanks. (I have subsequently heard good things about the workshop, so I'm happy my impression was incorrect or that the listserv didn't otherwise accurately preview the workshop.)
My other personal issue with getting to the workshop was working with a shortened travel schedule, because I also went to CALI. The best I could do with that was get to D.C. in time for the late morning CONELL exhibit hall.
Finally, and perhaps most important, I've only now noticed in the workshop description that the target audience is listed as "academic law library senior managers." This does not describe me, nor many of my most talented peers--future directors and AALL presidents certainly among them. Granted, 2015 is not far in the future and there are some young-ish librarians that fit that description, but if one is really interested in the future of libraries, one should make sure that ALL the librarians who will be making and living it are invited.
...
I'm aware there was also some to-do about where the young law librarians were at the business meeting and member forum during the conference. (I'd been planning to go but didn't, because I ended up working the Gen X / Gen Y Caucus booth. Oh, irony.) I do think it takes a few years to figure out the association and gain a level of interest to support attending the business meeting. I went to part of one my first year (and haven't been back since), and it wasn't really clear to me that I was supposed to be there, to be honest. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in having had that experience.
Meanwhile, what I'd like to know is, where are the older law librarians showing an interest in the younger generation? Yes, quite a number support CONELL, but that's for newer librarians, not necessarily younger ones. Bob Oakley was a marvelous supporter of the Gen X / Gen Y Caucus from its first meeting, and I think of him fondly every year during our meeting. Jim Milles attended last year. This year, board member Chris Graesser attended our meeting (and witnessed our first election), and president Catherine Lemann joined her for our social. I may be missing some stealth boomers, but that's not very many.
Like the business meeting, Caucus meetings and socials are open to all law librarians. The former is now a must on my agenda for next year. I sincerely hope there will be some more generational cross-over in the other direction too.
Three years ago this month, I went to my first day of work as a law librarian, then headed the next day to my first AALL.
I've always appreciated that my anniversary in the profession coincides with the annual meeting; it's a nice chance to reflect on my career so far. Not going to navel gaze here, but suffice to say I am satisfied, and looking forward to many more years of gentle law librating.
There are a few things, however, that stand out.
Before I became a librarian, I had an absolute dread of networking. The thought of it made my skin crawl. So I was surprised to find that it wasn't actually so bad when law librarians were involved. In fact, I didn't really mind it at all, and it's only gotten better from there. I think it helped a lot that the CONELL committee does such a great job of helping newbies get started.
The other thing that helped early on was walking into my first (the first, in fact) meeting of the Gen X / Gen Y Caucus. It feels incredibly corny to say, but it was a thrill to walk into a room with about a hundred people my age who were just as excited to be law librarians as I was. (I suspect part of the excitement was that I didn't really know anyone in library school let alone anyone younger who was also interested in law librarianship.) The first thing we did was re-arrange all the chairs in the room into an enormous circle. It was great. That was a highlight, but my whole first annual meeting made me feel like I'd found my people.
Fast forward three years to my fourth annual meeting. I got to work the CS-SIS booth at CONELL's exhibit hall this time. It was worth getting up for the early flight. I met a lot of the cool new people and began to feel more like an old conference pro. Someone handed me a slip with the URL to sign up for the mentoring program, and I think suggested I do so as a mentor. I guess I'm really not a newbie anymore.
Meanwhile, I've been on the Gen X / Gen Y social planning committee for three years, and this year's event was mind-blowing. We made a reservation for 20; I counted at least 53 people at one point. Yeah. It's just one indication of the group's success. We're taking all necessary steps toward becoming an SIS. Our members represent on SIS and chapter boards, and on national committees; and present multiple times at conferences. They're also behind creative new things like the first annual Lawberry Camp. (Got ideas for next year? Help with the proposal.) I have a lot of loyalties within the association, but ask me which group I'm most proud of, and it's the Caucus.
In addition all that, I've made some really amazing friends in the profession, especially over the past year or so. People I like to think I'd be friends with if we met outside of the law library sphere. I've found not only my people, but my pack.
Two other mentionable-but-not-really-related highlights:
This year's opening even in the halls of the Library of Congress was phenomenal. The mild thunder and lightning storm added a little locked-in-the-library magic to the evening. As I commented elsewhere, it's a shame the place isn't more portable, because it sure beats convention halls and hotel ballrooms.
CS-SIS karaoke outing. Last year when I went for the first time, there were fewer than a dozen people and it was fun, but low key. This year? I'm not sure what happened (nor which year was more unusual), but there were over 70 people. And since Connie Crosby has video anyway, I'm just going to say it: looking out into a room full of law librarians and realizing that everyone else was also belting "Don't Stop Believin'" is something I'll never forget. Though perhaps I should. :)
And with this post, I hope to get blogging here a little more often. I've been waiting till I get around to switching to WordPress, then Tom Boone and Jason Eiseman convinced me at CALIcon that I too can handle Drupal--but I'm unlikely to make any kind of platform switch until I get a new computer this fall.
On April 4, I attended The Yale Internet and Society Project's Library 2.0 Symposium. (Side note: it was ridiculously exciting, as a recent escapee from south Florida, to go to an event in another state and be able to drive there in less than six hours.)
Aside from transcription, formatting, and adding some links, these notes are presented as I took them - i.e., uncleaned up, sometimes random or unclear, and I've probably gotten a few things wrong or otherwise misrepresented them. My personal comments and observations are in brackets.
It was quite a good conference overall, but I felt some professional frustration in that the presenters with the more traditional library careers tended to be the ones who felt least current and relevant to me, while the non- (and wannabe) librarians seemed to "get it" much more--that fear of technology is so old hat it doesn't need to be restated in detail, that we need to embrace change, stand up for ourselves and our institutions, and get involved in our communities. There were definitely some exceptions, but that was my general impression.
Welcome
Conference materials will appear on these websites:
Since it’s a digital conference, they created a video to open the day in lieu of formal opening remarks:
Panel 1
Josh Greenberg, Director of Digital Strategy and Scholarship, New York Public Library
How do we digitize librarians and their experiences?
Example of Jessica Pigza’s craft blog – started virally with no public link, worked with Design Sponge. Craft book exhibit eventually brought 400 ppl to NYPL exhibit, Flickr group created.
Important themes: IP, changing role of libs, third-party sites
Red tape involved to get out and do lib work where ppl are
No lit yet on personal/professional blogging and tweeting and public’s perception of this fuzzy line
John Palfrey, Professor of Law and Vice Dean, Library and Information Resources, Harvard Law School
3 criteria of DNs: age, access, skills
100% of DNs start with Google then Wikipedia. Some cut and paste; others savvy skeptics.
News currency: first step grazing; second step going to deeper to blogs; third step smaller group here re-blogs, creates own content
We need to experiment; pick out what works
Faculty: some sad about changes; others think we’re not changing fast enough
Empirical research support
What materials do we all just provide access to for everyone
What about unique things?
Collaborative collecting
Need to share info about coll. stuff
Services: moving from cathedral to bazaar model
Young ppl and fac work in bazaar model – we need to be bazaar guides instead of high priests
Questions
Q for JP: HLSL in ten years? A: Multi-faceted issue. Unique materials, BD materials, open access, Cohen fellowship – but we can’t do it all
JG: tension between individual and institutional voices
Q for JP: hurdles that need to be overcome? A: Local and IP hurdles, fac find OA procedures annoying, implementation is hard, publishing cycle needs to be broken, must be sure about preservation and commitment to archives, collective action opportunity rather than collective action problem. Crucial to push fair use boundaries: use it or lose it. [last sentence echoes in Twitter]
Ann Wolpert, Director of Libraries, MIT
Books are mature tech; JP’s students aren’t reading books/extended arguments [Twittering law libs don’t think this is a problem]
MIT fac discussion – committee formed after HU’s OA decision
Fac view lib as what’s in front of them – each fac sure other disciplines work same way as theirs
“so sue me” model of using fac’s own work – until they discovered open courseware site was gutted of copyrighted materials.
Death Star of vendor consolidation [this reference was popular throughout the day]
Charles Cronin, Visiting Fellow, Yale Information Society Project
An optimist, not a futurist
Woolf quote about two types of readers
40 year crisis in pub libs; popular materials – piano rolls, films
Problem: ppl not using libs for info [again, some Twittering law libs don’t think this is the problem]
We need digital Carnegies
More Questions
JG: paradigm shift needed – model of licensing to higher ed/businesses must be broken
Questioner notes JP was the only person to mention special collections
Question for JP: libraries in sky with bazaar at each individual school – how do ABA accreditation stds affect ability to change/re-org? A: JP worried no one will follow us in OA; hubris keeps us from collaborating – we need to stop competing on size of collections and start competing on how well we collaborate [good response to this on Twitter]
Panel 2
Mary Alice Baish, American Association of Law Libraries
She’s not as cynical as she was a few years ago. Everyone seems to figure out answer to this before she says Obama
Transparency pledge [do we need one from libraries?]
Open govt directive: it should be transparent, participatory, collaborative (core principles of democracy [and maybe libraries?])
Govt responsibility for e-lifecycle mgmt of docs: creation, metadata, version control, official status, citation, authentication, permanent accessibility
EPA example – digitization without standards = bad
Change of culture after re-opening of EPA libraries – all about community [this should be underlined three times]
Michael Zimmer, Assistant Professor, School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee
Postman on Faustian bargain with technology
Long tail
[can libs really see FB data from those who fan their pages as opposed to friend them personally? I think not.]
Proposes best practices for Library 2.0
[Faustian bargain with tech can't be as bad as the deal we've got with vendors, can it?]
Ted Striphas, Assistant Professor of Media & Cultural Studies; Director of Film & Media, Indiana University Department of Communication and Culture
Focus on booklike aspects of Kindle obscure the ways it attempts to go beyond books
Why is Kindle always marketed displayed with books/paper materials?
Book recommendation: Gary Hull, Digitize This Book
Commodification of audience labor - Kindle users are a mass, unsuspecting focus group
Jessamyn West, Community Technologist, Librarian, and Blogger
Michael Pollan variation: “Use the Internet. Not too much. Mostly _____.” What’s the _____? [I propose Twitter in jest; Tom Bruce proposes lolcats; Stephanie Davidson proposes "read information. Not too much. Mostly non-commercial" which I really like.]
[Everyone laughed at the picture of Jessamyn’s library building, which I thought was no more laughable than Langdell. Small cottage, big stone temple: both very traditional.]
Jonathan Zittrain, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Was at 1999 ARL and OCLC joint meeting in Colorado – sensed fear
Library definitions, noun - pooling arrangement to deal with scarcity, first sale doctrine, organized piracy
Notes JP’s use of lib as verb [my notes unclear here]
Talks abt “consumption of knowledge.” Is knowledge gone when you consume it? What comes out the other end? A: We call that scholarship
Project Gutenberg – what a crazy idea to just start typing in books
Mentions .sig of Michael Hart (of PG)
Boldness of Google Books – why aren’t libraries doing this??
Perfect is the enemy of the good [this echoes through Twitter] [why does JZ get what many librarians don’t?]
Makes fun of WAX [Harvard's web archiving system]
Panel 3
Laura Gassaway, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Law, University of North Carolina School of Law
History of copyright act
Jonathan Band, Technology and Law Consultant
Proposes Fair Use Legal Defense Fund and notes EFF and other orgs already do some of this work
Denise Troll Covey, Principal Librarian for Special Projects, Carnegie Mellon University Libraries
Book recommendation: Corynne McSherry, Who Owns Academic Work?
Libraries should exercise and foster civil disobedience and moral courage
Kenneth Crews, Director of Copyright Advisory Office, Columbia University
Balance is impossible so throw it out and do good stuff
Copyright is a social interface – law is abt ppl
Awkward social relationship with copyright
Private responses and structural responses
Creative commons – Google Books
Remember that Google Books settlement is only about books
Fragmentation in the future of books, readers, publishers, libraries
New libraries: [need to get text of this slide in full] Expanding universe of… Supernova… Ecology… Gatekeeper… Appeasers… Apologists…
Panel 4
Jeff Cunard, Partner, Debovoise & Plimpton
Overview of Google Books settlement
Guy Pessach, Lecturer, Faculty of Law, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Digital archives in Europe
Frank Pasquale, Visiting Professor of Law, Yale Law School
Similarity between private health insurers and Google. Google as middleman
Mentions Darnton’s On the Media appearance last week discussing “cocaine pricing” of info
Book recommendation: Jessica Lipman, Digital Copyright
[try to find his slides – a unique and interesting take, but my brain was full]
Brewster Kahle, Digital librarian and co-founder of the Internet Archive
Discusses problems in MIT’s making available digital copy of 1964 book Libraries of the Future by J. Licklider – which had been published by MIT.
Orphaned works
We’re very close to universal access to knowledge – let’s not stumble now.
Book recommendation: Terry Fisher, Promises to Keep</li>
Google gets libraries to work against each other with non-disclosure [sounds like Westlaw]
(March 26 I attended an Apple-sponsored AcademiX seminar at MIT. Or most of it--had to dash back to the office for a meeting in the afternoon and I didn't make it back for the end of the day. What I went to, however, was quite good.
Here are my notes, raw and uncorrected except for formatting, with occasional comments in brackets.)
iTunes U: Case Study Panel Kate James, Open Course Ware, Production Mgr., Video Coordinator, MIT Jim Marko, New Media Producer, NJIT
Kate James: In 2000, questions abt how internet would impact education, what to do about it.
Faculty conclusion wasn’t about money, but because of nature of MIT education (collaboration, etc), they recommended putting materials online for free—because it isn’t degree-granting, representative of interactive classroom environment, no contact with faculty. (Occasionally compelling requests are passed to faculty, but not often.)
OCW is free, will continue to be perm at MIT.
Voluntary contribs from ~80% faculty.
Various stats abt OCW. Creative Commons non-com/attrib/share alike audience. Permitted to mix math lectures with dance beats
Translations happening
60% of access is from outside North America
Every six months entire site burned to drive and shipped to places like Nigeria where bandwidth and connectivity are issues
Inspiring movement—250 institutions in OCW consortium
Production process
Recruiting faculty diff ways—superstar faculty, durable content, core curriculum, MIT-unique, distinct pedagogy, more and more fac submitting info
Preparation wardrobe (no white or checked shirts), props and other things to focus on, third-party materials (can’t have NY-er cartoons), student privacy, not Hollywood (mistakes okay)
Capture Sony HDR-SR11 10.2mp 60gig hi def hard drive handycam Wireless mics
Scrub and review every minute reviewed for IP and 3rd party stuff, student privacy etc. look for actual start and end create edit sheet if necessary
Edit & Compress final cut, iMovie, MetaX (neurotic about metadata) Sorenson media squeeze for compression
(can email KJ for notes)
Publishing Moving from (couldn’t catch name) to four different models, iTunes U, Loves that iTunes supports PDF notes downloads, but it doesn’t support captioning YouTube enhanced channel with 893 videos 21,000 subscribers Will put smaller pieces on YouTube, but not iTunes U Internet Archive for “pesky Linux users”, old stuff, small stuff (files check in at IA, but don’t check out) Also video lectures.net
Transcribing as much as they can recent addition to process human transcribes, student reviews increases discoverability popular with non-native English speakers need to find way to bring cost down (lecture browser)
Example of finished course page: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Mathematics/18-02Fall-2007/VideoLectures/detail/embed04.htm
Jim Marko: NJIT has tons of legacy materials – started pilot podcasting project in 2005.
iTunes U at NJIT collaboration between Uni Web Services, Uni IS, ??
UWS goal: manage and establish a greater web presence for the university redesign, embrace Web 2.0, etc.
How do you get from here to there?
Challenge of populating site with quality material? Convert preexisting content, faculty recording , student reporters
Web content writer helped create podcasts to complement stories
Prof on video talking about essay as sole way students report is antiquated. New ways (podcasting, etc.) help them sharpen thinking.
Technical challenges for faculty not such a big deal now.
iTunes compared to network TV, website as premium cable, YouTube as all of the above + public access tv.
iTunes U provided good exposure for early adopters
5 year faculty plan has inspired podcasting.
Take-away tips: Be a collector, not a curator—you never know what will appeal Curate for quality and accuracy, but not interest. Fences make good neighbors—one dept should have keys rather than profs uploading
Convince a professor of podcasting value- that person will get three more profs involved
Things to think about: • Who will assume ownership • Technical resources are required to establish a private face • Getting faculty and university buy-in (some profs will still think iTunes is only for Mac-using students!)
KJ: value of iTunes U is album unit creation. In YouTube, most lectures are found by other means than the channel—frequent comments from ppl wondering where other material is. YouTube announcing education channels maybe tomorrow.
(March 26 I attended an Apple-sponsored AcademiX seminar at MIT. Or most of it--had to dash back to the office for a meeting in the afternoon and I didn't make it back for the end of the day. What I went to, however, was quite good.
Here are my notes, raw and uncorrected except for formatting, with occasional comments in brackets.)
[This particular presentation was the highlight of the day--very inspiring.]
The Center Cannot Hold: Living, Learning, and Leading in a Networked World Dr. Paul D. Hammond, Director of Digital Initiatives, Department of English and Dr. Richard E. Miller Chair, Department of English and Executive Director, Plangere Writing Center Rutgers University
Very exciting for English teachers to speak at MIT.
Explanation of title – Yeats, advent of WW2 [I don't know why, but it's weird to see Yeats in Keynote template]
Hammond’s work on American apocalypticism.
Unprecedented economy, environment, government
We need to begin to imagine how to teach differently – not squeeze same old thought into new tube of toothpaste, but fundamentally different.
Miller notes that change is unprecedented because it is global. But wait: crisis or opportunity? That’s what we in education are asking ourselves.
Leopard screenshot: this is the machine of our age. But computers won’t solve our problems. Education experiences with unkept promises of tech. “If we can just get our students to Twitter about WoW in Second Life, we’ll be set.”
Turning off everything doesn’t work any better.
Hammond notes spent 8-12 hrs in lib in graduate school, but hasn’t been back yet…but reads more than ever.
Our info access is unprecedented, as is ability to get work out there. Beginning of a closing of a circle.
Teaching of writing has always been bedeviled by audience being untrue. Teacher says “think of your audience” Student says “I do…it’s you”
Ability to transform passive experience
Printing Press got us out of oral mode, but not into interactivity.
Getting students to engage with problems with our times—problems that don’t have solutions, but ways of being understood.
Enabling ways to drill down deeply beyond superficial aspects. Understanding of not only complexity but depth.
Books are not the main vehicle for people communicating the most important issues at this time. Books great tech for thinking, allowing for extended thought that is clearly endangered by (youtube example). Lends itself of grotesque triviality.
Best news we can get on Comedy Central.
Enabling students to see how things are put together, how do they take access to info and work on it themselves.
Our responsibility as humanists, compositionists is to teach our students to use this stuff. We haven’t done it well.
• Access to ubiquitous computing • Pedagogies that foster creativity and collaboration • inspiring teachers of new media composition • spaces that foster collaborative learning
We won’t be teaching keyboarding, MS Word—likely Final Cut, whatever it’s called then.
Delayed reaction to joke about ubiquitous computing in US.
Encourages us to spend time going to local high schools. Stories from comm. college professor abt what our nation has done to public education were shocking.
Education has always been designed first/foremost for convenience of teachers. Student-centered ed isn’t about petting Bobby, but putting him face to face with fundamental experience of learning--frustration, challenge, pushing through that.
How do we transform learning space from 100 years ago to create learning spaces for now?
There’s a diff btw computer labs and experimental labs
Need to teach students to think with tech the way we teach them to think with writing. Vast majority of use for tech right now is for goofing around.
Q: how hard is it to get teachers (on board)? A: (Hammond) Central stumbling point is acknowledgment that 20 yo mimeographed notes don’t cut it. [Yes. I had some easily 20 year old overhead sheets that had been poorly transferred to PowerPoint in one of my library school classes just over three years ago. Not Cool.]
A: (Miller) When we say center cannot hold, need to move from 1.0 [sage on stage] to 2.0. How many PhD programs have changed in light of all this? Answering questions doesn’t mean we can think. We need to be experts not at content management but at facing the unknown – how do we fix the economy? [possibly I have really mangled this answer]
A: (Hammond) Notes that we don’t know what the implications for this are.
Q: What’s the role of Shakespeare in these kinds of projects? A: (Miller) New bucket for carrying info to students, have to realize this (Keynote, PPT) is NOT like the slide projector. You don’t get from Ptolemy to Copernicus just by moving a few words around. Does not mean Shakespeare is not relevant. We will never have anything to say if we don’t know something deeply. Universities need to stand for knowing something in depth and complexity.
Q: [missed it] A: Loss of newspapers, disappearance of snail mail are not modest changes. People say “sure, GM can go out of business…but why is my research budget cut?” These ppl have no center to their world. [extreme paraphrase]
Young people’s facility with technology grossly oversold. We don’t find curiosity, despite having access to everything. Creativity also missing. Collaboration may take place only in WoW.
[how does the library inspire curiosity at HLS?]
They are trying to invent genre of idea-driven visual essay.
We're missing the idea that you can think in these media (but we know you can entertain and sell crap)
Miller admits that they have taught a lot of terrible classes…new pedagogy, creativity needs failure. Hammond: like in science, there’s a lot of screwing up, doing over
Miller: question he asks sometimes: how many of you work in English departments with 5 IT people? (He does, but it took 12 years)
(March 26 I attended an Apple-sponsored AcademiX seminar at MIT. Or most of it--had to dash back to the office for a meeting in the afternoon and I didn't make it back for the end of the day. What I went to, however, was quite good.
Here are my notes, raw and uncorrected except for formatting, with occasional comments in brackets.) Open: The New Deal for Education Dr Vijay Kumar, Senior Associate Dean & Director, Office of Educational Innovation and Technology (OEIT), MIT
Gathering storm of open ed movement and it’s potential for transformation
Movement characterized by open content, open tech, open knowledge
Shout-out to Social Life of Info [my favorite library school read]
Open courseware – almost 2000 at MIT. Two remarkable things when initiative announced: first: whoa, this is big. Second: none of us knew what it meant.
(Side benefit: figuring out how many courses they had.)
Benefit for educators: saving time and lowering stress
Benefit for students: students elsewhere can check out notes for better understanding Open courses also serve as model, benchmark
We typically think of higher ed with this stuff, but there are notable K-12 efforts
MIT has “highlights for high school” open courseware channel featuring material that might be of use/interest to that group.
(the preceding section is “Metaversity Part I”, more about content, stand alone stuff)
Metaversity Part II: Harvesting the Collective Advantage
Examples in this section launched from MIT, but involve other players
MIT Online Laboratories iLab provides access to actual labs via internet—not simulations
Communities form to discuss results
Transformative dimension: iLabs not just about making equipment available, alters econ of lab instruction—equipment is expensive (equipment, time, etc). iLab provides potential for 24/7 access. You must believe first-hand lab instruction important to education experience
MIT students have access to labs elsewhere too
Research tools for learning
Spoken lecture browser (lecture browser – spoken language systems) idea is to search lectures to get relevant snippets
Shakespeare performance in Asia video presentations is another app of this
MIT Visualizing Cultures - http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/home/index.html
Wonderful to have various apps, many repositories, but need to bring them together
This isn’t just about e-learning, but also national efforts. India National Knowledge Commission Recommendations for Open Education Resources (OER) http://www.knowledgecommission.gov.in/recommendations/oer.asp
Open ed movement offers way around problem in India of insufficient schools (could build a school a day and not catch up)
Indo-US Collaboration of Engineering Education (IUCEE) http://www.iucee.org/
OER value proposition • open high quality digitized content, tools, communities • available anytime, anywhere, free • localizable and remixable • allows for collective improvement and feedback • alternate way to learn: accelerate/deepen learning • scaling excellence (also allows a lot of feedback to improve on what you do)
“We know how to share our research, but not how to share our pedagogy”
Open Ed vision elements – two important dimensions it enables 1. Blended learning - intelligent combination of physical and virtual 2. Boundary-less ed – beyond geo-political, off campus, research teaching, disciplines, etc.
This is not a pipe dream--however you interpret pipe!
MIT Council on Ed Tech Strategic thrust promote active learning bolster… [missed catching this slide, but it was good]
Collectivity culture expressed by what we see (web 2.0 logos slide)
Group of Gen Y students who want to work for NASA, belief about the NASA culture they want to work with, their set of slides. (Why isn’t a whole generation connecting to NASA?)
Q: Are there opportunities for open learning coming out of stimulus bill? A: we think so – variety of responses from institutions. (tongue in cheek – tell your legislators!) Q followup: any particular leaders supporting this? A: great awareness of possibilities, industry leaders, people of influence serving on various boards, Hewlett and Carnegie foundations as champions of open education.
(March 26 I attended an Apple-sponsored AcademiX seminar at MIT. Or most of it--had to dash back to the office for a meeting in the afternoon and I didn't make it back for the end of the day. What I went to, however, was quite good.
Here are my notes, raw and uncorrected except for formatting, with occasional comments in brackets.)
Welcome and Opening Comments Scott Morris, Learning Services & Communities, Strategic Education Solutions, Apple Inc.
Four AcademiX sessions happening around the country - not Apple marketing, abt learning what ed customers are doing.
Digital learning environment: create, access, distribute - held together by collaboration. Innovation happening outside LMS
People of the Book v. Digital Natives. – we here today are mainly former
What would we know if none of us had ever read a book.
We can’t predict what big things are happening, but we can be involved
Distribution: In oral cultures, edu required proximity – now it’s everywhere at all times.
Literacy enables other rational discourses
What are time/space constraints, biases of digital world?
Access: Mobility changes this. (No parking app joke)
Wikinomics quote: new promise of collaboration is that with peer production we will harness human skill, ingenuity, and intelligence more efficiently and effectively…
How do we create next gen of professionals/citizens, getting them to stand on shoulders of giants.
So, by a few days, I lost the chance to have a great April Fool's day joke at the expense of common perceptions of my new employer. Instead of admitting that I had simply been uninspired/lazy about blogging or consumed by Twitter, one of my new associate directors suggested a few months ago that I could claim Harvard made me shut down my blogging. Heh. But not too likely, really.
Click to enlarge; the fine print punchline reads "If so, chances are, you're spending too much time at the library. What you need is fast, reliable research you can access right in your office. And all it takes is West."
