Free course on Instructional Games

I guess I gave it all away in the title. This is a free course from Utah State University in Instructional Games. I've just scratched the surface of some of the readings, but it looks interesting.

Got this link from Learn-gasm.

The Nethernet

I may have gone on about this before, but I'm going to be trying an experiment in the First Year Seminar class I am co-teaching, The Study of Games. I was trying to find a way to enliven the annotated bibliography assignment that we have been giving to the students. So naturally, the first thing that came to mind was a game.

That's when I thought of The Nethernet, which was formerly known as PMOG, Passive Multiplayer Online Game. The gist of this game is that you install a firefox extension that tracks the sites you visit and allows you to interact with everyone else that has that extension. You accumulate datapoints (DPs) by surfing around, but also by finding crates that other users leave on websites. Or you might leave a crate, or a mine (which detonates when someone else visits the site, costing them datapoints). You can wear armor to protect yourself from mines, you can throw grenades, build portals and lightposts to take people to new websites, and lots of other activities.

The lightposts were the functionality I was looking for, because the game allows you to string together a set of lightposts, annotate them and call it a mission. Someone taking your mission would be led on a tour of these sites with your commentary.

So my thinking is that I will create library missions for the students to go on to learn about services, etc. I will have the students produce a number of missions, finding scholarly articles, books, websites, etc. for topics based on the class. Hopefully, this will all be much more fun and interesting (and possibly they'll learn a little bit more). Stay tuned to see how it works out.

Teens don't Tweet

Just read a report from Nielsen (found here) that notes that although Twitter has received an immense amount of media notice and exponential growth, this growth is mostly fueled by the 25-54 age group. Only 16% of teens use Twitter.

That seems like a sobering statistic for those of us wanting to start up Twitter services in the library. If only 16% of our biggest user group, students, are using the service, is this the group we should cater to. It seems like the best use of Twitter would be to figure out what our faculty would like to see and provide that, as that age group shows the greatest growth in twitter users at 64%.

Here's the chart:

TechNotes Fall 09

Here is my list of topics for TechNotes in the fall. I think I'll try going to a bi-weekly format, which will hopefully improve attendance. I'll be cranking out a schedule within the next few weeks.

AsULearn - Basic
AsULearn - Advanced
SynchronEyes (or whatever it's called now)
Using the Online Assessment Survey tool
Using Games in BI sessions
Using Clickers in BI sessions
LibGuides - Advanced
Elluminate

Proxify-er Bookmarklet

If you have need of providing proxied links to our databases or articles or any of the resources we have that are not available to the general public, try out my Proxifyer bookmarklet.

The bookmarklet is basically a little bit of javascript that you save just as if it was a bookmark to a web page (or a favorite in Internet Explorer). This particular bookmarklet will allow you to highlight a link on a page and press the bookmarklet and a little window will pop up with the correct proxied URL to use for off-campus folks.

If you don't highlight something a popup box will ask what link you want proxied. And if you want to just have a link to a database (like Academic Search Premier), type in the letters "db" and a space and then put the name of the database you're looking for. So you would type in "db academic search" if you were looking for ASP. A little popup will then give you a list of all the databases that match those search terms, along with their correct links.

You can find the bookmarklet here.

Google Forms Test

This is me trying out the Google Forms functionality. Haven't heard of that, have you? Me neither. That's why I'm testing it out.

TechNotes Returns

TechNotes will start up its weekly run beginning August 27. The sessions will start at 9:30 and run for a half hour and are very informal.

If you have any ideas for topics, please let me know.

Here is what I have so far:
Augsut 27: SynchronEyes
September 3: RSS
September 10: Screencasting with Captivate
September 17: Screencasting with Camtasia
September 24: Word 2007

Adding AppSearch to Moodle

For those interested, here are the steps to adding the AppSearch Google
Gadget to a Moodle course:
1. Turn editing on
2. On the right hand side, where it says Blocks, use the dropdown menu
to choose HTML
3. Find the new block and click the icon for Configuration,which looks
like a little pencil and piece of paper.
4. When the editing page comes up, search on the bottom right of the
toolbar for the button to Toggle HTML Source. It looks like a pair of
angle brackets <>.
5. Paste in the following code:
<script
src="http://www.gmodules.com/ig/ifr?url=http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/115736692057726335520/appsearch.xml&synd=open&w=320&h=200&title=AppSearch&border=%23ffffff%7C3px%2C1px+solid+%23999999&output=js"></script>

6. Save changes and check out your new Gadget!

Wikis! Wikis Everywhere!

Several committees have asked me to set up wikis for them (and since doing so just involves asking Tom, it was easy!) and so there are several of them now.

Staff Training/Development
http://wiki.library.appstate.edu/Training

Information Literacy Working Group
http://wiki.library.appstate.edu/infolit

Surveys
http://wiki.library.appstate.edu/Survey

Digital Projects Steering Committee
http://wiki.library.appstate.edu/digproj

You will notice that not much information is on any of these sites yet, but don't worry! I'm sure lots of people will soon be adding lots of content (hint, hint).

I also wanted you to notice that I added tabs on each wiki with a link to every other wiki, so you can navigate all this lovely stuff.

Firefox Search Engine plugin

If you missed today's Firefox TechNotes, then you probably didn't know that I would be rolling out a plugin for the little search box in the upper right of the Firefox browser.

Well, I suppose you can get it anyway:
WNCLN Catalog

Of course, if you have no idea of what I'm talking about, it means you really should have come to today's TechNotes. Or at least stop me in the hall and ask me about it.

Keep up with TechNotes and TeachNotes

For those of you who haven't been able to attend TechNotes or TeachNotes (or just lost all the links to the stuff I've been showing you), I'm making life easier for you.

I've put together two web pages with the schedule, the information and links, and now the screencasts of the sessions.

So if you go to these links for TechNotes or TeachNotes, you'll be able to find out what you've missed (and in some cases, see it), see what's coming up, and try out all the links.

30 Sites TechNotes

Here is the Google Notebook link for today's TechNotes, 30 sites in 30 minutes.

Podcast/Vlogs/Flickr

Here is the link to the Google Notebook for today's TechNotes on Podcasts/blah blah blah

TeachNotes! No, that's not a typo!

TeachNotes is a new series of talks on instruction topics that Kelly and I (and hopefully, others) will be providing starting in April.

Just like TechNotes (told you it wasn't a typo), these informative, informal talks will be held on Wednesday mornings. To give us a little more time to chatter, we'll go for 45 minutes, starting at 10:30 and running until 11:15. And they'll be bi-weekly, in Room 028.

Here is the schedule for the forseeable future:

April 2, Assessment (Scott)
April 16, Presentation Tips (Kelly)
April 30, Icebreakers (Scott)

As always, if you have an instruction topic that you'd like to hear us (or ideally, you) talk about, let Kelly or I know.

Look! A logo!

I thought that TechNotes needed a logo, so I made one. Here 'tis:



I'm also going to put together a web page with links and information on past topics, as well as a schedule of future topics.

More interesting stuff

The link I gave in the last post was for a blog entitled The Annoyed Librarian, which is a hoot and a half to read, and also makes some very good points about libraries and librarians.

Because it seems everyone is on one search committee or another, you might want to read this post (and especially the comments) to find out about the other side of the process, the red flags that the interviewee might see that keep them from accepting a job.

An opposing view

Remember the post about Slamming the Boards? Here's a different viewpoint on that particular practice, together with some enchanting exposition on the quality of questions and answers on WikiAnswers.

http://annoyedlibrarian.blogspot.com/2008/03/wikianswers.html

Reach the e-learning librarian instantly!

I have signed up for several IM accounts, so you can reach me at my computer in the blink of an eye. Here's how to reach me:

If you are using AOL (AIM), then it's: elearnlib
If you are using Yahoo! Messenger, then it's: elearnlib
If you are using MSN Messenger, then it's: elearnlib@hotmail.com

Sensing a theme?

April TechNotes

For the April edition of TechNotes, I thought I'd change things up again, and hopefully this time I'll get the scheduling just right.

I will stick with Wednesdays, but in order to get a larger audience, I will do the same talk twice, at both 9:30 and 4:00, still in Room 026. Hopefully, this will allow a range of people an opportunity to come and learn a little something new.

Here are the dates and topics for April:
April 2 - Podcasts/Vlogs/Flickr
April 9 - Elluminate
April 16 - 30 more sites in 30 minutes
April 23 - Firefox
April 30 - Moodle

As always, let me know if you've got some great new ideas for TechNotes topics!

March TechNotes

The March TechNotes will continue to be on Wednesdays in Room 026, but will move to 1:30 - 2:00 pm, in hopes that people who couldn't make the earlier time can come then. After polling both on the web and in person, and then chucking that out and picking out stuff I wanted to do, here's March's topics:

March 5 - 30 sites in 30 minutes
March 19 - Web/Library 2.0
March 26 - More Google!