Week 12: Research, Google, Wikis, and Cognitive

Ok...so we are not going to the library...the library is coming to us...and those who haven’t had enough time in BH 170 with Digital Storytelling, we are residing in there...

MENTAL NOTE #1: Write journal entries about class. There will not be prompts. Just reflect on what was covered in class...

MENTAL NOTE #2: Patrick is making us look bad...he is just too good of a student.

In the light of getting going on our independent research topics, we had a special guest speaker: Athena Nazario, a librarian from the Department of Ed. If you would like to get a hold of her, email her at anazario@sfsu.edu

Athena began by introducing to The Yes Men about two guys that pose themselves as members of the WTO in order to flush out some of the indecencies. They created a web site (http://www.gatt.org) that looks EXACTLY like the WTO website (http://www.wto.org)...these guys so successful in their endeavors they were invited to represent the WTO by outside parties who thought they were real...their website used to come up first on Google if you entered WTO as a search criteria instead of the official WTO website.

Given the open nature of the web, opinion and inaccuracy is a something that is always a danger on the web. This is why we still have a library and the library has a website ( http://www.library.sfsu.edu). You should create a library pin, to do this go to library pin/library record link on the web page. This will allow you to view records in the library easily.

Books:
To view the book catalog at SFSU, click on InvestiGator...to gain access to book catalogs from other schools, click on Link+ (twice). You can request books from other institutions and they will deliver it here. You need your name, user id, and pin...you can keep the book for 3 weeks and renew it online (only once)...so is that 6 weeks then? For documents, click on Document deliver then request books and you can see the 3 ways to get books from other libraries.

Note: Research Advice & Instruction -> Research Guides — CHECK IT OUT

Articles:
ERIC – Educational Resources Information Center (check out one of the handouts..THE ONE THAT SAYS USING ERIC). ERIC is a database that indexes and abstracts articles from education journals and documents from non-journal sources, from 1966 to present. These are all peer reviewed...it sounds like something pretty useful...REMEMBER that Google only searches for web pages and has its own definition of relevance bases on words appearing in the page.
- With the ERIC interface available off the SFSU library web site, the results are organized by tabs (Journals, Peer-Reviewed Journals, Conferences, Books)

For specific documents, click on Document delivery...check out Ingenta. This will allow to search for an article or document that can be downloaded or faxed to you. Although they cost money, SFSU will eat the cost as long as it costs <$35. If the cost is over $35, you can use the Illiad system to get a copy of the article, BUT IT TAKES ABOUT A MONTH.

For a full list of databases that our school has access to click on Databases -> List all databases.

When searching a database (NOT google), if you want to search for multiple concepts/words, you need to insert an AND..i.e. John AND Jack, not John Jack...without the AND the search will look for the string John Jack.
- For synonyms, use an OR, i.e. Pig OR Hog
- For combination of a prefix or suffix, use a *, i.e. Comp* will search for any word that starts with Comp

Journals:
Check out CUFTS ( http://lib-cufts.lib.sfu.ca/CUFTS/sbt.cgi) for specific journals. Go to Electronic Journal Listing under the Database section in the library main site.
- In ERIC...something that is marked ED is an ERIC document and not a journal entry, so the entire document is available.
- For those that say they are available online, but turn out not to be...go to the second floor in the library to check out the document in Microfiche. Documents before 1995 are available there.

Check out PROQUEST to learn about information related to your field, dissertations and theses. Go to the Database search and enter proquest.
- Results with page preview and page image are full text...others you will have to request through illiad.

Check out the following databases:
Education Abstracts
JSTOR
Academic Search Elite
Communication and Mass Media Complete

Currently there are no Instructional Design or Instructional Technology databases...but there will be...right now we fall under both Technology and Education

Check out Athena’s web page for good links and contact info:
http://online.sfsu.edu/~anazario/

Highlighted sites:
http://www.theyesmenmovie.com/
http://wto.org
http://gatt.org
http://democracynow.org
http://truthout.org
http://www.library.sfsu.edu
http://www.eric.ed.gov

This information is covered in part in ITEC 797, which most students push off to the end of their Master’s program, but should taken earlier.


Susan introduced us to her research topic: Wikis. Wikis are websites that anyone can come in and edit. She is using http://wikispaces.com to host her wiki (for free). She showed us the ins and outs of wikis and how powerful and useful they can be...I can’t wait to see her full presentation.

Check out her wiki:
http://itec800.wikispaces.com

We got a chance to log into our wikispace site and add content...this is powerful...and easy.


Digital Storytelling DVD Update:
If you WANT your digital story on the DVD please email mattyh@alumni.calpoly.edu this week and I will include you...
...if you want a copy, please bring $5 to class (for materials) and I will make you a copy.


We are all going to get a chance to learn from each other in these research topics. There is such a broad range of topics being brought forth is going to be such a benefit for our class. I can’t wait to hear the presentations on these topics.
- For us this will all lead to our own personal learning theory.


And now on to Cognitive Development:
We watched a video (produced some time in mid-1980s if I had to guess) about children and cognitive development. It spoke of how children and babies develop. Babies are dependant on others for their survival, so how do develop? What are born with? What do they develop?
Cognitive Theory: babies have innate inborn abilities, then experiences the world and builds on those abilities. Babies develop their understanding and perception of reality through experience.
Schema is the way we try to organize ideas. Babies build their schema related to reality through experiences within that reality.
Assimilation – taking in pieces of information and reacting to it.
Accommodation – Change in state or schema once information has been assimilation
Equilibrium – provides the motivation to learn more about our world.

Piaget’s Stages of Development

1. Sensory Input
2. Pre Operation
3. Concrete Operational
4. Formal Operational
   

HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK: Are we breeding children that can’t find information...but they know how to search for it? Research is becoming a lost art, in my opinion, but searching effectively or the immergence of the googling society is so prevalent that we are breed information searchers rather than researchers.

Thoughts?


Visit the ITEC 800 website at:
http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~foreman/itec800/index.htm

Visit moodle at:
https://ilearn.sfsu.edu

===================================
Matt Harris
Director of Technology
Ronald C. Wornick Jewish Day School