CiteULike: ppival's library [6 articles]

Mind Hacks (Safari Tech Books)

Tom Stafford — 2005-04-01T16:23:36-00:00

This exploration into the moment-by-moment works of the brain uses cognitive neuroscience to present experiments, tricks, and tips related to vision, motor skills, attention, cognition, subliminal perception. Each "hack" examines specific operations of the brain. By seeing how the brain responds, you'll learn more about how the brain is put together. If you want to find out what's going on in your head, then Mind Hacks is the key.

Delivering the News with Blogs: The Georgia State University Library Experience

Teri Vogel — 2005-03-31T17:57:06-00:00

Internet Reference Services Quarterly, Vol. 10, No. 1. (March 2005), pp. 5-27.

To deliver information about library news, services and resources to the science faculty and students at Georgia State University, several librarians developed a blog, Science News . Despite the increasing popularity of blogs (or Weblogs), few libraries have taken advantage of what they offer. Blogs can be updated easily, frequently and continuously, making them an appealing alternative to static newsletters. This article summarizes the librarians' rationale for moving to this dynamic format, how the technology was balanced with the needs of the librarians and patrons, and the issues and challenges that are being addressed to ensure that this will be a viable and successful news-delivery system. Some preliminary user statistics have also been gathered and analyzed, offering encouragement that patrons are reading it. The experience with Science News is already serving as the model for the additional subject-specific blogs that have been developed to meet the informational needs of other patron groups.

Distance education librarians in the U.S. Arl libraries and library services provided to their distance users

Z Ye — 2005-03-29T16:09:34-00:00

The Journal of Academic Librarianship, Vol. 31, No. 2. (March 2005), pp. 92-97.

This paper examines the extent to which U.S. Association of Research Libraries (ARL) are providing services to their distance education library patrons, it reveals whether each U.S. ARL library has a designated librarian in charge of services to distance education students, and it presents the perceived challenges faced by distance education librarians.

Is online instruction perceived as effective as campus instruction by graduate students in education?

Janna Robertson — 2005-03-29T14:11:41-00:00

The Internet and Higher Education, Vol. 8, No. 1. ( 2005), pp. 73-86.

At a southern metropolitan university, the researchers examined the students' perceived quality of the learning experience of the online courses as compared to classroom-based learning for graduate education courses. The researchers used Chickering and Gamson's (1987) [Chickering, A. W., & Gamson, Z. F. (1987, March). Seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education. AAHE Bulletin, 3-7] seven principles of good practice to have students rate the quality of their learning experience. The 92 student responses demonstrated that they perceived their learning experience the same or significantly better online than the classroom-based courses. The principle that demonstrated a significant difference in favor of the online courses was more time on learning materials. Participants also rated the online courses as high on how much they learned in the course as the traditional the on campus classes. The implications were that students perceive the quality of their online learning in graduate education courses similar or even superior to campus courses.

Creating cognitive presence in a blended faculty development community

Norman Vaughan — 2005-03-29T16:06:57-00:00

The Internet and Higher Education, Vol. 8, No. 1. ( 2005), pp. 1-12.

The focus of this study was to understand how a blended learning approach can support the inquiry process (cognitive presence) in a faculty development context. The findings from this study indicate that there are several key differences and similarities in cognitive presence between face-to-face and online discussions. These differences and similarities are specifically related to the four phases of cognitive presence of the practical inquiry model. A comparison of the face-to-face and online discussion forums indicates that: a slightly higher percentage of triggering events occurred in the face-to-face discussions; exploration was the dominant phase in both environments; a noticeably greater percentage of comments were coded for integration in the online discussions; and the resolution/application phase was almost non-existent in both forms of discussion. The results from this study imply that an increased emphasis should be placed on teaching presence within a blended learning environment to ensure that participants achieve resolution in the inquiry cycle.

Blended learning: Uncovering its transformative potential in higher education

Randy Garrison — 2005-03-23T19:36:48-00:00

The Internet and Higher Education, Vol. 7, No. 2. ( 2004), pp. 95-105.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a discussion of the transformative potential of blended learning in the context of the challenges facing higher education. Based upon a description of blended learning, its potential to support deep and meaningful learning is discussed. From here, a shift to the need to rethink and restructure the learning experience occurs and its transformative potential is analyzed. Finally, administrative and leadership issues are addressed and the outline of an action plan to implement blended learning approaches is presented. The conclusion is that blended learning is consistent with the values of traditional higher education institutions and has the proven potential to enhance both the effectiveness and efficiency of meaningful learning experiences.