eer500 begining

I have begun to delve into the world of educational research through EER. Research is something much touted for librarians by authors such as Todd, particularly in terms of evidence based research and how this can be utilised to promote and refine library practice.

The first assessment for this unit was due just on 2 weeks into the course - which was quite alarming given it usually takes me a few weeks to get into the swing of things. For this we had to locate a report about an issue then choose a research topic linking to the report, find some articles related to this and come up with research questions and statements on who these link and how the research would be of practical importance.

I began with an idea that I wanted to do something about either technology based library practices or about information literacy - both of which are of interest to me and are important facets of librarianship. I also wanted to pick something that might be of practical use to school librarians. In the end i chose information literacy and harking back to an earlier subject decided to look at the use of the ISP in info skills teaching. I think i spent far too long searching for the best articles I could find but one of them made me add to my research idea and that was to integrate the idea of project based learning with the teaching of information skills.

Here's hoping it goes well!


References

Todd, R.J. ‘Evidence based practice: the sustainable future for teacher-librarians’, Scan 21(1), 2002, pp 30-37.

Todd, R.J. ‘Evidence based practice II: getting into the action’, Scan 21(2), 2002, pp 34-41.

60 seconds

It astounding what happens every minute online.....

http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/online-60-seconds_b46813

web 3.0 would it ever be as good as a librarian?

Liked this one ....

http://theaveragepenguin.wordpress.com/2012/10/30/information-overload/

"Libraries really are the gates to the future" - Gaiman

Authors are sometimes the library's best advocates. Neil Gaiman gave a lecture for the Reading Agency
 on the 14th of October in London. Here is just some of what was said.  

Neil Gaiman Image: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/15/neil-gaiman-future-libraries-reading-daydreaming

“....libraries are about freedom. Freedom to read, freedom of ideas, freedom of communication. They are about education (which is not a process that finishes the day we leave school or university), about entertainment, about making safe spaces, and about access to information.

I worry that here in the 21st century people misunderstand what libraries are and the purpose of them. If you perceive a library as a shelf of books, it may seem antiquated or outdated in a world in which most, but not all, books in print exist digitally. But that is to miss the point fundamentally...

In the last few years, we’ve moved from an information-scarce economy to one driven by an information glut. According to Eric Schmidt of Google, every two days now the human race creates as much information as we did from the dawn of civilisation until 2003. That’s about five exobytes of data a day, for those of you keeping score. The challenge becomes, not finding that scarce plant growing in the desert, but finding a specific plant growing in a jungle. We are going to need help navigating that information to find the thing we actually need.”

For the full article go to the Guardian 

 Finding the plant in the Jungle is what makes the need for qualified teacher librarians so essential for today's world.