Mind maps and Information literacy

I am now in the process developing my 3rd concept map representing school leadership (it seemed a little extreme to me too!). However, when explaining to a family member why I was doing this instead of writing my essay, the penny dropped. I realised that I needed to go through this process of refining, redrawing and re-conceptualising in order to get to the point where I could actually (be happy with) and use the concept map to develop a narrative.

The simplicity of the map belies the complexity and amount of work that has gone into creating it but having said that, I am very pleased I didn't stick with my initial ones.

On another note this is an interesting paper which some of you may find useful.  

Intersections of Scholarly Communication and Information Literacy: Creating Strategic Collaborations for a Changing Academic Environment, a white paper published by the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL).

searching

This week we explore search engines.
After reading about various search engines and the algorithms they use, I came away realising I am a lazy searcher. I have since been more conscious about what search engine i'm using and are employing better search techniques - using advanced searches, domains and " " more often than I used to and adding the - where appropriate!

Using a site such as Beaucoup can be advantageous in choosing the right search engine for the job .... but even though the 3 click rule has been dispelled, a one stop search shop like google does have appeal to the lazy searcher.

To test how well some search engines performed, a search on term "volcanoes school" was done. It was an enlightening. I tested different search engines gathered from the beaucope site but many of the results very very unpromising despite some being supposed to be educational search engines.

I enjoyed watching the videos on the knowledge 2.0 Livebinder site and spent a lot of time exploring different aspects of this site and the websites and information attached. I highly recommend it to everyone!

My favourite 'new' (to me) search engine is Wolfram Alpha - i like facts and calculations (though would have liked to know more about where they pull individual information from.

I guess the main point is that there are many different search engines and as an information professional you need to be aware of what's out there and hone your information and searching skills all the time......

no more lazy searching people

edition 18 - for later

had an interesting thought that i'd like to explore later.....need to finish assignment 1st ..
What are the inherent ideas/assumption about IL that each of the info skills models make? Is their underlying assumption that IL is systematic information behaviour and that this can be acquired through following a certain set of steps???

edition 17 - Der glumph

So .... as i was undergoing the collection phase of Kuhlthau's ISP for assignment 2, part A (Feeling a clearer sense of direction and confidence where my Thoughts were: defining, extending, and supporting the focus and my Actions were: selecting information relevant to the focused perspective of the topic and making detailed notes) I began to read the NSW DET, Information skills in the school book and i wish i had had the sense to look at it for the previous assignment – it even outlines the ways the executive, grade and faculty groups, individual teachers, parents and community not to mention the TL and library can integrate the teaching of information skills across the school – they’re talking about an ILSC (without naming it as such) and the ways to achieve it!!!.

"Where the teacher librarian plays an active role in the integration of information skills into the curriculum, library skills lessons or programs become obsolete, and the full range of information skills are taught in context instead" (NSW DET, 2007, p.16).

Here is the link if you’d like to read it

http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/schoollibraries/teachingideas/isp/docs/infoskills.pdf

Kuhlthau, C. (2009) Information Search Process in Bates, M and Maack, M (Eds.) The Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. Availabe at: http://comminfo.rutgers.edu/~kuhlthau/docs/ELIS%203E.pdf

NSW Department of Education and Training (2007) Information Skills in the school: The information Process (ISP) available at http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/schoollibraries/index.html