SpringerImages - Schematic of the Learning Research Cycle (LRC). A sequence of activities designed to enhance participants’ understanding of the role of information technology (IT) in doing, teaching, and learning science. Activities build on intense experiences in authentic scientific research environments with scientists in their laboratories, which occur in two 3-week periods during two summers. Participants engage in scientific research experiences using IT to seek answers to scientific questions (Ia). Participants concurrently adapt their authentic research experiences to design similar IT-based research experiences for their students, with the assistance of science educators (II). At the end of the first summer, participants leave with an Instructional Framework (IF) to integrate into their classroom instruction during the first school year (III). Reports of the results of their implementation efforts are required for participants to return for a second summer. In June of the second summer, training in mentoring and fundamentals of educational research occurs for graduate students who are chosen to work as mentors for participants during the professional development activities for the second summer (IV). In July, participants continue their work with scientists (Ib) and work with educational researchers to design classroom-based research blueprints (RB) to examine the effects of the IF on students learning (V). Participants implement their research blueprints in their classrooms during the second school year on a voluntary basis (VI) and have the option of reporting the results of their 2nd years’ implementations during a conference held at the ITS Center at the beginning of the third summer (VII). Critical to the entire LRC are multiple and continuous opportunities for discourse and feedback, provided face-to-face during the summer and electronically via a community portal throughout the entire LRC (VIII)

Schematic of the Learning Research Cycle (LRC).A sequence of activities designed to enhance participants’ understanding of the role of information technology (IT) in doing, teaching, and learning science. Activities build on intense experiences in authentic scientific research environments with scientists in their laboratories, which occur in two 3-week periods during two summers. Participants engage in scientific research experiences using IT to seek answers to scientific questions (Ia). Participants concurrently adapt their authentic research experiences to design similar IT-based research experiences for their students, with the assistance of science educators (II). At the end of the first summer, participants leave with an Instructional Framework (IF) to integrate into their classroom instruction during the first school year (III). Reports of the results of their implementation efforts are required for participants to return for a second summer. In June of the second summer, training in mentoring and fundamentals of educational research occurs for graduate students who are chosen to work as mentors for participants during the professional development activities for the second summer (IV). In July, participants continue their work with scientists (Ib) and work with educational researchers to design classroom-based research blueprints (RB) to examine the effects of the IF on students learning (V). Participants implement their research blueprints in their classrooms during the second school year on a voluntary basis (VI) and have the option of reporting the results of their 2nd years’ implementations during a conference held at the ITS Center at the beginning of the third summer (VII). Critical to the entire LRC are multiple and continuous opportunities for discourse and feedback, provided face-to-face during the summer and electronically via a community portal throughout the entire LRC (VIII)
(Quelle: SpringerImages)

Is such a model also possible in Germany?

Springer offers now an image database: SpringerImages is a growing collection of scientific images that spans the scientific, technical and medical fields, including high-quality clinical images from images.MD. The continually updated collection – currently over 1.5 million images – gathers photos, graphs, histograms, figures, and tables, and is available to libraries and their patrons via a searchable online database. The SpringerImages interface enables users to search faster, more broadly and more accurately, through captions, keywords, context and more, even jumping from the image to the source article. Users can create personalized image “sets,” and can easily export images for use in their own presentations or lectures.

Trend-spotting in Germany

Just a few weeks ago the Bibliothekartag took place. The most interesting german project in these days "Zukunftswerkstatt" was introduced there with lots of presentations and a discussion panel. ("Zukunftswerkstatt" can be translated as "hotbed of ideas" or "idea laboraty".) The slogan of "Zukunftswerkstatt" is "Libraries go playing". The vodcasts from the discussion panel can be found at youtube.





Here a few insights into the sometimes controversal but fruitful discussion:

Mrs Prof. Beger (director of the SUB Hamburg) asked the essential question - with which the whole panel dealt -

What do we have to prepare for?

In these days Google is standard. Whether we like it or not Google is the starting point.

Users do not see that libraries are innovative cos the libraries' rooms are old-fashioned and outmoded. The users only get to know this new breeze when the USE the library and its services.
With the focus on this facts Mrs. Beger asked provoking:

Should we entrust Google with our catalogs?

Albert Bilo (director of the UB Essen) underlined that there are people who want an old catalog room and there are people who want to have an OPAC with new features and user-generated content (OPAC2.0). In his opinion it will develop side by side. He highlighted that librarians have to master the task to fill the gaps. (Sometimes they fill gaps which turned out to be no gaps.)

I want to thank Prof. Hobohm for presenting our project at the stand of "Zukunftswerkstatt". The slides of this presentation can be found at slideshare. One year ago we did a survey among german libraries what their opinion is about innovation and how they deal with trends. The results can be found in the current issue of the journal Forum Bibliothek und Information BuB 06/2009.
Several other interesting presentations are online at Slideshare.

Google Squared - Google's new semantic search engine!

Thanks to Tony Liu who gave this hint:

Google, already the king of internet search, has rolled out an experimental new search product called ''Google Squared''.

Google Squared does not provide a list of links to Web pages, like with a traditional Google search, but presents information derived from a query in a spreadsheet-like grid called a ''square''.

Users of google.com/squared can then build, modify and refine their ''square'' through further Web searches.

``Unlike a normal search engine, Google Squared doesn't find webpages about your topic – instead, it automatically fetches and organizes facts from across the Internet,'' Google said in a preview of the product last month.

In a blog post, Google said Google Squared could be useful when a user needs to make multiple searches to find the information they want.

''It essentially searches the Web to find the types of facts you might be interested in, extracts them and presents them in a meaningful way,'' Google said.

''If your square isn't perfect at the beginning, it's easy to work with Google Squared to get a better answer,'' Google added.

The Mountain View, California-based Internet search giant cautioned that Google Squared remains experimental and the technology behind it ''is by no means perfect.''

Google Squared is exactly what I imagined of an ideal search engine's presentation of results. I really like graphical semantic search engine (e.g. kartoo) but very often you get lost or at least confused.
In "Google Squared" you get a screenshot of the website (or a picture of the webpage) and additional information. The words you searched for are (mostly) highlighted. - That's the way information need to be organized! :) (Well, is it the most optimal way for presenting information???) That's where libraries have to get to: an optimal intuitive presentation of information...! Librarians always tried to reach this goal-but are there any Best Practices regarding presenting information? What I like regarding the new version of cartoo is: you have several options to arrange the results in the way you favor :)

To get back to "Google Squared":
Google Squared isn't perfect: When searching for "librarianship" you get there is one result showing the "Internet Movie Database"-profile of Eric Wilson. Nowhere at this webpage was the word "librarian" or a similar one. Well could be an advertisement that changed now... - I wonder, if that's the place where personal data is going to be find in future... :( (Until now social networks like myspace, facebook etc. cannot be found via "Google Squared")

"Rambling librarian" about google wave and its possibilities for librarians

Through the posting of Infobib (posting via Planet Biblioblog) I found my way to this interesting posting: "Google wave: possibilities for librarians" who comments on the Day 2 keynote speech of Google presenting Google I/O. He shares his ideas of service possibilities and/ or librarians' way of work:

As a librarian, the Google Wave demo shows how it could transform the way we provide Enquiry and Advisory services. Or how we research, collaborate and publish documents.

Further on, the "Rambling librarian" explains it. Thanks to him to share his ideas and thoughts! :)

In my opinion it is worth -and essential- to think about possible developments. Let's go on to share ideas and visions :)


Background: What is Google wave?

As Google explains

Google Wave is a product that helps users communicate and collaborate on the web. A "wave" is equal parts conversation and document, where users can almost instantly communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more. Google Wave is also a platform with a rich set of open APIs that allow developers to embed waves in other web services and to build extensions that work inside waves.

"where on earth..." - Finding database tutorials

During the last 2 weeks I was searching for database tutorials. The Online Tutorial LOTSE should bekome more interactive. Therefore we are looking for already existing tutorials to avoid doing the same thing twice. The goal is to cooperate with other institutions.
It was not that easy to collect these database tutorials because in Germany there is no portal that serves as a gateway to them. The only collection (mostly Bavarian institutions involved) I found was a collection of tutorials (already created and planned!) that offer a connection to Citavi.
For english tutorials there exists a gateway/ platform: The Animated Tutorial Sharing Project (ANTS) is a collaborative project presently involving librarians in Canada and the United States, but open to librarians elsewhere. It would be good if libraries of other countries would join, too. This platform is a good start. I really appreciate that there is an instruction how to create tutorials and how to put it online! The tutorials itself can be found at DSpace. Each tutorial is presented with its metadata (e.g. Issue date, institution, keywords ...). In some cases you also find information about which software (Camtasia, Captivate etc.) was used to create the tutorial. This is important to know if you would like to change it.

newer thoughts about PLE

Via Podcampus I got to know about a conference about PLE: the conference "Personal Learning Environments in der Schule" was held on the 13th of March in Goldau. One of the speakers, Prof. Dr. Schulmeister is examining the definition of PLE and what it means for instructors.

First of all, what is PLE?

As the buzzword says it is the learning environment that surrounds us:

• the tools we use to find, write, share, discuss... a paper,


• the sources we discover and use


• the people we talk with about topics

But beyond that our own history - as Prof. Dr. Schulmeister highlighted - is part of our PLE (video (german) of his speech, 3rd min.)

Moreover Prof. Dr. Schulmeister thinks that new ideas are developing out of not-communicated things: Ideas are formed out of talks and out of thoughts. Sometimes they come spontaneous, sometimes they need time to develop.
Mr. Schulmeister underlines that a focus only on the today's tools would be a big mistake. The tools we use nowadays are only limited instruments but they are giving us new opportunities.
Over the past 5 years (maybe more, maybe less) there was a shift from focusing the tools to focusing the people: from software to community.




What is PLE out of the didactic perspective?
PLE concests of standard components that are put together by the person who is using it. (That's why we have to offer information via different types of media)
Schulmeister does not support Michael Wesch's opinion that school/ instruction has not changed but learning did. In Schulmeister's opinion it is possible to present this statement in a completely different way: Learning has not changed but instruction did.
Scoolmeister is an advocate of cooperative learning. He is although right in provoking us to think about following critical questions in learning:

• Is there a concept that wholly fits to the topic learning? (e.g. observational learning?)


• What role does resistance against learning play? (I think everybody experienced this at least one time)


• Are we as instructors paying enough attention to socio-cultural differences?


• Is everybody able to do research?


• Are we allowed to take interest in a specific topic for granted?


• Are we allowed to take self-organization for granted?


• Do students have a proper learning and/or time management?


• Do they have a time management at all?

Schulmeister sums up that PLE's are formale components of the learning situation.

After that Mr Schulmeister examines the difference between LEARNING environment and environment. ...
I will go on about that topic later on.

Continuance: Google Books and mass digitization

Yesterday I discovered the book "Teaching Library in Deutschland" in GoogleBooks.



This book was published in 2005 and is copyrightly material! Google is audacious in digitizing it and giving nearly full access to it (only a few pages were left out). The only acknowledgement they make is to publish the information "This is copyrighted material" at the bottom of the pages! They have chosen confrontation: they are breaking the rules deliberately, hoping for the long arm of the law (that it takes years to until there is a consistent international decision in copyright questions). Google is digitizing books on a large scale without asking for permission. On googlebooksettlement.com authors and other rightsholder are able to raise an objection. German authors are fighting back since March 2009 with the so-called "Heidelberger Appell" which beared fruit in the "The Freedom to Publish and the Protection of Copyright".
A collection of articles dealing with the "Heidelberger Appell" can be found here (unfortunately only german articles). A few days ago there was a good posting at IBI-weblog (german) where several recent articles were contemplated.
Two weeks ago there was held an international conference with 250 people from 19 different countries regarding the topic copyright: "The Future Of Copyright – What Is The Right Protection?". The presentations were translated into french, german and english. Until now there are no presentations/papers/podcasts etc. or results available. (Or did somebody find sth. about this conference?)

To shorten it up here: the suspense continues ;) I hope the authors are winning and the intellectual property remains protected.

Youtube EDU - Google as a world saver or world rule

A few weeks ago the new gateway to lectures, campus-tours, interviews with researches of more than 100 well-known universities and colleges was set up: Youtube EDU. Until now it consists only of videos of american institutions.
As I discovered Youtube is a subsidiary of Google. It's suspect to me that the division which realized or promote it is called "Happy learning" (?!). This reminds me of motivational trainings for managers.


Google's mission is "to organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful". This is undoubtedly a positive concern but I am not so naive to be fully convinced of Google - a profit organization - as only social-oriented. In 2003 a New York Times Columnist asked the provoking question "Is Google God?". Bill Thomson at the BBC asked "Is Google too powerful?" - a question that I also prefer. Is Google too powerful? Xiudian Dai wrote an interesting article about Google in which he sums up several fact/ reasons. First, "nation-states might see Google’s search power as a threat to their autonomy. First, the autonomy of the nation-state declines due to the
fact that Google search reinforces the trend towards economic globalisation."

- just to publish the beginning of this posting - I have to deal with the details more closely. All I can say by now: I am concerned. I will put down my concerns here in the next days. At first I have to sort my thoughts. Moreover, it will take a few time to study the details ;)