Welcome to Interrupt Driven! I decided that would be a good name for this blog because I'm so interrupt-driven myself: I start each day with a plan, but then things just...happen. So this blog will reflect the things I'm interested in, things that come up in my daily life, things I read, opinions I have, and probably lots of other stuff as well. Maybe.
Back in February I did a talk for the WSU Writing Program's Multimodal Composition Across the Curriculum series. My topic was Information Literacy and Technology-Assisted Research, and I'll post my slides in my next ID post, but in the Q&A I had a bunch of questions about technology. So the convener of the series, Jennifer Lin O'Brian, asked me to write up a list of my favorite five tools. It was hard to limit myself, and you will see I cheated! The original version of this post can be found here, and I recommend taking a look at the other posts in the Composing the new Classroom (#CtNC) blog. I've been to every session so far, and it has been an excellent series!
Reference management software helps you keep track of material – books, articles, webpages, documents, multimedia, etc. You can keep an electronic copy of an item (if available), bibliographic data, and your notes on the item together in a searchable database.
The advantage of something like Evernote is that you can access information on multiple devices (desk/laptop, smartphone, tablet). Depending on what device, you can also add in voice notes, images, photographs, etc. I love the IPad and Android versions! Most of these have freemium options – some functionality for free, more for fee.
Screencast-o-Matic lets you make videos of what is going on your computer monitor, then save the video and/or upload it to YouTube, etc. SoM has a browser version and a desktop version (the desktop version requires a paid subscription, but its not very expensive). Screencasting is great for quick how-tos/demonstrations, reading a student’s paper and providing comments orally, and so much more! You’ll find it’s as valuable for personal purposes as it is for academic uses (I use it to show my Mom how to manage her Kindle via the Amazon website, for example.
I love these! I use InstaPaper to save articles that I want to read, but that I don’t think I need to save in my Zotero library – I can read them online, or I can send them to my Kindle and wirelessly download them (I also use it to read/send scholarly articles if they are available in HTML format, but it does not always work). Instapaper keeps an archive of all the articles I have saved on it online. Although IP offers a “read it nice” option, I mix up my products and use Readability – it strips out ads and increases the font and the whitespace, making on-screen reading much nicer.
This is so useful! A free program that “warms up” your monitor as its gets darker, so it’s easier to read on screen at night. Not good if you need exact colors, but you can turn it off temporarily.
I'd have to say it is the conclusion of Galen Beckett's Wyrdwood series, The Master of Heathcrest Hall. The first in the series was The Magicians and Mrs. Quent, the middle volume was The House on Durrow Street. I highly recommend the whole series - its a mashup with magic, fantasy, theatre, and Regency romance, and was creepy, gripping, and romantic. I found it by accident, and I never understood why I heard so little about this series! (Beckett is actually the nom de plume of author Mark Anthony). Find more at http://wyrdwood.net/mrsquent/ .
Friedman: There is no substitute for face-to-face reporting and research. But it is now much easier to do all the things that go with it. I basically did all the library research for this book on Google, and it not only saved me enormous amounts of time but actually gave me a much richer offering of research in a shorter time. Many interviews that I conducted first face-to-face, I followed up with e-mail questions and answers. It was enormously helpful to just be able to shoot off a question to Nandan Nilekani or Vivek Paul and get the answer back within 24 hours. I do, though, have a set of e-mail pen pals from around the world whom I have never met, or only met once or twice. Many of them, interestingly, are Muslim women, who use the Internet to reach out, communicate, and question in ways that their traditional society would have normally prevented.
This, to me, encapsulates much of my thoughts about MOOCS, in both positive and negative ways.
First, let me talk about my own MOOC MOOC experience. The MOOC started the week before classes began at WSU. As a librarian, I had a lot to do (especially after a bit of a lost summer due to a concussion, but whatever). Anyway, with every will in the world to fully participate, I actually became a common statistic, effectively dropping out of the class pretty quickly. I did do the first assignment, however - a short video responding to the prompt "Where does learning happen?" (you can see my video at the end of this post). I spent a lot of time on the first assignment and watching other people's videos, and I followed the #moocmooc hashtag on Twitter, and I *meant* to go back and catch up on what I missed because it was interesting, but...it just never happened. Life and work happened, instead.
There has been a lot of discussion about MOOCs in the Chronicle of Higher Education , Inside Higher Ed, and all over the Web on blogs and other conversation places. I'm not going to jump into those conversations; I just want to note a few things that I considered during and after my experience.
Research. Sources. In the interview excerpt above, Friedman boasts that he did not use libraries for his research, relying on Google (Google Scholar did not appear until November 2004 so its unlikely that he was able to make use of it; it's also likely that there was less open access academic/peer reviewed research available at the time, although I'm speaking out of my hat on this). That was his choice (and I personally think it was an irresponsible one, but he's sold millions of books and has a column in the New York Times, and I...have neither ;-). He's got the ear of movers and shakers; his calls and emails get returned and people are eager to talk with him and be quoted by him.
The thing is, some of the people who participate in MOOCs are like me - people who have academic affiliations and access to scholarly resources (including scholarly monographs,databases full of fulltext peer-reviewed journal articles and more) through our institutions. But many others don't have access to those kind of resources, and are limited to what they can find through the open Web. The growth of Open Access means that there is a lot of scholarly work available for free, but it is still (unfortunately) limited. If you don't have access to a really good public library or an institution of higher education, you are on the red ink side of the research access divide... On one hand, MOOCs are opportunities (if the MOOCer can fully take advantage); on the other hand, there are inherent inequalities that affect the work you do and the expereince you have (access to previously published is only one of them...). Friedman may have been able to write a big book without using a library, but woe betide any of the students at my university who turn in a research paper that does not cite appropriate and quality sources (some of which came from other institutions via consortial borrowing and interlibrary loan). Friedman may have been able to contact people directly, but he knew who to talk to, and he is someone who's (whose?) calls get returned. (Although that reminds me about the old joke about "Mike Wallace from 60 Minutes is on the phone"...)
On the other hand (I think I may be up to at least four here), Friedman was also able to communicate via his "e-mail pen pals" with people all over the world. What an amazing database that is! Direct interaction with people - people of power, but also people who so often seem to be voiceless or marginalized. In the context of my discussion here, that is a huge strength of MOOCs - the ability to communicate and learn - from and with - people all over the world who bring their own voices, histories, experiences, and more with them. The ability to interview and engage with someone via email or Skype...if they respond to you.
So what am I left with? If you don't have quality and appropriate resources, its hard to create what you need at the level you want to create it at. As a librarian, I worry about the people who don't have connections (through their own affiliations, or...). When you take a class at a physical college or university, in theory all students in the classroom have access to the resources available through their institution. It may not always work out that way, but everyone has a library card and remote database access. As far as I know, no MOOC comes with academic library privileges. I wish they did - I wish Coursera and EdX and all the rest of them negotiated article databases and ebook access for their participants, but the Magic 8 Ball says its not gonna happen any time soon, and certainly not for MOOCs that don't charge (oh yeah, that's the "open" part of them, isn't it?). So right off, there is an inequality of access -- a research access/research library divide -- that has a significant chance of affecting the quality of work. Sure, there is lots of good research freely available online (much via colleges and universities and their faculty), and sure people can get around it, but it is a limiter. And it sets people up to have less of a chance to succeed - to learn, and to create their own knowledge built, as knowledge is, by participating in the scholarly conversation that takes place via reading, understanding, synthesizing, integrating,and citing research (and other scholarly or creative work) that has come before.
So I'm up a bit early due to a pot roast, so I might as well write this!
I've been spending some time thinking about ereaders and ereading apps, preparing for a meeting and for revising my library ebook guide and my Packaged Paper for Digital Devices workshop. Reading apps are interesting - if you just want to read an ebook, most of them are fine. Sure, there are certain basic functionalities (font size, background,etc.), but most do the job. When you are thinking of using them for reading academic / scholarly or professional stuff, however, things get more complicated.
Functionality I want (list may be modified in the future -- and yes, I'm asking for a lot):
highlight text
annotate text
export notes and highlights! (this is a biggie...and I'd like to export either individually or collectively)
export with metadata: title, author, page number/location
text-to-speech
endnote links work (optimally foward and backward)
Dropbox/SugarSync integration
search
font size changing
backgrounds (I totally love sepia)
Granular (not automatic) social sharing to Twitter, Facebook, etc.
Ability to take advantage of all smartphone/tablet sharing options
Multi-format (this one isn't so important, but reading both EPUB and .mobi would be nice, and I guess it has to read PDFs although those are problematic)
Adobe Digital Editions-compatible
EPUB version ? Not sure about this one...
I know there are comparison lists out there [add link(s)], but they don't quite include what I want - so, I guess I'll be working on this! The thing is, I don't think its going to be a successful project. The situation with exporting is especially not likely, unfortunately. I remember an initiative to create some sort of cross-app standard (?) to do this... [look up; check status - probably dead in the water...]
Some of the apps to look at: BlueFire, Aldiko, Moon+, iBook, Kindle (desktop, device, and app), Nook (desktop, device, and app), ebrary, ADE, Mankato.. (no, that is a city; I mean Mantano ;-)
So, there is a home-grown burger place here in Pullman that Mark and I love. I went there yesterday to get some burgers and slushies, and when I checked in via Foursquare, I saw this:
It looked a bit too good to be true, but I shrugged and figured I'd show it to the person taking my order and see what would happen. $5.00 is, in fact, $5.00. When I showed my phone to the person at the till, she didn't know anything about it. She asked her supervisor - and then called the manager. No one knew anything about this. No worries on my part, but I noted to them that they might want to check up on this as other Foursquare "players" might be asking about it.
Afterwards I thought about it - it seemed one of two things was going on. Either 1), the burger place had in fact created a Foursquare special, but had done a lousy job of telling their employees. This was clearly not the case in this instance. The other option, 2) was some sort of Foursquare spam (which reminded me I had gotten at least one piece of email spam via my Foursquare account).
So just now I was thinking about this again, and I thought to look at the web version of Foursquare. When I did, I saw this:
Oh! All is explained! Maybe I should have guessed something based on the sponsor. But...in the phone version of Foursquare there was nothing (at least that I can recall) indicating that this special was just for people paying with an AmEx card - also, I was there on the 27th and it was still showing up on my Android version of Foursqure. This is clearly confusing, and could result in some ill will directed towards the nice people (and they are!) at the burger joint. Tomorrow I will stop by the burger place and show them this just in case other Foursquare users come checking in...classes will be starting in a few weeks and college students are trickling back into campus.
Looking for something else (a particular quotation about coffee) I found this on my Facebook feed. I wrote it back in 2010, when I discovered coffee. Since then I have indeed given up Diet Coke (and soda in general) but I had to stop the mochas too ($s & #s). Now I love my iced coffees...
I Drank a Mocha and I Liked It (sung to Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl and I Liked It”)
by Lorena O'English on Tuesday, April 13, 2010
This was not the order I planned, not my usual selection
I was so tired, droopy eyes, lost my direction
It’s not my norm, just wanna try a little sip
I’m curious after reading your description
I drank a mocha and I liked it, the taste of its caffeinated chocolate
I drank a mocha just to try it, I hope Diet Coke don’t mind it
It tasted so wrong, it smelled so right, don’t mean I’ve switched for keeps
I drank a mocha and I liked it, I liked it
No, I don’t know how many calories, it doesn’t matter
You’re my experimental cup, just a shot of energy
It’s not what cheap girls do, not how they should spend their money
My tastebuds get so bemused, hard to be frugal
I drank a mocha and I liked it, the taste of its caffeinated chocolate
I drank a mocha just to try it, I hope Diet Coke don’t mind it
It smelled so wrong, it tasted so right, don’t mean I’ve switched for keeps
I drank a mocha and I liked it, I liked it
I have a history of coming up with amazing New Year's resolutions, then not doing them. Imagine that! Of course, I understand that there is research out there indicating that NYRs may be both unhealthy and unachievable, but as a Diet Coke addict I've never let that sort of thing get in my way! Anyway, I'm hoping that posting these here on ID will help keep me accountable, and maybe I'll even post an update or two as the year goes on.
Resolutions for 2012
1. Exercise more. I've located my FitBit charger and I'll be using the FitBit in 2012 to try to keep track of my steps. In the past when I've used it, I have walked more, so I hope this will continue. We have a treadmill, an exercise bike, and those rubber bandy things, so even if the weather outside is frightful I have no excuses!
2. Create more. That means writing, drawing, or painting every day. I'm taking an online class on journaling with water colors in late January; I have this and other blogs, including my Lorena's Recent and Retro Reads book review blog; I have ideas for at least two academic articles I'd like to write. So - plenty of opportunity! (Notice that I didn't say any of it (except the articles of course!) had to be good...)
3. Eat better. Mark and I both could stand to lose a few pounds, and we don't eat as well as we should. So - more cooking and more vegetables. And if I'm gonna eat the sweet stuff I love so dearly, at least I can try to make it myself.
4. Go (more) paperless. I've spent the last few days trying to bring some order to my work and home offices, and I am innundated with paper. I have an eyepad; I have a scanner, I have a smartphone. I have Evernote, Zotero, Diigo, Delicious, Google Docs, the knowledge to easily convert things to be comfortably read on my digital devices, and a host of other tools that can substitute for piles of unorganized and unsearchable processed wood pulp. All I need is to create a workflow...
OK, that's it! I'm not looking to change the world in 2012, or become amazing - I just want to fix a few things around my physical and mental edges. So come on, new year - let's give it a whirl and see how it goes!
