CIT INFOBITS April 2005 No. 82 ISSN 1521-9275 About INFOBITS INFOBITS is an electronic service of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Center for Instructional Technology. Each month the CIT's Information Resources Consultant monitors and selects from a number of information and instructional technology sources that come to her attention and provides brief notes for electronic dissemination to educators. You can read this issue of CIT Infobits on the Web at http://its.unc.edu/tl/infobits/bitapr05.html. ...................................................................... Teaching, Teaching Technologies, and Views of Knowledge Laptops in the Classroom New E-Journal on Learning and Evaluation In Defense of Cheating Read Email, Lose IQ Points? New Weblog on Scholarly Electronic Publishing Recommended Reading ...................................................................... TEACHING, TEACHING TECHNOLOGIES, AND VIEWS OF KNOWLEDGE In "Teaching as Performance in the Electronic Classroom" (FIRST MONDAY, vol. 10, no. 4, April 2005), Doug Brent, professor in the Faculty of Communication and Culture at the University of Calgary, presents two views of teaching: teaching as a "performance" and teaching as a transfer of knowledge through text, a "thing." He discusses the social groups that have stakes in each view and how teaching will be affected by the view and group that gains primacy. "If the group that values teaching as performance has the most influence, we will put more energy into developing flexible courseware that promotes social engagement and interaction. . . . If the group that sees teaching as textual [i.e., a thing] has the most influence, we will develop more elaborate technologies for delivering courses as online texts, emphasising the role of the student as audience rather than as participant." Brent's paper is available online at http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue10_4/brent/index.html. First Monday [ISSN 1396-0466] is an online, peer-reviewed journal whose aim is to publish original articles about the Internet and the global information infrastructure. It is published in cooperation with the University Library, University of Illinois at Chicago. For more information, contact: First Monday, c/o Edward Valauskas, Chief Editor, PO Box 87636, Chicago IL 60680-0636 USA; email: ejv@uic.edu; Web: http://firstmonday.dk/. ...................................................................... LAPTOPS IN THE CLASSROOM The theme for the latest issue of NEW DIRECTIONS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING (vol. 2005, issue 101, Spring 2005) is "Enhancing Learning with Laptops in the Classroom." Centered on the faculty development program at Clemson University, the issue's purpose is "to show that university instructors can and do make pedagogically productive and novel use of laptops in the classroom" and "to advise institutional leaders on how to make a laptop mandate successful at their university." The publication is available online http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/86011233. New Directions for Teaching and Learning [ISSN: 0271-0633], a quarterly journal published by Wiley InterScience, offers a "comprehensive range of ideas and techniques for improving college teaching based on the experience of seasoned instructors and on the latest findings of educational and psychological researchers." The journal is available both in print and online formats. ...................................................................... NEW E-JOURNAL ON LEARNING AND EVALUATION STUDIES IN LEARNING, EVALUATION, INNOVATION AND DEVELOPMENT is a new peer-reviewed electronic journal that "supports emerging scholars and the development of evidence-based practice and that publishes research and scholarship about teaching and learning in formal, semi-formal and informal educational settings and sites." Papers in the current issue include: "Can Students Improve Performance by Clicking More? Engaging Students Through Online Delivery" by Jenny Kofoed "Managing Learner Interactivity: A Precursor to Knowledge Exchange" by Ken Purnell, Jim Callan, Greg Whymark and Anna Gralton "Online Learning Predicates Teamwork: Collaboration Underscores Student Engagement" by Greg Whymark, Jim Callan and Ken Purnell Studies in Learning, Evaluation, Innovation and Development [ISSN 1832-2050] will be published at least once a year by the LEID (Learning, Evaluation, Innovation and Development) Centre, Division of Teaching and Learning Services, Central Queensland University, Rockhampton, Queensland 4702 Australia. For more information contact: Patrick Danaher, tel: +61-7-49306417; email: p.danaher@cqu.edu.au. Current and back issues are available at http://www.sleid.cqu.edu.au/index.php. ...................................................................... IN DEFENSE OF CHEATING In his article,"In Defense of Cheating" (UBIQUITY, vol. 6, issue 11, April 5-12, 2005), Donald A. Norman responds to Evan Golub's recent article on student cheating and counteractive measures (see http://its.unc.edu/tl/infobits/bitmar05.html#5). Norman says that Golub asked the wrong questions in his essay: "How do students cheat? How can we weed out cheating?" Norman believes the pertinent questions should be: "What is the purpose of an examination? Why do students cheat?" He argues that we should rethink the entire purpose of the examination system. We should encourage students to ask others for help and then credit them for their help. The essay is available online at http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/views/v6i11_norman.html. Ubiquity is a free, Web-based publication of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), "dedicated to fostering critical analysis and in-depth commentary on issues relating to the nature, constitution, structure, science, engineering, technology, practices, and paradigms of the IT profession." For more information, contact: Ubiquity, email: ubiquity@acm.org; Web: http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/. For more information on the ACM, contact: ACM, One Astor Plaza, 1515 Broadway, New York, NY 10036, USA; tel: 800-342-6626 or 212-626-0500; Web: http://www.acm.org/. ...................................................................... READ EMAIL, LOSE IQ POINTS? On April 22, 2005, several newswire services and newspapers reported on the results of clinical trials commissioned by Hewlett-Packard and conducted by Dr. Glenn Wilson, a psychiatrist at King's College London University. Wilson monitored the IQs of 80 British adults and found that "the IQ of those who tried to juggle messages and work fell by 10 points -- the equivalent to missing a whole night's sleep and more than double the 4-point fall seen after smoking marijuana." The constant shifting of focus required by compulsively checking and responding to email "tired and slowed down the brain." A separate survey of 1,100 people found that most workers checked email outside of work hours and during vacations, and that they responded to an email within an hour of receiving it. Wilson said these email addiction practices "will damage a worker’s performance by reducing their mental sharpness," and his advice is to "control technology rather than let it control you." A Hewlett-Packard UK press release on the study is available at http://h41131.www4.hp.com/uk/en/pr/UKen22042005142004.html. David M. Levy, professor at the University of Washington's Information School, says "We're losing touch with the contemplative roots of scholarship, the reflective dimension . . . . When you think that universities are meant to be in effect the think tanks for the culture, or at least one of the major forms of thinking, that strikes me as a very serious concern." He and others studying the problem of information overload caused by email, blogs, and websites say they are not against the technologies but worry that these tools could have a negative impact on scholarly research. More can be read in "Knowing When to Log Off" by Jeffrey Young (THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, vol. 51, issue 33, p. A34, April 22, 2005). The article is available online to Chronicle subscribers at http://chronicle.com/prm/weekly/v51/i33/33a03401.htm. The Chronicle of Higher Education [ISSN 0009-5982] is published weekly by The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inc., 1255 Twenty-third Street, NW, Washington, DC 20037 USA; tel: 202-466-1000; fax: 202-452-1033; Web: http://chronicle.com/. ...................................................................... NEW WEBLOG ON SCHOLARLY ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING Charles W. Bailey, Jr., compiler of SCHOLARLY ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING BIBLIOGRAPHY (now in its 57th edition), has a new publication. DigitalKoans is a weblog that provides commentary on scholarly electronic publishing and digital culture issues. It is available at http://www.escholarlypub.com/digitalkoans/. Since 2001, Bailey has also published another weblog, The Scholarly Electronic Weblog, an exhaustive compilation of citations to articles dealing with all aspects of scholarly communication. The weblog is online at http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/sepw.htm. Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography is a searchable resource that cites selected articles, books, electronic documents, and other sources that are useful in understanding scholarly electronic publishing efforts on the Internet and other networks. The latest version is available at http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/sepb.html. Bailey is the Assistant Dean for Digital Library Planning and Development at the University of Houston Libraries. In 1989, Bailey established PACS-L, a mailing list about public-access computers in libraries, and The Public-Access Computer Systems Review, one of the first scholarly electronic journals published on the Internet. For more information, contact Charles W. Bailey, Jr., University of Houston, Library Administration, 114 University Libraries, Houston, TX 77204-2000 USA; tel: 713-743-9804; fax: 713-743-9811; email: cbailey@uh.edu; Web: http://info.lib.uh.edu/cwb/bailey.htm. ..................................................................... RECOMMENDED READING "Recommended Reading" lists items that have been recommended to me or that Infobits readers have found particularly interesting and/or useful, including books, articles, and websites published by Infobits subscribers. Send your recommendations to carolyn_kotlas@unc.edu for possible inclusion in this column. Learning and Training Professionals: What Keeps YOU Up at Night? Edited by Edward Masie The Masie Center, 2005 http://www.masie.com/upatnight/ The free ebook has 672 contributions that will give you a global perspective of what your colleagues are facing as their daily challenges. The twelve chapters include: Learning Management Systems, Metrics, and Technical Requirements. ...................................................................... To Subscribe CIT INFOBITS is published by the Center for Instructional Technology. The CIT supports the interests of faculty members at UNC-Chapel Hill who are exploring the use of Internet and video projects. Services include both consultation on appropriate uses and technical support. To subscribe to INFOBITS, send email to listserv@unc.edu with the following message: SUBSCRIBE INFOBITS firstname lastname substituting your own first and last names. 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