Last weekend the Learning Resource Center became a training ground and conversation hub for instructors seeking to integrate Web 2.0 technologies into the classroom. Classroom 2.0, a workshop series and online community developed by Steve Hargadon, provided an opportunity for K-12 and community college educators to come together and explore tools, strategies, and best practices in using current Web technologies to engage students and enhance learning.

Those just starting on their tech journey learned how to create blogs and wikis, while more advanced (or geeky) users shared favorite tools.  These included creating custom Google maps (click the “My Maps” link) and importing the data to Google Earth; using social bookmarking tools such as Delicious and Diigo; harnessing “back channel” conversations using Today’s Meet; building elegant websites in a matter of minutes with Weebly; creating multimedia discussion pages using VoiceThread; and sharing documents and presentations using sites such as Scribd, Slideshare, and drop.io.

If you’re looking for a community of educators sharing information on technology in the classroom, you might want to take a look at what the Classroom 2.0 site (hosted by Ning.com) has to offer: discussion forums, links to resources, and networking opportunities.

The library is evaluating a few databases, which are available for a limited time from the databases page:

• Access World News from Newsbank provides full-text articles from The Sacramento Bee, lots of California newspapers, a number of major metropolitan dailies, and some popular magazines. It also has “Special Reports,” which provide a list of links to news articles on a given topic.
• Credo Reference searches the full text of hundreds of reference works, from the Blackwell Dictionary of Sociology to the McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms (you can view a complete list online).
• Reference Universe from Paratext allows you to search the tables of contents and indexes of print reference books, so that you’ll know just what’s in those huge volumes located on the 2nd floor of the LRC.
• The journal Science needs no introduction, and Science Online provides full-text access from 1997 to the current issue (our access to this journal via Academic Search Premier only goes through 2004, though you can always find current issues on the 2nd floor of the LRC). It also has some additional features, such as complete access to the ScienceNOW news archive.

Please use these resources while we’ve got them, and if you’d like to make any comments, this is the place!

Be afraid; be very afraid (from the March exhibit)

The LRC has been honored to host projects from Mitra Fabian’s Art 370 (Three-Dimensional Design) classes this semester.  For most of March, visitors were greeted by an army of paper-and-wire insects camped out on the first floor.

A nicotine-fueled pleasure palace, with light-bulb onion domes

Currently on display are architectural pieces that repurpose everyday objects and ordinary materials to stunning effect. You’ll find everything from cardboard mud huts, to a literal house of cards, to a slightly sinister geodesic dome. The Kondos Gallery may be closed for the near future, but you can still get your art fix. Come see the creativity on display in the LRC!

Straying a bit further from home, don’t miss Tangent Gallery’s ongoing Self-Portrait show, which features the work of SCC and other area community college students.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

On March 24, Lawrence Ferlinghetti turns 90.  He still claims he never wrote Beat but rather ”wide open” poetry, even though most would say he was a key to the 1950’s Beat movement.

As part of his birthday celebration, SCC readers will want to dip into the poet’s work on the third floor of the library at PS3511.E557.

Readers can carry around hundreds of books in a hand-held eReader.

Students walk into class with iPhones, laptops, e-Readers, and backpacks.  They say they’re carrying books, and maybe they are.

To parody Gertrude Stein, a book is a book is a book.  Or is it?  Today books are available in forms never imagined by printer Johannes Gutenberg.
Handheld e-book readers are a burgeoning business these days.  Consumers now have the choice of hand-held readers such as Sony, K2 (Kindle 2), e-bookwise, be-book, with more heavy-duty readers like the iRex targeting business.

Unlike reading e-books on computer screens, many handhelds use e-Ink, a technology that makes reading much easier on the eyes.  Some readers, like Kindle, also make it sinfully easy to buy and download books by using Whisper-net, the technology used by cell phones.

In a revolutionary move, Amazon offers free Kindle technology to iPhone.  While the iPhone doesn’t have the e-Ink feature, the Amazon-iPhone partnership heralds a new era in reading.

Web sites like Project Gutenberg, Many Books, Free-ebooks, and many more offer a huge range of classics to recent fiction and non-fiction for handheld owners.  (Use keywords “free ebook” in any Web browser to get page after page of Websites.)

While textbooks aren’t readily available as eBooks, this should be the next big jump for textbook publishers given the number of students who own and use handheld devices.

Currently online e-books like those offered by the SCC library can’t be downloaded into handheld devices although they can be read on those with Internet access.  All one needs is an active SCC library card and a pin number to read a book from an off-campus computer.

Are paper books dead?  Of course not.  But reading them has branched into new avenues.

Now it’s not just your credit card you shouldn’t leave home without.  Take your entire personal library with you too.

The Library is spotlighting the environment throughout the month of March.  Send your students over to learn about recycling and find out how to reduce their carbon footprint. 

RAFFLE!

Students can win cool recycling stuff, displayed in the first floor lobby and donated by the California Department of Conservation.  Fill out entry forms at the Reference Desk on the second floor of the Library.  The drawing will be held on March 31.

Students love social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace because they offer quick, informal connections between people who share interests.  Messages, pictures, videos, and instant messages reach a few friends or the whole world in seconds.  But there’s no taking back a statement or photo that’s been published.  How will parents, school officials, future and current employers, or online predators interpret a student’s online profile?

Facebook: Helping employers eliminate applicants one drunken post at a time.

You can challenge your students to think about what is private and personal.  Print a poster from Ohio State University, pick up a thought-provoking handout on social networking at the SCC library reference desk, or read “10 Privacy Settings every Facebook User Should Know About” on allfacebook.com (a blog about Facebook) for step-by-step instructions on how to protect your privacy on Facebook.

The library has developed a new tool: a “widget” that allows you to start searching the library catalog and a few of our subscription databases without going to the library home page first.

If you enter keywords into the search boxes and click “Search,” you’ll be taken directly to a page of results.

If you are an instructor using the new Desire2Learn courseware, when you create a new course you’ll see this widget on the home page. If you already have a course and don’t see it, you can add the widget to your home page. For more information on using the widget, including the code you’ll need to embed it elsewhere, go to its home page.

Does this seem like a useful tool to you? Would you like to see more tools like it? Do you have suggestions or other feedback? Let us know!

Is your home campus in Yolo County? Starting this semester, you no longer have to come to the main campus to check out books; instead, you can have them delivered to the West Sacramento or Davis Center and pick them up there.

When you find a book in LOIS, simply click the “Request” button. On the next screen, fill out the form, and select the location where you want to pick it up.

In a few days, the materials will be available for you to check out! Note that while you can request materials from any Los Rios campus, you cannot request materials marked as “Reference” or ones on 2-hour or 1-day reserve.

Many thanks for making this happen to the SCC Circulation and Technical Services teams, SCC Operations, and the outreach center staff.

John Updike, one of America’s most respected (and prolific) authors, died Jan. 27 after a battle with lung cancer. He was 76. We’d like to join the international celebration of his life and work, by highlighting some of the library’s resources that are available for you.

John Updike

Updike is currently the featured author in EBSCO’s Literary Reference Center, where you can find an excellent overview of his life and works as well as links to other articles (you can access the Literary Reference Center from the library’s database list). In addition, the library owns copies of several of his works. A partial list includes:

Stop by the library and acquaint (or reacquaint) yourself with this beloved author.