Rounding up Research
This blog has been created to meet the requirement of the course LS5013.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Another Research Visual
"In today's digital world, information expressed and communicated across new media now pervades what was our text dominated world. As digital arts converges with digital information, it offers a wide of range new opportunities for bringing expression and creativity to the information world, be it in designing virtual information environments or interactive media" (http://sils.pratt.edu/dai.html). I used Google as the search engine when researching this visual. I located it on Pratt's website, which is another School of Information and Library Science. The image showcases the transformation of our society that used primary text-centerted information, to now media-centered information. Podcasts, RSS feeds, YouTube, online newspapers, etc. are becoming the convienient way of transmitting information.
http://sils.pratt.edu/dai.html
Internet - Competency 10
I used Google as the search engine to help locate a webpage covering "online search strategies." There were several good webpages providing information about online search strategies, however, I found Teacher Tap to be the most beneficial for teaching online search strategies in a secondary school setting. Teacher Tap provides lesson plans for teachers or librarians to use when teaching students how to (1) locate images, (2) select the right resource, (3) identify keywords, synonyms, and key phrases, (4) creating an effective search statement, (5) using Boolean operators, (6) online search techniques, (7) understanding URL's, (8) searching specialized databases, etc. For each concept a lesson is provided with detailed procedures. The page also provides links to many of the popular search engines help menus. A table illustrating Boolean operators, as well as proximity operators is provided for students to refer to for help. Interactive online tutorials about search strategies are also offered.
Visit Teacher Tap using the following link:
http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic74.htm
Friday, July 9, 2010
Research Visual
This is an awesome visual representing forms of communication. Recently, I was reading the article "The Human-Computer Interface: and Information Literacy: Some Basics and Beyond" by Gary M. Church. There is a section titled, "Some Communication Basics" which defines what communication means. Church states that "communication is an attempt to create common meaning or understanding between sender and receiver of a message" (Church, G. 1999). This visual represents how communication occurs in literacy, education, society, and culture. Isn't it amazing how diverse communication can be?
http://nadia5307163.wordpress.com/semester-1-outcomes/poster-1/
Specific Facet First Strategy on WorldCat
I started by quick searching with a few different queries to see which set of keywords would produce the fewest hits. I began with the query (child protection) and received 18,230 hits. The second query was (protecting children) and I received 3,684 hits. The third query was (internet protection) and I reeived 19,511 hits. The fourth query was (children's internet protection) and I received only 274 hits. I was happy that I was able to narrow the search down to 274, however, when I started looking a the hits more closely, they covered a wide range of internet safety issues. I needed to focus my search on filtering, so I used Boolean logic to add to the quesry. The fifth search I used was (children's internet protection) AND (filtering). I received only 3 hits with that strategy. Of the three hits, one was an E-book titled "Youth Pornography and the Internet" which was a great source to add to my bibliography for the issues paper I am writing. The Specific Facet First strategy was a good way to immediatly focus my search. It took a little time to determine which area of my query would produce the fewest hits, so I had somewhere to beigin, but overall this strategy saved me time. I didn't have to sift through hundrends of sources to find only a few that were pertinent for what I needed.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Citation Pearl Growing Search on ERIC
I am writing an Issues Analysis paper for another class I am currently enrolled in. I decided to use this opportunity to apply the Citation Pearl Growing strategy to help me find articles for my paper. I started my search by using the keywords: protecting children AND intellectual freedom. I received only one hit. The hit I retrieved was exactly the kind of article I was needing to write my paper on the debate surrounding the Children's Internet Protection Act and intellectual freedom. I chose to click on the "related items" link provided with the article, "Internet Safety or the Four Fs--Fouled in a Feud between Filtering and Free Speech" because I wanted more articles like it. By clicking the related items link I received 611,945 hits. I then applied the full-text only limiter and narrowed the hits down to 271,919hits. Next, I went under advanced search, and limited my search even further to journal articles in full-text published from 2008. That search strategy retrieved 16,631 hits.
The Citation Pearl Growing Strategy was a wonderful way to retrieve sources. It takes time in the beginning, like any search stratgey, to find hits that are pertinent to your topic. But once you find just one hit, you have access to more hits just like it by applying the "related items" link in the database. This has been the most helpful strategy so far.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Books in Print Competency
Books in Print is the industry's largest web based bibliographic resource for professionsals. It has over 5 million books, audio books, and video. For my search I used intellectual freedom AND school libraries as my query. I received 57 hits with this search. Some of the sources I got hits on were e-books, trade papers, trade cloth,library binding etc..
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