Category: General

Zotero

My occupation requires that I constantly review resources (journal articles, book chapters, sometimes web sites), create some meaningful personal account of these sources, and then store these accounts in a form that will be useful to me later. Sometimes later is next week when I attempt to integrate the results of a literature review in writing the Introduction to an article and sometimes later means 30 years later when I am attempting to locate an article I think I read in graduate school because that article may address an issue my younger colleagues now think is original. I have experimented with this challenge throughout my career – note cards, copies of xeroxed and highlighted articles stored in file cabinets, free form storage and search systems built in Hypercard, online social bookmarking systems, etc. I admit at this point that I spend far more time experimenting with such systems than I spend applying any given system to actual work. Total time expenditure considered, I would probably still be better off with a box of index cards and my file cabinets full of journal articles. However, I keep telling myself someone has to experiment to offer suggestions to others.

Recently, I have been exploring a free open source product called Zotero. Zotero is a Firefox extension developed at George Mason University. Zotero can function like social bookmarking sites that store a “snapshot” of a web site (something like FURL). Zotero can also save citations and notes for old school resources (articles, chapters and books). When possible, I now store the pdfs for the journal articles I read and annotate (see previous post describing YEP). Within Zotero, I can attach the files stored within YEP to Zotero citations. Zotero allows collections of citations to be created (perhaps temporarily) and then exported as a reference list (see image below).

The screen capture appearing below offers a glimpse of Zotero – this three pane system can be opened at the bottom of your browser window when needed.

Zotero image

I worry a bit about the complexity of this system. If I invest heavily in using it for real work, I am also going to have to consider carefully how I will backup the material I create. This is not one of those systems that stores resources on a remote server maintained by folks who back up religiously. This is a tool I would have to understand better and take responsibility for the maintenance issues.

The folks at Zotero have big plans for the future and intend to move their product from an interesting browser plugin to something with greater power. I am not ready to commit to this resource to the exclusion of others I use, but I would feel comfortable using this tool as I work on a future project. If you use Firefox, take a look and see what you think.

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New Annenberg Study

The Center for the Digital Future (USC Annenberg School) has been conducting surveys for six years in an attempt to track the impact of the Internet on society. The 2007 report is now available. Unfortunately, the report costs several hundred dollars. A brief summary is available online, but a little more detail is available from some bloggers (e.g., Andy Carvin).

It would really be unfair for me to summarize someone else’s summary so I refer you to learning.now (the Carvin blog) for greater detail. The one finding I will mention concerns the proportion of Internet users who produce content. Posting photos to the web represents the category of greatest use (about 24%). This makes sense to me – posting pictures requires much less effort than writing. About 13% claim they have a personal web page and 7% have a blog. Andy does not mention an age break down so I can’t say if data on the “authoring” of individuals of K-12 age are available.

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Update on Riverdeep and Houghton Mifflin

This post is for one of my readers who tried to convince me that the Allyn and Bacon rep told her Houghton Mifflin would be owned by Allyn & Bacon.

Information released to the press today seems to indicate that the Riverdeep purchase of Houghton Mifflin is still a go.

At first blush, we’re smaller, they’re bigger, we’re software, they’re traditional print,” O’Callaghan said. “The real synergy between our businesses is that we’re an educational publishing company just like them, but we’re doing it on different mediums aimed at different funding sources.

Why do I care? Our book is published by Houghton Mifflin and part of my professional future rides on what happens to Houghton Mifflin. Even if this deal goes through, the new owner may sell of the higher ed resources. However, I think being interested in technology enhanced education within a company that is focused on educational software applications may enable some interesting opportunies. Of course, I said the same thing when Houghton Mifflin was sold to Vivendi.

Pardon this personal diversion – content of more general interest soon.

eSchoolNews article on this topic.

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Gates Foundation Funds Local District to Post Curriculum

The Seattle Times reports the Gates Foundation has provided the Bellevue school district nearly 2 million to post the districts entire curriclum. The article contends that the site will be wiki-like allowing external input and possible lesson ratings.

While there are many “lesson web sites” available, I suppose what makes this effort unique is the real time nature of the content (this is what our students are studying now) and the completeness/interrelatedness of the material.

The article also promises that the site will offer some video content. As a teacher educator, I hope that the video is “realistic” and offers a glimpse of daily classroom life rather than carefully selected examples. While my understanding is that the resource is not intended for professional development, I have long felt a range of video cases would be very helpful.

Andy Carvin has a different take on this project and relates it more to the opencourseware efforts at institutions such as MIT.

Bellevue has already developed a substantial online description of the district’s curriculum.

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Quintura Search

Quintura is developing a new search service that relies on a unique interface. The initial search requests returns “hits” and a tag cloud. Clicking on tags within the cloud both brings additional tags to the fore and allows tags to be added to the original search request for secondary searches.

I like the description of typical search as “recovery” and reliance on social tagging as discovery. This search approach appears to offer a combination.

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Last.fm

I am fascinated by social software and experiment with applications in a wide variety of domains. My present interest is last.fm. This service provides software for analyzing personal musical preferences and locating others with similar musical tastes. The system works in the background while I listen to my iTunes and accumulates data on my listening preferences. The system then matches my preferences with the preferences of other users. In theory, one benefit is supposed to be the opportunity to locate new music by identifying unique tracks or artists in the lists of others with similar tastes.

The logic is similar to the “discovery” principle associated with social bookmarking. The argument is that search is limited by personal perspective and a social environment can expand this perspective by using the experience of others. With music, you would buy the same artists you already like. By exploring the interests of others with similar tastes, you might discover something you like that is still compatible with your general interests. I have yet to purchase anything “unique” as a result of using this software, but the concept is fun to explore.

Click this chart for additional information on my personal listening habits.

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Final Thoughts

We are now back in Grand Forks. We arrived at about 11 in the evening and I got out of bed today at 2 in the afternoon. I am still a little bit foggy, but I wanted to complete my entries on the China trip before I go back to work tomorrow. So, with some lychee tea in my lazy tea cup (it has an inner holder for the tea that is removed once the tea has brewed), I will see what I can generate.

China Tea

The China trip was an unplanned opportunity for me. I went as a guest of my wife who was attending a conference bringing together US and Chinese educators. While we saw some very interesting things and were not restricted in how we used free time, our impressions were limited by time, location, and the events that dominated our attention. I know it is also likely we do not understand the limitations on our impressions (e.g., the television channels we viewed in the hotel are not necessarily available to the general public through their means of access). If nothing else, I will continue to cross-references my new first hand experiences with the information sources I encounter on a daily basis. Already, I am more aware of information that references China (the Tom Friedman article in today’s local paper concerned environmental issues in China – my reference to Friedman’s China visit). My limited experiences do compliment my reading on advances in rapidly developing countries and how such advances might influence education and technology in the US (Friedman’s The World is Flat, Buderi and Huangs’ Guanxi (Windows and China) and China Inc).

Some observations:

  • Existing infrastructure is not always a liability – visionaries appear to be able to learn from best practices and leap over the intermediate steps more advanced nations or organizations had to go through to get to a level of practice. Innovation can sometimes be achieved by observation.
  • I assume others make the same assumptions I do and being in a very different place makes it obvious this is not the case. Here is an example. I was extremely impressed by commitment to learning that is evident in the students (Note – we likely saw the very high end schools). However, stepping back and viewing the total context, it is evident what the cost of not taking advantage of academic opportunity might be. College education brings so many advantages and these advantages are not just for the individual, but also for the family. Invest in your child because this child is also your own future. I wonder what the cost of failure really is?
  • “Face” is so important. Doing the “right thing” reflects strongly on you, your family, your company, etc.
  • I understand that the world has become flat and China is really a place to see this happen. The economic benefits of a cheap and highly motivated work force is obvious. There is no way to compete with such opportunities. However, I am guessing that the curve of development is also imfluenced by factors that limit the trajectory. Cheap labor is not unlimited – as people turn income into expectations cheap labor will become more expensive. Rapid development creates debts that must eventually be paid (e.g., reliance on dirty energy and the creation of health hazards). In the end, I am guessing that factors such as education and values will be what sustains improvement.

China High School

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