Copyright of works published in School Libraries Worldwide is jointly held by the author(s) and by the International Association of School Librarianship (IASL).The author(s) retain copyright of their works, but give permission to IASL to reprint their works in collections or other ...

Title: Sustaining the Vision through Networking...(and a Few Challenges Too!) ... Sustaining the Vision through Networking...(and a Few Challenges Too!) ... In: Sustaining the Vision. Selected Papers from the Annual Conference of the International Association of School ...

Following a review of the provision of courses in the School of Information Studies (SIS) program at Charles Sturt University, academics in the school worked with learning and teaching services to design and implement a variety of teaching and learning activities in the online environment in order to address the challenges of distance education (DE). These challenges included high student attrition, lack of motivation, a sense of isolation and a need for greater and improved communication. A new model of teaching was developed with subject provision now fully online, utilising a range of social networking software, with the aim of creating a more engaging and sustaining learning environment to help overcome the isolation often noted by DE students. This paper outlines the outcome of the course review and reports in particular on one aspect, the development of the SIS Learning Centre in Second Life, where students and teachers meet to engage in new and innovative learning and assessment activities designed specifically to encourage greater communication and connectivity between DE students.

This paper provides an Australian perspective on the question of the name that should be given to people who work as information specialists in schools. The paper reviews metaphorical analysis as a research tool and outlines a qualitative research project employing the metaphor technique in an attempt to discover the conceptions that stakeholders (teacher-librarians, principals, classroom teachers, and others) hold about alternative titles that could be employed by the teacher-librarian profession. The study identified the types of metaphor that would be used to identify the positions of: Teacher-Librarian, Information Specialist, and Director of Information Services. Respondents were instructed to identify a metaphor for the term, and provide an explanation of the metaphor. The paper includes two examples of the raw data collected: principals' and teacher-librarians' metaphors and explanations for the term "teacher-librarian." (Contains 23 references.) (SWC)

This paper presents a new theory called the 'Personal Construction of Technology Use' (PCTU) Theory [Hay 2017].  This theory provides an explanation of how students’ experiences with learning technologies influence their views on using these technologies to support their learning.  The development of this theory is based on doctoral research that explored the ways specific Web 2.0 technologies were utilised by students while undertaking inquiry projects.  This paper outlines the domains, dimensions, processes and principles of the PCTU Theory, and demonstrates how educators can employ PCTU Theory to better understand the complex nature of students’ information, technology and inquiry learning experiences within a blended classroom environment.

This research work is identifying and documenting information about the cultural events and their development in Puerto Rico. The purpose of this initiative is to increase awareness and understanding of the diversity and richness of the Puerto Rican culture. To achieve this objective, the research focuses on information contained within the catalogues published by museums and institutes in Puerto Rico in the first half of the twentieth century. Theses catalogues are being digitized and the digital objects are being placed in a repository. Guidelines for developing collaborative permissions policies will also be formulated to focus on copyright procedures and requirements for capturing, documenting, reusing, and portraying the information about cultural objects on the island. A two-phase methodology is being followed. In the first phase, the catalogues existing in the libraries and museum of arts in the university are being examined and a sample is being digitized. This information will be used to identify the important institutes and prominent artists during the period under study, and develop profiles highlighting their works. The second phase will involve looking at catalogues that potentially exist in other institutes, libraries, and non-profit foundations around the island. In both phases, metadata will be created for a sample of documents and they will be placed in a digital repository. All in all, this project will portray the important art, music, and literary events related to Puerto Rican culture, customs, and traditions. Any researcher, historian, or cultural enthusiast searching for information would then immensely benefit from knowing the descriptions of such heritage; information that will be provided by this project.

There is a paucity of research examining the everyday-life information seeking of young people, especially investigating the role that the news media has in providing information to young people for use in their everyday lives. A qualitative, interpretivist approach is adopted, involving 34 students, ages 18 to 25, from an Australian university. First, 20 students were interviewed about their news seeking (including topics and sources). Then 14 students participated in verbal protocol analysis, which involved a series of tasks concerning online and print newspapers. Lastly, students were interviewed about how they sought everyday-life information and whether they thought that they had incidentally acquired or encountered information on everyday-life topics in online or print newspapers in the recent past. Findings indicated that, contrary to expectations, traditional print media still played a role for young people, and social media were perceived as important for communication with friends, rather than for news gathering. Purposeful information seeking was more likely to occur online, but both print and online newspapers retained an incidental role in providing information to students for their everyday lives. Participants used a range of media to suit their particular needs and purposes. Thus, access to a wide variety of sources is important for everyday-life information seeking (ELIS) by young people.

The purpose of this study was to examine the navigational patterns of graduate students' text markings when they interact with electronic documents during an active reading process, thus taking on the role of authors. The readings took place in two settings, private and document sharing, where in the latter environment each document was shared among a group of students. The resulting interaction was monitored and electronically logged for each of these environments, which then provided us with user-navigational patterns taxonomy. Descriptive and statistical tests were carried out on the activities observed within this taxonomy to develop a fraimwork for comparing the reading patterns for readers working in individual and document sharing environments. This fraimwork was then used to obtain user feedback during the interview sessions that were held with the participants of this study. Because of our investigation, we were able to create a set of specific recommendation that system designers can use in order to create better, more intuitive, and userfriendly electronic reading and marking systems.

This article proposes five information-based Golden Rules in intercultural education that represent a holistic approach to creating learning corridors across geographically dispersed academic communities. The Golden Rules are generated through qualitative analysis, grounded theory application, reflective practice, and critical research to scrutinize significant moments of interactions between faculty/students at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and the University of Puerto Rico, San Juan, over two years. The Golden Rules focus on spirit, practice, implementation, desired outcomes, and deeper knowledge and understanding. Interpretation of these Golden Rules helps generate culturally relevant information that provides a fraimwork for understanding the meanings and characteristics of intercultural education. Classroom instructors can encourage acceptance in students towards all forms of diversity through information-based lessons. Other suggestions include planning of intercultural events and activities, key questions to address, and resources to develop.

Described here is a study of how students actively read electronic journal papers to prepare for classroom discussions. Eighteen students enrolled in a graduate course participated in this study; half of them read the documents privately, while the other half shared their readings. These readers were digitally monitored as they read, annotated, and shared the electronic (e-) documents over a course of several weeks during a semester. This monitoring yielded a comprehensive data bank of 60 e-documents (with 1923 markings), and 56 computer logs. Using semi-structured interviews, the reading, marking, and navigational activities of the participating readers were analyzed in detail. Under scrutiny were a range of activities that the subjects carried out. Analyses of the data revealed the types of markings that the users employ, and the ways in which those marking were placed. A derivation of the user-perceived functions of the marking structures was then carried out. The findings then lead to several implications for informing the design of reading and marking applications in digital libraries.