Thursday, September 17, 2009
Videoconferencing @ the library
Distance education, Drury-style! The E.C. Drury Library hosted our first live teacher teleconference today -- Mr. Sheppard (currently in British Columbia) interacted with his class here in Milton via web-cameras and microphones. The event was a success, and paves the way for more staff / student interaction via internet technology. Web 2.0: it's all @ the school library!
Back to Blogging!
Greetings! School is now back in session, and with the end of vacation time comes my return to Web 2.0 Blogging; thanks to all who have read or followed my posts.
I just finished reading a short, but interesting research summary article by Dr. Chun Wei Choo of the University of Toronto. His research was around the question of whether or not the culture of an organization affects its information use. I think this is one of those questions to which the answer seems obvious, but for which real research is required in order to establish credible parameters for assessment and discussion.
In the end he writes:
"To summarize, our research showed that the part of organizational culture that deals specifically with information – the values and norms that people have about creating, sharing, and applying information – has a significant effect on information use outcomes."
To my mind, this is the concrete evidence needed to support the necessity of changing the information culture of education systems; if we are to adequately prepare our students for their likely futures, we need to teach and practice the five "information behaviours and values" Choo designates:
-Integrity (using information in a principled and trustful way)
-Informality (trust and use of informal sources)
-Transparency (openness in reporting information)
-Sharing (providing others with information)
-Proactiveness (actively obtaining and applying new information)
We do our students a disservice if we do not prepare them for the job-based information cultures to which they will eventually head, and we cannot prepare them if we are not willing to educate ourselves in the ways of Web 2.0.
I just finished reading a short, but interesting research summary article by Dr. Chun Wei Choo of the University of Toronto. His research was around the question of whether or not the culture of an organization affects its information use. I think this is one of those questions to which the answer seems obvious, but for which real research is required in order to establish credible parameters for assessment and discussion.
In the end he writes:
"To summarize, our research showed that the part of organizational culture that deals specifically with information – the values and norms that people have about creating, sharing, and applying information – has a significant effect on information use outcomes."
To my mind, this is the concrete evidence needed to support the necessity of changing the information culture of education systems; if we are to adequately prepare our students for their likely futures, we need to teach and practice the five "information behaviours and values" Choo designates:
-Integrity (using information in a principled and trustful way)
-Informality (trust and use of informal sources)
-Transparency (openness in reporting information)
-Sharing (providing others with information)
-Proactiveness (actively obtaining and applying new information)
We do our students a disservice if we do not prepare them for the job-based information cultures to which they will eventually head, and we cannot prepare them if we are not willing to educate ourselves in the ways of Web 2.0.
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