BiblioTech Web

While technology brings many changes, some things NEVER change. Like the nature of people. The following is a curse found written by the doors of a 16th century monastery library in Barcelona, Spain:

“For him that stealeth, or borroweth and returneth not, this book from its owner, let it change into a serpent in his hand & rend him. Let him be struck with palsy, & all his members blasted. Let him languish in pain crying aloud for mercy, & let there be no surcease to his agony till he sing in dissolution. Let bookworms gnaw his entrails in token of the Worm that dieth not, & when at last he goeth to his final punishment, let the flames of Hell consume him forever.”

What DOES change is how easy it is to FIND something like this. I’d read this curse somewhere many years ago, but thanks to the ubiquity of information on the Internet, I was able to use Google and eventually find it again. Of course, that was after refining my search quite a bit. My final search was: library curse century medieval spain stealeth, after I remembered that the word “stealeth” was in it. Once I added “stealeth,” I got it focused right down to actual quotes of the curse. One good website that had this and other quotes, as well as a discussion of book thieves, was Museum Security Network BOOK THEFTS, which indicated that this quote came from an article in the Harvard Magazine.

Many teachers and librarians are concerned about the quality of research our students are producing because of the Internet. The prevailing thought is that students need to be doing “REAL RESEARCH” using scholarly tools like peer-reviewed journals and academic databases. General websites are grudgingly accepted, if at all, as sources for research papers. We tend to want them to be “scholarly” and use authoritative sources. When someone mentions that students search Google first and library databases second, we cringe and lament the demise of scholarship in the 21st century.

I would like to propose an alternate and potentially controversial view of this dilemma. That is, that there are TWO kinds of scholarship: Academic Scholarship and Authentic Scholarship. “Authentic” is a term used in teacher education to refer to assessments and learning environments that directly apply to the real world. When a teacher switches from a multiple-choice final exam to a project that relates to a problem or question in the “real world,” they are said to be using a more authentic method of assessment.

Most people, after getting out of school, don’t learn from reading a textbook any more. They learn from sharing ideas with others. The Internet has totally revolutionized (I think it’s safe to use that term) how individuals communicate with each other and share ideas. Once we get out of school and are in the “real world,” we still learn and we still contribute to the world of knowledge, but by connecting with others and communicating with them. When we use the Internet (via email lists, blogs, wikis, podcasting, Flickr, etc.) to connect our ideas with those of others, both by consuming their information and connecting our own ideas with theirs, we are contributing to the knowledge of the world. That’s legitimate scholarship as much as is reading peer-reviewed journals and properly citing them.

David Weinberger has said that all knowledge is socially constructed. That is, we do not learn in a vacuum. We learn (construct knowledge) by interacting with others. What better tool than the Internet for that?

My suggestion is that there are two kinds of scholarship, both legitimate and both serving a purpose.

Academic scholarship is done within the context of schools and serves to add to the world of knowledge by demonstrating the abilities of evaluating information sources and organizing one’s thoughts into well-crafted research paper.

Authentic scholarship is done by constructing knowledge through being a contributor to, not just a consumer of, information. This process has been greatly enhanced by the Internet-based tools that have been developing during the last several years, and which are still growing. By reading and reflecting, and THEN by writing/recording/documenting your ideas, you can contribute to learning around the world. People are wanting to learn about your area of interest, no matter how esoteric, and they will find you if you use the Internet to learn and then to contribute to the global learning environment that the Internet has made possible.

Right now I’m sitting in a workshop on blogging in higher education. Will Richardson has been blogging for 4-5 years and he’s talking to a group of 21 of us in higher ed about blogs, wikis, Flickr, podcasting, and every other method of creating content. His website is http://www.weblogg-ed.com/ and he has lots of great things to say and ideas to share about technology and education and the role of CREATING content as a part of the learning process. He even posted an article about this workshop.

Lots of great things being talked about, lots of people here that are rather new to some of these ideas. As for me, I just had to write about this and actually BLOG LIVE FROM A WORKSHOP. How cool is that? I’ll probably post something later to share some of the ideas that I’ll be applying myself, the cool things I’m taking away from this session.

How much of a say should students have in the curricular planning that goes on at colleges and universities?

There was an article in Butler’s Collegian newspaper back in April that talked about students’ reactions to possible changes in the “core curriculum.” Most colleges and universities have some group of classes that they consider “core,” meaning that they’re generally interdisciplinary and considered foundational to all other learning at that particular institution. These classes often include writing, rhetoric, public speaking, and a class or two that relate to the culture and history of that school.

My question for you is: what role should students have in changing the curriculum? My personal answer: little to none. Now that I’ve got your attention, don’t get me wrong, there is a place for student feedback, and it IS important. But that’s more about issues relating to HOW the course is taught, not WHAT is taught. The one exception I would mention is perceived relevance in courses that focus on current culture and society, because it can be easy for teachers to lose touch with what’s really current.

Student surveys are important for bringing to light concerns like those in a recent survey at Butler, where students said they didn’t know why they had to take a particular course, or were displeased with how understandable or enjoyable a certain teacher was. Those kinds of responses should lead to changes. The relevancy and importance of each course should always be communicated from the outset. That’s just a basic element of good teaching. And if a teacher is hard to understand or gives poor tests or can’t seem to explain things very well, that also needs to be known and corrected.

But the content of courses cannot be determined by students. That’s illogical and goes against the basic tenets of higher education. Even in a society that is so consumer driven. Teachers are supposed to be the subject experts and it should fall to the collected faculty of each school (abiding by any requirements of certifying boards or laws) to determine what content should be taught. Not micromanaging or saying HOW things should be taught (that really should be left up to the individual teacher), but they are the ones that should establish WHAT needs to be taught. Especially with a core curriculum. Who better to know what needs to be known before the higher courses are taken than the teachers of those higher courses?

Students may know what subjects they’re interested in or what professions they want to pursue, but that does not mean that they should determine what content or classes are being taught. So if a program revision is being considered, should students be consulted? Only in as much as it applies to the relevance and effectiveness of the teaching. I agree with one of the faculty members who was quoted in the article I read, who said:

“I think surveying alumni would work best, because this might be something that students hated while they were here, but 75 percent of them, 10 years down the road might say, ‘I’m so glad you made me take this.’
That counts for something.”

Welcome to BiblioTech, where I’ll be discussing ways in which technology is changing libraries and learning. Articles and links will relate to the effects of technological developments, usages, and applications on libraries and various facets of education at any level.