Context: Check It Out!

Context. It is the crux of information literacy. In order to understand something, we need to understand the situation from which it springs, the perspective from which it is presented as well as the one from which we view it. This may be more true now than it has been for the last 100 years as our understanding of objectivity and subjectivity have grown and developed, fundamentally altering our sense of how simply by observing an event, we alter it; how by reporting on it, we participate in it.One of the results of knowledge is a growing tension within the news business about exactly what journalists should be doing. Paul Bradshaw offers a thoughtful analysis of this on the Open Journalism blog: Objectivity has Changed - Why Hasn't Journalism?  In the Christian Science Monitor, Josh Burek offers a contrasting position, defines it specifically as personal and offers plenty of reasons why the other side might be right. One of his concerns is that news outlets benefit from an implicit perception of objectivity, while they may in fact be very one-sided. This is certainly the concern raised by Guy Reel in his essay The New Partisan Press.

But this isn't just a problem for journalists. This awareness places greater demands on us to examine and contextualize what we read and hear, or even visit. For example, this year across the South several events are planned to mark the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. But as this Time magazine article notes, many of the events sponsored by the Sons of Confederate Veterans erase or minimize the aspect of slavery, the South's "peculiar institution", from the events they are planning. Similarly readers need to know when editions of a book alter the original text, a process primarily done on the basis of scholarly decisions, but recently performed on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for the explicit reason of making the book approachable to general readers, as described in the book's introduction. The editor of this edition removed the N-word  from the book, replacing it with "slave," and performed a similar function on The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, replacing "Injun" with "Indian". While many writers and readers have raised objections to this approach (including a humorous one from the Daily Show's "Senior Black Correspondent" Larry Wilmore), the one raised by Marybeth Gasman in the Chronicle for Higher Education touches on the subject of this post most closely. Her concern is the erasure of critical markers of context.

Embracing the challenge of context as an individual, as an educator, and as a student demands additional work on our part. It means asking why things are being presented in a certain fashion and if everything is being told. Fortunately the internet has made asking such questions easier at the same time that it has made the need to ask them more pronounced.

Beginning with fundamental searching, a solid search tool targeting educators but suitable for use by anyone is Sweet Search, the selective directory search engine sponsored by findingDulcinea. The Sweet Search engine indexes sites recommended by librarians and teachers that meet specific quality criteria. FindingDulcinea is web site targeting K-12 educators (and their students), but the content is appropriate for 1st and 2nd year college students as well. Content changes daily, with birthdays and this day in history information, all of it contextualized with links to sources.

Another useful tool is zuula, a metasearch engine that gives users the option to easily compare results from various search tools, thereby increasing the likelihood of identifying contrasting perspectives and breaking out of patterns of search that lock us into set results. Zuula provides the added benefit of stripping sponsored results (a.k.a. ads) out of search results and so preventing them from fooling unwary users.

In order to test the validity of current political events, go to the Annenberg Center's FactCheck.org, which rates statements by various commentators, politicians and key newsmakers. Another resource is Politifact, run by the St. Petersburg Times, but which focuses most of its efforts on press reporting and politicians specifically.

And as a useful resource for checking information sources, or locating information sources, on a variety of topics, check out the Annenberg Center's FactCheckED.org web site. Targeting educators and students, this resource summarizes the perspective and quality of information on all different types of internet resources, from watchdog organizations to federal agencies and think tanks.

Dateline: Mideast

Traditionally, when Americans think of Egypt, they think of King Tut and mummies, pyramids, ancient pharaohs and the Sphinx. Recent events, however, have made many realize that this sense of Egypt as a nation of the past is as misleading as thinking that American history stopped with the drafting of the Constitution. So this edition of the library blog will provide you with resources to help you feel more up to speed with contemporary Egyptian events and culture as well as those of other nations caught up in popular uprisings against their governments.

Library Resources

The library provides students and staff with some excellent resources that can help you find out more about different countries (World Geography) and keep up with current news while providing excellent context (Facts on File's World News Digest). You will need to provide a DACC user ID and password to access both resources.

Egypt

To get caught up on recent events in Egypt, both in terms of depth of coverage and high quality analysis, it pays to check out Al Jazeera English. Its Mideast location gives it a natural edge in covering developments. The English version of the network has gained a reputation as one of the best sources for international news, and for being a source that makes a serious effort to look at all sides of tough issues. Another excellent source for in-depth coverage and analysis is the BBC News site. This site also offers profiles of key figures, such as Hosni Mubarak and Omar Suleiman. To get a sense of the big picture regarding Egyptian history and the way in which current events connect to the past, take a look at this BBC timeline. 

An unfortunate element of the uprising in Egypt for archeological enthusiasts was the theft of several antiquities from various locations. Fortunately some artifacts have subsequently been returned or recovered, as reported in this Fox News report. For those who would like some pointers to online sites for exploring Egypt's rich historic heritage, here are some of the best: the Egyptian Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, British Museum, the BBC's Egyptian History section and the history section of Tour Egypt.

Tunisia

Prior to events in Egypt, the citizens of Tunisia staged a successful uprising of their own after an unemployed young man, Mohamed Bouazizi, set himself ablaze in an act of desperate protest following persistent demands for bribes from government officials who otherwise refused to allow him to sell his vegetables in Sidi Bouzid. One day in December they took his goods and scales when he refused to pay and then beat him. When they refused his efforts to get them returned, he bought some gasoline and set himself on fire. The government's harsh response to initial protests inspired many more, leading ultimately to President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali stepping down.This BBC page can catch you up on events in Tunis. This New York Times article offers interesting evidence about how organizers in Egypt and Tunisia worked together to plan the revolutions that to many Western observers seemed spontaneous. If you would just like to find out more about Tunisia in general because, like most Americans you aren't even really sure where it is, you can find an up to date country profile on the BBC web site. The U.S. State Department's national profile is not as current, but is more detailed regarding the information it does provide.

Other Parts of the Region

The small island nation of Bahrain is now in the spotlight, as are Libya and Yemen. Click on the country names to go to country profiles for each. The BBC provides this analysis of the current situation in the Mideast. On CNN's International edition, the Inside the Middle East Blog offers a series of thoughtful posts on ongoing events.

Foreign Correspondents

One final note. If you have been following the news coverage of these events, you have probably heard something about Lara Logan, the CBS News reporter who was sexually assaulted while covering the victory celebrations in Egypt. To get a good sense of the larger context of the risks foreign correspondents, especially female foreign correspondents, take when providing us with the news about important world events, see Suzi Parker's essay in Politics Daily. This 2007 essay by Judith Matloff in Columbia Journalism Review also addresses this largely concealed aspect of the very real dangers these men and women face. And in an essay in U.S. News, Susan Milligan addresses those who have raised the question of whether Logan should have been in Egypt at all.

Beyond YouTube: Free Video Online

As the semester winds down, it seems like a good opportunity to take a look at some ways you can occupy yourself over break and locate interesting material for classes in the spring. Let's take a look at some sources for free, high quality video available online. Please note that in preparing this list I have avoided some of the more familiar sources that primarily provide brief clips of programs or only recent episodes of current programs online.

Today internet users can pick and choose from far more than synchronized Christmas light shows and surfing parrots when they watch video online, all while still watching material that is both legal and free. Most people know about Hulu, the online home of a backlog of "classic" television shows, 2nd and 3rd run movies, and episodes of some current season shows. But far fewer people are aware of the availability of the Internet Movie Archive, a treasure trove of silent and unusual feature films, government films, news reels, and documentaries.

A smaller trove of films, strictly documentaries, is accessible via SnagFilms. Snag links to such well known documentary producers as the National Film Board of Canada, Lionsgate, National Geographic, and New Media. Currently viewers can view such major films as the Buena Vista Social Club, Super Size Me, Run Granny Run, Hacking Democracy, and The Times of Harvey Milk on the site. However, it's important to realize that Snag does not necessarily provide access to all of the films available on a particular site it snags from. For example, although it pulls from PBS, it only scratches the surface of this rich source of educational and documentary video. Among the shows that can be viewed extensively online are those from the American Experience, Nova, Nature, and Art21.

Looking for something inspiring or challenging? Try TED Talks. The TED series (Technology, Entertainment and Design) seek out leading thinkers and artists and ask them to present 18 minutes (approximately) worth of their ideas or performance. The subject matter can be anything from astrophysics to zoos while the performances can be in any art form. What they are all guaranteed to be is interesting. Check out some of these particularly popular talks: Ken Robinson on how schools kill creativity, Julian Assange on why the world needs Wikileaks, Jill Bolte Taylor's Stroke of insight, and Conrad Wolfram on teaching kids real math with computers. Another source of rhetorical inspiration can be found on American Rhetoric, a website dedicated to public speaking. On this site you can watch videos of powerful speakers at their best -- both real life speakers and some of the best scenes of cinema speechifying (although be aware that these change on a rotational basis for copyright reasons).

Sites that provide high quality content connected to their own cable channels and organizations are good sites to be aware of as well. For example, the Smithsonian Channel provides access to a lot of clips and several full-length programs on its site, although content is likely to change over time. Similarly National Geographic offers a lot of its material available as full episodes online. For those interested specifically in science video, Sixty Symbols, a website sponsored by the University of Nottingham, offers short videos focusing on the symbols used in astronomy in physics. AcademicEarth provides access to a variety of online courses on video, but among these is a series of videos of human anatomical dissection.

In terms of videos related to history and politics, the pickings are diverse and interesting. HaveFunWithHistory.com provides access to a wide collection of videos, mostly documentary in nature, but some old newsreel footage of the type that can be tracked down in the Internet Movie Archive. The American Memory Project of the Library of Congress includes a motion picture collection, of which 16 collections have been digitized into streaming media files available online. For those interested in politics and current affairs, nothing is quite so rich as C-SPAN's Video Library, which includes not only the recordings of floor debates and testimony, but also noteworthy events like Ted Kennedy's funeral, Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor Rally and White House correspondents' dinners. 

Vimeo is a site that focuses on user-created video, but the users who upload video to the site tend to be people  interested in getting certain kinds of high-quality information on video. So there are large collections of animation and amateur film, as well as well as videos about film making techniques and technology. It also includes music, comedy and art videos as well as science and nature videos, including whole sections on physics and chemistry. Vimeo also has several ongoing projects that users can participate in, such as "What I Like About You", "10 Second Question" and "Me Right Now".

Finally, if nothing here suits your needs, one tool that can help you find video resources on the web is OVGuide while you can also try searching using Google Video or just adding the term "video" to a regular search with a search engine. Also bear in mind that most government agencies produce and publish video to the web that may be of interest. Search the entirety of the U.S. government web via USA.gov.

Shopping Gone Wild!

The Thanksgiving holiday marks the beginning of Shoppers Gone Wild, the annual rite of consumerism that begins with Black Friday and only ends with the after-Christmas sales. Whether or not you become part of the American retail engine that engages this weekend, its history and elements are intriguing. Time magazine runs down the history of Black Friday in this article, explaining how the term originally referred to a nineteenth-century economic crash. Only later did "black" assume a more positive meaning, referring to a retailers being "in the black" of profit rather than the "red ink" of loss. Black Friday has found its online corollary in Cyber Monday, the bane of employers everywhere. Paste Magazine offers this brief history of the quasi-official start to the online shopping season.

Most Wanted 

No discussion of holiday shopping would be complete without a look back at the "it" toy of Christmases past. Buysight Insights provides a picture of all of the most popular toys from 1960 through 2008 while Forbes offers some information about popular toys from the last 100 years.  To get an in-depth view of some of the most popular toys of all time, check out the National Toy Hall of Fame, where you can find out about individual inductees, like 2010's game of Life and the Deck of Cards. Hubpages offers up its core list of 2010's most wanted gifts as well as some specialized lists as well. And Listverse offers some cautionary advice with a list of the Top 10 Most Returned Gifts.

Dark Side of Shopping

But for many people, shopping seems to have a dark side. Although it has yet to be officially recognized by the American Psychological Association (it has been recognized by the comparable German organization (Deutsche Gesellschaft Zwangserkrankungen), Compulsive Buying Disorder is certainly receiving more attention as purchasing becomes easier and easier using electronic methods.  This article in World Psychiatry is just an example. Think you or someone you know may have problems with shopping? Here's a great list of warning signs and behavioral patterns of people who shop in unhealthy ways.

Choosing to Not Shop

Not everyone opts to participate in the annual shopping fest, and some choose to go so far as to actively protest it by participating in an event called Buy Nothing Day. Buying nothing, as the organization's site makes clear, is harder than you think when you include those little unnoticed purchases like interest accrual. Here's Adbusters recommended carnivalesque alternatives to shopping on Friday. But Buy Nothing has generated criticism, much of it from the political left.

Whether you buy or don't buy, have a great beginning to the holiday season!

Plagiarism--Identify Theft of the Mind

As it gets toward the end of the academic term, it seems like a good opportunity to look over one of the thorniest academic and ethical problems -- plagiarism. With the advent of the internet, plagiarism assumed a whole new aspect in academia as the ease of the "copy" and "paste" functions made it so much simpler to manipulate blocks of text, not to mention artwork and other media. This development led to the rise and (because this is America) adjudication of plagiarism detectors such as Turnitin.com, currently used by DACC. The result is an arms race of intellectual technology.

On its surface, plagiarism seems like a relatively easy to understand concept. Here's the definition from the Student Rights and Responsibilities section in the DACC Student Handbook: "Plagiarism: Representing the words or ideas of another as one’s own in any academic exercise.  It is the student’s responsibility to properly summarize and/or paraphrase content derived from information sources and to give proper credit to each original source (according to the course documentation of citation standard), when the student has used thoughts, words, or any content from other sources in the completion of assignments."

Cultural Misunderstandings

But the problems of plagiarism often arise from communication failure. Often students simply aren't clear on exactly what constitutes plagiarism. For example, what is viewed as plagiarism, or perhaps more accurately, serious academic plagiarism, can vary culturally. Washington State University offers a good general overview of this situation, while Concordia University summarizes a study by Andrew Ryder that demonstrates that what is plagiarism in the United States is good academic practice in other locations.  Al Jamiat, a site dedicated to helping Middle-Eastern students be more successful in U.S. colleges and universities, makes it even clearer by means of a concrete example.

What to Cite

Another tricky aspect of the plagiarism problem for students arises from the issue of what constitutes Common Knowledge, that cloudy area of information that does not require citation because of its intimate familiarity. Yale Univeristy demonstrates just how murky these waters can get in an excellent site addressing the topic. Adams State College offers some additional help on making decisions about common knowledge, while Springfield Township High School's Virtual Library makes one distinction particularly nicely on its page -- the importance of citing an author's interpretation of the significance of a particular piece of common knowledge. Both the Yale and the Adams State sites emphasize the importance of students clarifying with instructors (and by inference, instructors clarifying with students) the types of things viewed as common knowledge within their own field.

When to Cite

Even when citation is needed is not quite as simple as it first looks. The answer can vary from one discipline to the next and even from one situation to another. Yale University again offers some helpful demonstrations of the problems as well as some guidelines, including situations, such as lab work and computer programs, that move beyond the simple "research paper" context that are the only introduction many students may ever get to the topic. Unfortunately, depending on their program or point in their program where they are at, many students may never get or have gotten that by the time they encounter a particular assignment. Plagiarism.org provides a useful list of many reasons that students unintentionally plagiarize information through a variety of misunderstandings.

Two important skills students need to learn, and that instructors can encourage students to continue to develop in place of extensive quotation, are how to paraphrase and summarize works properly. Here are sites that offer help on these invaluable skills: Plagiarism.org, the Online Writing Lab at Purdue, and Yale. DACC's own Writer's Room can also offer assistance in this area (as well as citation) and students should be encouraged to visit it for assistance.

Plagiarism Education

Given the various factors complicating students' understanding of plagiarism, the key to reducing plagiarism is assignment design and communication. Washington State University offers strategies to help reduce the problem. Part of that education is to provide students with a grounded understanding of why citation is important, something that most conceive of in only the vaguest terms. Some students may even believe that citing their work makes it look as though they only copied others' ideas, and it is important to clarify this misconception. For instructors who want to help their students improve their knowledge of plagiarism, here's a nifty online tutorial and quiz students can take to help them (and you!) improve their general understanding. Discipline specifics, however, will still depend on the instructor-student relationship.

Illinois' Native American Heritage

November has been set aside as time to increase Americans awareness of Native American Indian cultures and history. And cultures is in this case the appropriate term since there is no single "American Indian" identity, but many different peoples who come together under that general designation.

Chief Illiniwek

For many in downstate Illinois, the mention of the word "Indian" is most likely to conjure up the image and controversy over the former symbol of the University of Illinois. That this issue stirs deep feelings in people can be seen by the recent flare-up over a Homecoming event and the push by some for the University to adopt a new mascot. Many people who can argue passionately on the subject of the Chief know little about the true history of the Illinois people (the term Illini, by the way, is a misnomer, a meaningless term), a group of interconnected tribes that numbered at least a dozen at one point and have been reduced to one relocated tribe today -- the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma that actually contains two of the original Illinois tribes as well as the Wea and Piankashaw tribes. The Confederated Peoria shared their reservation with a portion of the Miami tribe as well. In any case, the Illinois are not an "extinct nation" but rather one whose current status has largely been misunderstood and misrepresented by outsiders.

The entire mascot issue is a vexed one for some people. They don't understand why a beloved tradition is causing such an uproar and think people are just too sensitive, while others can't understand why people have difficulty grasping the way in which racial or ethnic mascots demean people. The Honor the Chief society typifies local groups efforts to resist challenges to beloved school symbols. On the other side, Blue Corn Comics offers a good overview of why Native American mascots and logos dehumanize the people they depict. The Peoria tribe's own view on the Chief was made clear when it sent a copy of its resolution requesting the University of Illinois to cease use of Chief Illiniwek to the National Coalition on Racism in Sports and Media (Item 50.) Similarly the tribe was present when votes were taken on all resolutions by the National Congress of American Indians protesting any use of Indian "mascots, logos and symbols" as perpetuating harmful stereotypes.

Heritage and Identity

One of the thorny difficulties related to American Indian life today is that of identity. This factor comes up in relation to mascot controversies when people cite different poll numbers that allow individuals to self-identify as Native American. In these instances it is important to determine how pollsters identified their polling population. Even the population who identified themselves on the census as belonging to a Native ethnic group struggle with with  what being Native American means and who exactly is one. Excellent essays on this subject can be found in the library's American Mosaic: The American Indian Experience database (user ID and password required off campus). For readers interested in exploring their own Native American heritage, TribalDirectory offers information on how to begin.

Black Hawk

Illinois's most famous Native American historical figure is probably Black Hawk, although there are certainly others with ties to the state that played important historical roles, such as Ely Parker and Keokuk. This legendary leader of the Sauk led his people in a war against the U.S. army over what the Sauk and Fox nations saw as an illegal treaty (or at best a misunderstanding) that was forcing them to surrender lands they regarded as theirs in Illinois and move across the Mississippi. For a detailed look at the events and personalities of the war, check out the Black Hawk War of 1832 sponsored by Northern Illinois University's Lincoln/Net digitization project. Black Hawk's autobiography is available for free online through Project Gutenberg.

Cahokia Mounds

The largest archeological site in the United States is here in Illinois at Cahokia Mounds, which is the largest prehistoric Native American city north of Mexico. It also includes the third largest pyramid in the Americas in Monks Mound. During the period from 1,100 to 1,200 A.D. this city, the name of which remains unknown, covered more than 6 square miles and encompassed a population of more than 15,000 and 20,000. It would be more than 600 years before another city in what is now the U.S. would attain this population (Philadelphia) and by that point the Cahokia were long gone. Another factor making the Cahokia site unique is the apparent large scale human sacrifice that was included as cultural practice during at least part of their existence, at least according to Cahokia scholar Timothy Pauketat. This Washington Post story provides a good summary of the civilization and its history.

Piasa Monster

And finally for flights of fancy, few beat Alton, Illinois' Piasa Bird or Piasa Monster. According to some, the Piasa bird is a legendary beast portrayed in a petroglyph by the Illinois Indians on the bluffs of the Mississippi River. Others remain firmly convinced that the "legend" was a story crafted by whites in the 1800s. In either case, it remains an engaging story of the way the two cultures interact with one another.

Explore other interesting sources of American Indian heritage at: the Native American Heritage Month site, which provides access to all of the major government resources related to the celebration.

Comics: A Brave New World

For those of you who saw the Holy Homework, Batman! Comics in the Classroom! presentation at in-service, the powerpoint is now available online. It includes a useful, partially annotated bibliography for those interested in exploring the subject further. You can access the presentation through the Faculty Information link on the Library's Home Page, where you will also find information on how to make student research projects more successful, the value of scheduling research instruction to improve student success, how to put materials and textbooks on reserve and the advantages to your students of doing so, and how to request that library purchase specific materials.

The possibilities for enjoying and working with comics have multiplied radically with the internet. Just as comics themselves have undergone a revolution in content, style and genre, the ways in which people can interact with them have as well. Interested in finding comics? Various comics can be read online, from contemporary strip comics at Comics.com to some of the more obscure (and justifiably so -- yes, I'm referring to you Yank and Doodle) Golden Age titles. Then check The Webcomic List, an archive catalog of regularly updated web comics that provides rankings, user comments, a most recent update posting, and a forum for discussions related to web comic topics. (Webcomics you may want to investigate: xkcd, 1.00 FTE, and The Oatmeal (off-color but funny).

Tools to Create Comics

Even people who regard themselves as non-artists have tools that enable them to create comics and comic books online. And depending upon the nature of what users want to do, the degree of sophistication of the results can be amazing. For example, Marvel provides a site that lets users write their own comic book or comic using templates of characters, backgrounds, etc. As with any tool of this nature, options are strictly controlled. The characters are restricted in terms of poses and are all in teenage motifs. Similar sites that let users play around with familiar characters are the South Park Create an Avatar, which let's you assemble a South Park character that looks any way you want it too, and Simpsonize Me or the Create a Simpsons Avatar from the Simpsons Movie site, which let you turn yourself into a Simpsons character. HeroMachine 2.5 lets you create your own Superhero, while Joystiq Mii Characters lets you create Miis (as used in Wii games) that can move free from the video game.

Want panel templates to use yourself or to give to students for comic project? The web provides multiples sources. Comic strip printables offers a variety of non-standard layouts in addition to a full complement of more traditional panel patterns. The Create a Comic Project's Template page has further non-standard panels to add to your collection. Here is a simulated full script for a comic book that instead explains how the manuscript functions to guide the artwork. The Read.Write.Think Project has a Comic Creator that enables users to assemble a very simple comic using standard elements. Of even more use, potentially, is the planning sheet sheet, which can guide novice strip writers through the process of creation. A much better simple construction tool is Make Beliefs Comix creator, which lets users change characters emotions and add other elements that are more important to older potential cartoonists.

Toondoo is comic creation with a flexible range of options. The site that lets users participate as individuals or lets educators subscribe for extremely reasonable rates based on time and number of users. The educator option enables instructors too create social networks, embed the site elsewhere, get additional clip art with an educational focus, customize their clip art and monitor the site in ways not available to individual users.

Especially for Teachers

TeachingComics.org is a web site that while primarily focused on material for those teaching about comics has plenty of useful resources for those who are instead teaching with comics. The handouts and exercises both contain very valuable resources to increase both an instructor's and students' understanding of the medium. Want more information about comics as a form? Here are some good sites to investigate: Artbomb.net (check out Jessica Abel's quick introduction) and Comics Worth Reading.

And in time for Halloween...

A couple of free creepy Halloween comic books online!