SOTEs, wikis, ToteBoard and Transformations

Answers to common questions:

1. What is the difference between the class wiki and the bibliography?
A: The "class" wiki is where you enter your main synthesized points from your reading. It only exists as long as the class does so if you intend to use it for your e-porfolio, save your entries and/or a screenshot of your work. You can learn a ton by reading points that others have added in 1/10th the time it would have taken you to read all the articles and something might catch your eye as a must read.

The Bibliography, or pathfinder will grow every semester as we all add the best citations and a one line annotation. By providing a great descriptions you are creating a resource that could be used by anyone anywhere. Want the best articles on what a library facility should be? Consult the bibliography wiki for the best of the best.

Note of caution- A wiki, by its very nature, is never finished. The reading and wiki entries were meant to be done the first month so don't spend so much time on this that you run out of time for the larger assignments.

Much of the Knowville Website is also a wiki. It is a different wiki with different passwords and links. You all will be wiki masters by the end of this which is important because wikis are currently considered one of the most powerful collaborative tools.

2. What is a SOTE?
The last assignment is the "SOTE" or "Student Opinion of Teaching Effectiveness". It's a survey conducted at the end of the semester, much like an evaluation form. SLIS will release it at the end of the semester with instructions how to anonymously access it and in Blackboard you submit the date you sucessfully finished the survey (takes about 10 minutes) and get easy points. Note of caution- The SOTE submission period is finite. There is a certain date after which it cannot be submitted so be sure to do it between the posted dates. We will remind you.

3. I can't add to the Knowville Toteboard using my hotmail/yahoo/whoohoo account, how do I do it?
The Knowville Toteboard is a collaborative Google Document, another of the foremost online collaborative tools today. In order to make changes you must receive an invitation to your gmail account from Robin Williams. If you got an invitation to another account, simply send me an email with your gmail account address: whomever@gmail.com and I will add you as a "collaborator".

4. What is a Transformation?
Transformations are assignments for the 250 Instuctional Design Class that take old, tired lessons and transform them into dynamic deep-thought lessons. It's fantastic stuff, but nothing you need to worry about for this class. If you want to learn more about them Ban Those Bird Units is a fantastic interesting and well written book that gives you 15 clear models for transforming education. I wish that I had known about this book when I was a teacher!

5. What is the Second Life Assignment?
Second Life is being used by more and more libraries and universities and was an entire day's topic at Internet Libarian 2007. We have been putting Knowville into Second Life, making it come alive in 3D. We invited students who completed the 2D aspect to come into Second Life and create their vision "in-world". Everyone is at different stages technologically so the focus for most will be getting the regular part of Knowville completed. If you finish that I suggest you get a free account and search for "Knowville" to see the 3D build. If you email me when you're done with orientation island, I can give you a tour. You don't have to love virtual worlds, but with so many users it wouldn't hurt to have an idea of what everyone is talking about. We are in the knowledge biz. If you have mad SL skillz and are already in SL, let me know and I can get you started making something cool in the Knowville build. Realistically SL is very time intensive for building so although it would be amazing to have you all in there building, it's not incredibly likely and therefore not required or expected. So you might call the "Second Life" assignment the "Knowville" assignment.

The iGoogle personalized homepage for your library is a very simple, yet cutting edge solution and you are now experts. The evidence you are submitting would be great for your e-portfolio. Also the library community is very interested in how these and other web 2.0 tools could be used. I don't think it would be hard to publish an article on your use of it in a school and your CV would love to have a "Publications" section.

Good luck!
Robin