New Books for October

Take a look at the New Books list for October 2009. Some notable new titles in the Gibson Library:


The Cambridge companion to Piaget / edited by Ulrich Müller, Jeremy I.M. Carpendale, Leslie Smith.
New York : Cambridge University Press, 2009.
BF 723 C5 C35 2009






Handbook of child development and early education : research to practice / edited by Oscar A. Barbarin, Barbara Banna Wasik.
New York : Guilford Press, c2009.
HQ 772 H33 2009



Academic motivation and the culture of school in childhood and adolescence / [edited by] Cynthia Hudley, Adele Eskeles Gottfried.
Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2008.
LB 1065 A225 2008



Redefining teacher development / Jonathan Neufeld.
London ; New York : Routledge, 2009.
LB 1715 N484 2009








Beyond reflective practice : new approaches to professional lifelong learning / edited by Helen Bradbury ... [et al.].
London ; New York : Routledge, 2010.
LC 5215 B5 2010







And for fun (shelved alphabetically in the popular reading collection [main floor of Library]):

The little stranger / Sarah Waters.






Her fearful symmetry : a novel / Audrey Niffenegger.






Too much happiness : stories / Alice Munro.






The year of the flood : a novel / Margaret Atwood.

New e-reference book

We now have access to 21st Century Education: A Reference Handbook. This reference e-book "...offers 100 chapters written by leading experts in the field that highlight the most important topics, issues, questions, and debates facing educators today" (from the Sage website). You can access the item through the Library catalogue.

Open Access Week

What is Open Access?

Open Access is the principle that all research should be freely accessible online, immediately after publication. Open-access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. What makes it possible is the internet and the consent of the copyright-holder.

Why does Open Access matter?

Open Access encourages the unrestricted sharing of research results with everyone, everywhere, for the advancement of knowledge and benefit to society.

For more information:

• What Faculty can do to promote Open Access
• What Universities and Administrators can do to promote Open Access
• What Research Funders can do to promote Open Access

--from http://www.library.brocku.ca/openaccess.htm

What do I need to know about the Library?

This is the Powerpoint from a session I did for EDUC 5P63, but it is applicable for anyone who wants to know a bit about library research here at Brock. This will also be posted at https://learning.library.brocku.ca/ along with some other great online tutorials. Check them out!

Educ 5P63

View more presentations from jthiessen.

Tours of the Learning Commons

If you are new to Brock or if you have not yet had a look around the new Learning Commons, we are offering tours during the first couple of weeks of classes. Tours of the Matheson Learning Commons and Library will be offered at 11am and 3pm daily Monday-Friday from September 8-11 and September 14-18. Tours begin at the posted sign near the south entrance and last approximately 20 minutes.

Study Carrel Application now available

Calling all graduate students! Applications are now available for study carrels. Application deadline is Sept. 18th, 2009. Apply now.

New Titles for May 2009

A list of new books ordered in May 2009 is available on the Library website.

Some notable titles:

Creating and sustaining online professional learning communities / edited by Joni K. Falk and Brian Drayton ; foreword by Marcia C. Linn.
LB 1731 C692 2009




The qualitative dissertation : a guide for students and faculty / Maria Piantanida, Noreen B. Garman ; foreword by Frances Schoonmaker.
LB 2369 P48 2009




Service-learning and the liberal arts : how and why it works / edited by Craig A. Rimmerman.
LC 220.5 S4554 2009





Ethical practices and implications in distance learning / Ugur Demiray, Ramesh C. Sharma [editors].
LC 5800 E84 2009





Also, be sure to take a look at new titles in the IRC.

Is there a title you would like to see in our collection? Suggest a title using this online form.

Exporting book records from WorldCat to Refworks

It is easy to export book records from WorldCat to Refworks, but you do need to create an account in WorldCat. Once you sign up, you can add books to your list and from there export records to your Refworks account.

Watch this short video to see how it works: Exporting Records from WorldCat to Refworks.

Questions? Contact me for help.

How to Write a Literature Review

Thanks to Karen Bordonaro for sharing her slides on writing a literature review:

How to Write a Literature Review

View more OpenOffice presentations from jthiessen.

persistent linking to articles

Setting up a course in Sakai? Want to provide an easy way for your students to access articles?

See this Library page on creating persistent links to journal articles: http://www.library.brocku.ca/help/plinks.htm.

Need help? Talk to me.

more on twitter

Everyone's a-twitter:

Sounds like a lot of people are like me...create an account, tweet a bit and then that's it:
Quitters clipping Twitter's wings (CBC Online)

But Twitter keeps popping up as an educational tool--with thanks to Prof. Camille Rutherford for this one:
Professors experiment with Twitter as teaching tool (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

And a laugh for the middle of the week:
To Tweet or Not to Tweet (NY Times)

Earth Day Resources

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not." – Dr. Seuss.

Today is Earth Day--celebrate Earth Day in your classroom today and every day. Take a look at some of these resources:

Earth Day Canada Official Website

EcoKids (Earth Day Canada)

Some great resources here: from colouring pages to activities.

Also, check out Celebrating Earth Day with EcoKids for some more background on Earth Day and links to activity ideas.

Free Educational Resources for Educators (Environment Canada)

Lesson plans and teacher resources for ages 5 through 18 on topics such as nature and wildlife, water conservation, climate change and more.

Ready, Set, Green! Tips, Techniques and Resources from Ontario's Educators (PDF)

Prepared by the Ontario Ministry of Education to support effective environmental education and environmentally sound practices in Ontario schools.

For great books, e-books and other resources in our libary, try searching using keywords like sustainable, environmental education, environment, conservation, etc.

Some to try:

Character and environment : a virtue-oriented approach to environmental ethics / Ronald L. Sandler.

9TH FLOOR OF LIBRARY
GE 42 S26 2007

Understanding sustainable development / John Blewitt

9TH FLOOR OF LIBRARY
HC 79 E5 B58 2008

The David Suzuki reader / David Suzuki

9TH FLOOR OF LIBRARY
GF 50 S89 2003

Go green, live rich : 50 simple ways to save the Earth and get rich trying / David Bach
POPULAR READING 2ND FLOOR
Shelved alphabetically by author

50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice

From The Chronicle of Higher Education, Geoffrey K. Pullum writes, "April 16 is the 50th anniversary of the publication of a little book that is loved and admired throughout American academe. Celebrations, readings, and toasts are being held, and a commemorative edition has been released.

I won't be celebrating.

The Elements of Style does not deserve the enormous esteem in which it is held by American college graduates. Its advice ranges from limp platitudes to inconsistent nonsense. Its enormous influence has not improved American students' grasp of English grammar; it has significantly degraded it."

Read more

do you twitter?

I first read about Twitter in a discarded newspaper I was reading on a shuttle bus to the Baltimore airport after a conference. I remember turning to my colleague and saying "Have you heard about this twitter thing? I can't imagine how this could be of any use to me!" And well, I'm still not sure, but it seems I hear about twitter almost every day.

Briefly put, twitter is a social messaging service that lets others see your short updates in real-time. The Brock Library has at twitter account, and you can follow along here: http://twitter.com/brock_library.

Twitter is even being used in education circles--some links that explore this:

See this post on using twitter in academia.

50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Education

Twitter Tweets for Higher Education

I just signed up for my twitter account today (jen_thiessen), so I will hopefully learn something and continue sharing with you my twitter discoveries.

I'm back!

Just a short post to let everyone know that I am back from my maternity leave. I have reduced my workload by a bit, so I will be on campus Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, although I will likely be around on other days as well. You can always reach me by email--I check it an awful lot and it is probably the best way to get in touch with me.

I will be looking after most areas of Education, but Karen Bordonaro will be the contact person for the M.Ed. ISP and the PMPCP. Karen can be reached at ext. 4423 or kbordonaro@brocku.ca.

Please contact me if you have any questions about Library resources, if you need any help with your Library research, or if you have any suggestions for the collection. I can be reached at ext. 3573 or by email jthiessen@brocku.ca. You can also chat with me through Meebo if I am online.

Cheers!