Showcase Was Just the Beginning

Okay, after sweating over deadlines over the last few months, I nearly missed the big one. Happily, I did get my showcase project together in time, complete with GROWTh brochure and PowerPoint presentation (albeit just the first part). I also did a portfolio timeline to illustrate how my learning journey has spanned the last three decades.

Now the real work begins. It's time to start expanding and updating the "Search Me...!" presentation so we can start using it. You, my illustrious readers, can help by reviewing it and posting your feedback here on my blog. I plan to post updates as it comes together this summer, after which I hope to use it in a college prep program in the fall.


Showcase was a lot of fun, as usual. Although I understand the value of independent, distance learning in the 21st Century, I have to admit my favorite parts of LATI were the face-to-face gatherings. Not only was it nice to network with folks, the food was pretty good, too!

Here are a few pics from Showcase, held June 19.

My display—compact yet compelling.


Compared to other displays, mine was vertically-challenged.


Honore does the honors.


So glad it's over!

Showcase Project

I've loaded part of it to the bottom of this blog, but haven't yet figured out how to get the narration to play. Many of the slides won't make sense without narration.

Things are further complicated by the fact that I'm building the darn thing in Office 2007, while Google Docs only supports Office 1997-2003.

←Hair ripped out over my 35 LATI resource evaluations, officially due today.

A Whole New Mess?

A few reflections on the first three chapters of Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind:

[Note: This entry is a work in progress.]

Pink's book centers on the idea that the post-information age economy will require right-brained thinking—i.e., a creative, synthetic approach that is qualitatively different from the past. Whereas past "progress" was attained through the agricultural, industrial and information revolutions, Pink now sees the beginning of a "conceptual age" in which less rigid, goal-directed thinking is more valuable than the old systematic approaches.

While the "three A's" that Pink identifies—Abundance, Asia, and Automation—have definitely transformed the world's economy, my question to him would be: Aren't these things unsustainable? Continued abundance has already wreaked havoc on the environment, Asia is already severely overpopulated, and automation—essentially a fuel-based phenomenon—is bumping up against the earth's environmental limits. If we move past these stages of development without questioning whether they really constituted progress, where's it all going to end? Is Pink's hypothesis about the conceptual age predicated on us continuing to push up against the limits of sustainability?

Resource Evaluation Matrix

Sexy post title, I know.

Okay, I'm being sarcastic again. But those close to me are aware that I've been bashing my head against the wall over the 35 resource evaluations we have to submit for LATI. I've only entered 17 so far and they are due next week! Where did the time go?

My plan is to pull the rest of them together before the weekend. To that purpose, I had to make a chart to keep track of all the subject categories and genres we are supposed to cover. Rather than e-mail it to myself over and over again, I'm keeping it in Google Docs, so I can continue to update it over the next few days.

While we are allowed some overlapping of items, I believe the chart is necessary to make sure that I have a total of 35 different resources. That's because the "counter" on the intranet tallies things a second time if you copy and paste them into a different category. So using one resource in two different categories results in a total that is artificially high.

At least, I think that's how it works. The LATI coordinators attempted a clarifying explanation a couple of weeks ago, but I can't say that I was any less confused after reading it.

Google-MedlinePlus Challenge

1. Topic: Pancreatic cancer.

2. Google search on "pancreatic cancer" brought up about 3,030,000 hits in 0.32 seconds.

3. Top three hits:

General Information about Pancreatic Cancer, National Cancer Institute (http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/treatment/pancreatic/patient)

"Pancreatic Cancer," EMedicineHealth (http://www.emedicinehealth.com/pancreatic_cancer/article_em.htm)

"Pancreatic Cancer," Mayo Clinic (http://www.mayoclinic.org/pancreatic-cancer)

4. National Cancer Institute, the first hit, has the most useful, easy-to-understand information. The Mayo Clinic's site seems geared toward patients who will be treated there, while EMedicineHealth's site has only very basic information, with few details.

5. MedlinePlus search on "pancreatic cancer" brought up 349 hits, including a preview of its main article on the disease. Clicking through to that page brings up a comprehensive linked index to subtopics such as treatment, research and current news.

6. a. I found MedlinePlus's results to be more useful and accurate than Google's.

6. b. In future I think I will start with MedlinePlus for information on health issues. Google is a little hit-or-miss while Medline has more tailored results.

Yikes

Okay, I'm freaking out a little bit today.

Thursday we got our weekly LATI e-mail and it seems I am really behind in getting the work done for this program.

Last week we spent 16 hours in face-to-face sessions, which only left me four hours of outside work time. Meanwhile, there seems to have been extra homework assigned last week (the intergenerational programming, readers' advisory, basic reference challenge and health information modules all culminated last week)! And because I was gone all week, I was sorely needed on the desk at my branch. So I had zero time to work on LATI assignments just when those assignments were heavier than usual.

One of the e-mails we received noted that we should be spending roughly 45 minutes on each resource evaluation, completing four to five of them a week. That would mean a commitment of nearly four hours a week—practically all my time off the information desk—just on resource reviews. Is it any surprise that I'm waaaay behind on those reviews?

Today we are scheduled to be in Baltimore all day. Again, I'm out of the branch and expected to be there tomorrow. Yesterday I was on the information desk for all but a half hour, and I needed that time just to recover from the rush of reference questions we had. Tomorrow the most I can expect is to have about three hours off the desk, but even that's not enough to get caught up at this point.

I realize that I'm probably kvetching to the choir here, but there just isn't enough time to do the assignments for this program. Again, I will be using my personal time because my branch simply doesn't have any leeway with extra hours right now.

Am I alone in feeling utterly overtaken by LATI assignments? I seriously feel like giving up sometimes.