Planning and Finishing Off

I frantically spent the day trying to complete my very short paper on the Digital Divide. My mind has been focused, my ix monthly viva and ‘confirmation’ hearing is approaching in just three weeks. I need to seriously get to grips with defining my and thatching out my proposal in the next week.

DialogClassic Lesson No. 2

I delivered my second lesson today, is section on the MSc course is a comprise of a set of four. After many years of being a student it certainly was strange to see the class from the other side of the fence. This shift or perspective change was hammered home, when we stared to discuss their assignment and I was giving them pointers which allayed their some of their fears.

Lesson Planning

OK – today I diarised the morning for preparing for tomorrows lecture. As unusual, it took far longer than I pencilled in. By the time I wrote a lesson plan, power point and arranged some additional exercises it took the whole day. I also amended my CV and biography for the University’s webpage’s http://www.leedsmet.ac.uk/inn/Christopher_Walker.htm

Lesson Planning

Today I spent my time dusting off my old notes from my PGCE course completed some years ago. Tomorrow the department is letting me loose on a group of real fee paying students. My job for the next four Thursday morning is to teaching the MSc group DialogClassic searching. A command based suite of databases. Well, they can’t say that I am not prepared!

Day at the Leisure Club

OK – today no work. It is the schools half term and by boy Sam is off. So off we go to the ‘gym’ as a family for swimming and something to eat. By ‘gym’, I should calling by its proper title ‘leisure club’—that sounds a little too fancy for me!

Planning Day

Another day finishing off my digit divide paper, it still needs properly checking and re-writing in parts. I think I need to be a lot less critical with my work. In my mind, I have the though that this needs to be at a academic certain level. My next project should be a paper on Web 2.0, I will put this on hold until I have reviewed and firmed up my proposal for my up and coming first six month viva in November. That will be my work for the rest of the week after I have prepared for Thursday lecture.

Teaching - D-day

Arrive at the University campus nice and early, double check the workbooks and notes. Off to the computer room, where I will be running the session. Doh! mental block what is my system login….

The session from my perspective, flew by – I loved it—I hope the class did too. I have forgotten how much I love teaching.

Digital Divide

More time on this ‘quick summary’ of the digital divide. It is a hugely interesting area of research, which has many links into information literacy. A lot of the research deals with bridging the technological gap between those how can and do afford the technology and those who can’t – aka the haves and the have not’s. This is reflected in different contexts i.e. between nations and also with societies. An interesting reflection is that in countries such as the UK, access to the technology is narrowing (divergence of technology: mobile internet access, internet access through your Xbox etc), this is re-focusing the question away from the technological ‘haves’ and ‘have not’s’ towards those who have the skills to use the technology namely … information literacy (or ICT skills).

Here is an interesting quote from the Oxford Internet Survey 2007 :

The 2007 Oxford Internet Survey (OxIS) reports that in 2000 only about one third of Britons had access to the internet; by 2007 over two thirds had access to the internet, of who four out of five used a broadband connection. The OxIS also observes that in 2005 internet users were more likely to use a search engine and specific webpage’s they may bookmark to look form information, however, by 2007 they were much more likely to primarily use search engines (p.66).

Digital Divide

There are two articles I have just read, as I am trying to get a handle on the ‘Digital Divide.’ These article are:

• Van Dijk and Hacker (2003) The digital divide as a complex and dynamic phenomenon
• Yu (2006) Understanding information inequality.

Both of these articles provided a taste of what is a large area of study with many facets and subsets; whether you are looking at the digital divide from an international nation state perspective or from an individual citizens access to local information. It is going to be difficult to write a brief summary paper of only 2000 words on this subject!

Anyone got any other recommendations for articles to read?

Digital Divide

Today I start on another small project – a brief review of the Digital Divide. Wanting to learn from the mistakes of my previous small project on Information Seeking Behaviour I must limit this to 2000 words and not go overboard with references.

Teaching getting closer

Today I collected the work books I had amended and needed photocopying for the teaching I will be doing of the MSc Information Studies course. I will be teaching Dialog Classic, so need spent the afternoon brushing up on my command based searching. It has been sometime since I used command based searching, but it is coming back to me! I will still need to work through the workbook and course material prior to next Thursday and my first lecture.

Beyond a joke

It is getting beyond a joke – this very brief summary of the development of information seeking behaviour has taken far too long. Nevertheless, it has been a very interesting journey, with numerous visits to the British Library following those references. I will finish it today – promise.

No time in the day

Where are the day’s going? This week has vanished before my eyes. I have been very busy putting a piece of work I started in July – a brief historiography of information seeking. It is only three thousand words, but has taken me far too long. Too many visits to the British Library—I also feel that I am such a slow writer, especially when I allow myself to get distracted following up more references!

DialogClassic Workbook

Today I spent the day looking through and amending the workbook and material I will be teaching in a few weeks time. Essentially, I will be teaching DialogClassic to the Masters Students. As with all of these things, the work book needs updating especially as Dialog have changed the interface. I need to get this book into reprographics – that’s tomorrow’s job!

Barriers to information

Harris, R. M., & Dewdney: (1994). Barriers to information: How formal help systems fail battered women. Westport, CN: Greenwood Press.

Here is an excellent book that I have been looking reading. The book is very easy to read (that’s always good for me) and concludes with their influential six principles, illustrating way in which citizens can overcome information barriers.