Beanworks

The first issue of Code4Lib Journal is now available, thanks to the efforts of Jonathan Rochkind, who spearheaded getting a group of volunteers to put it all together and get it up on the web. The journal’s mission is “to foster community and share information among those interested in the intersection of libraries, technology, and the future.” Jonathan’s Editorial Introduction explains it all.

It is worth taking a look at, and keeping an eye on, whether you are involved in libraries or not. (As an aside, I happen to be one of the editors)

This comes from Karen Vargas, via the Seniorserv discussion list. The National Institute on Aging has created a Toolkit for Trainers, with guides and curriculum for use in training seniors in Web skills and finding health information. From the press release:

Trainers who download the toolkit at <www.nihseniorhealth.gov/toolkit> will receive a set of materials they can customize to their students’ skill levels and interests. These include lesson plans, student handouts, Web searching exercises and illustrated glossaries. An introductory video gives a quick overview of the curriculum and a glimpse of Internet classes in action. Tips on how to set up a senior-friendly computer classroom also are provided

I have only glanced at the class materials. What really caught my eye was the “Quick Tips for a Senior Friendly Computer Classroom,” under “Training Tips” near the bottom of the page. It is a nicely done PDF with a very organized way of looking at training seniors. There are several suggestions I had not thought of before (or hadn’t thought seriously about), such as asking the students if they are comfortable being addressed by their first name, and providing space on handouts for students to take notes. I can attest that the rest of the suggested tactics work well (full disclosure: one of my articles is cited in the bibliography).

There are only a couple suggestions I would take issue with. The first is the suggestion to keep class length to around 90 minutes or less. My rule of thumb, from experience, is 60 minutes or less. The other suggestion is to have students work in pairs during hands-on activities. It sounds like a good idea and does work well some of the time. But on many occasions I have also seen pairing students become a detriment to one of the two students. This usually happens when one is significantly more advanced on the computer than the other, or when the two are married. In both cases, one will dominate and the other will passively allow the other to control the session, and learn nothing.

That said, this is a guide that should be in every trainer’s hands as they prepare for classes and training sessions with seniors. Definitely check out the materials.

Back from California, and the IL 2007 Conference. Posts from the sessions are on the NCR Library Sandbox. (Look in the category links for conferences) They are also listed under “Recent Posts” on the right side of the page.

Although I didn’t get to all of the programs I wanted to, I did get to Greg Notess’ Search Engine Strategies, Danny Sullivan’s The Future of Search, and a very fast Next Generation Library Interface presentation by Marshall Breeding during the lunch break. Lots of good stuff all around.

Nearly everyone who takes computer classes at our library does not want a book about how to use a computer. The typical response is, “I can’t learn by reading a book. I have to be shown how to do it.” There are many different learning styles. Some learn by watching. Some learn by listening. Some learn by taking notes. Some learn by doing and re-doing. All of us learn from mistakes.

Older adults, although they are more careful, in order to avoid making mistakes (one of the reasons they go more slowly), and despite their best efforts, will make mistakes while learning to use the computer. To those of us who grew up with computers or live with computers now, the mistakes can seem pretty incredible. More importantly, those newbie mistakes are usually easy to fix, so the typical response is to just fix it for them with one or two mouse clicks.

With very few exceptions, however, it is better to allow them to fix their mistakes by telling them what happened, why it happened, and walking them through, step by step, how to fix it. Although it takes longer, if they made the mistake once, they will probably do it again, so learning how to fix it themselves is important. It also helps take the mystery out of computers and raises their confidence level. Sometimes we even help them make a mistake, if it’s a common one, just to teach them how to fix it. For example, sooner or later they are all going to click the right mouse button and get a popup context menu. So, when training novices, we tell them to click the right mouse button, then explain what they are seeing and why, and how to close the popup menu.

Tip #8: Mistakes are learning opportunities. Teach them how to fix their mistakes.

I am in Monterey for the Internet Librarian 2007 Conference. I will be posting from here to the NCR Library Sandbox for those interested.

Before coming here, I spent the weekend with my brother nearby, who was a great tourguide. Pictures of some of the stuff we did in Mountain View are here, Muir Woods and San Francisco are here, and the coast (Ano Nuevo) are here.

Pictures from Monterey are here.

The older we get, the more we know. But sometimes that gets in the way of learning (see Tip #5). The process of learning, of itself, becomes more difficult due to factors in aging. Learning new concepts for familiar terms inserts a certain level of confusion into the process, enhanced by the declining ability to exclude the prior associations with those terms in order to learn the new associations. Frequently combined with this is a decline in hearing, caused by both physical and cognitive factors. The physical factor is the declining ability to hear sounds. The cognitive factor is the declining ability to distinguish sounds, caused by cognitive slowing and by neural noise (random signals that are unrelated to actual stimulus). This means what is actually getting through (what can be heard) is getting lost in distractions of prior associations and unrelated associations as the person attempts to “decode” it and make sense of it, causing increased difficulty in understanding what is being said. When this happens in the context of learning new terms and concepts, the ability to hear and understand becomes even more strained.

Rapid speech is obviously not going to work well with this group in a setting where they are learning something new. But slowing down the speed will not completely solve the problem. It is just as important to be very precise and explicit, and to enunciate clearly. Keep in mind many consonant sounds are similar. To older adults with hearing problems, words like com and con sound the same, and they may not have learned enough about the Internet to put “com” into context.

Because of the declines in hearing, context becomes even more important to older adults’ ability to decipher and understand speech. Precise and explicit speech will help keep them on track and in the correct context. For example, spelling out what is to be typed is a good idea, and to be more precise you could use phonetic alphabet words (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, etc.) to indicate the specific letters. But unless you explicitly say, for example, “type the letters C as in Charlie, O as in Oscar, M as in Mike…” some will just start typing the words you say.

Tip #7: To lessen the effects of hearing loss and related issues of aging, speak slowly, using language that is precise and explicit.

Generation MySpace, Helping Your Teen Survive Online Adolescence, by Candice M. Kelsey, Marlow & Company, 2007. Available from Amazon, among others.

“Sheesh! Another MySpace thing! Mom, MySpace is really not that big a deal!” –My son, on seeing the book.

And therein is the point of the book. This is not a book for teens; it is an attempt to bridge the generation gap between parents and their children, using MySpace as the point of departure.

The author is a middle school teacher in California who has supplemented her personal experience with extensive research. There are no footnotes, but expert commentary and research is well documented within the text. There is also a “Resources” section at the back of the book, listing sources by chapter, as well as a “Recommended Reading, Surfing, and Viewing” section, also broken down by chapter.

There are few holds barred as the author delves into the current world of teens. In the first chapter the author points out that it’s not all about MySpace, it’s about social networking sites, of which MySpace is the largest. She then proceeds to explain why social networking is so important to teens and how it fits into the overall picture of their lives. In doing so, she exposes the terms and terminology they use and their current cultural context. Although she gives frequent warnings, if you are not prepared for language that would have been offensive in prior generations, you may want to skip this book and try one of the others available.

But the author is not trying to shock as much as to wave red flags. She and many experts say MySpace is not the problem, it is simply a symptom of a larger cultural shift. Kelsey believes, and offers good documentation, that the shift is driven by media and consumerism. With the red flags she also offers advice on dealing with the negative issues surrounding MySpace. The first step, also recommended by other authors of MySpace books, is to visit this part of a teen’s “world” by creating a MySpace account and looking around. There is a guided tour through the process, beginning with Chapter 2, “Pimped Out: Anatomy of a Profile.” The author recommends not going straight to your child’s profile, but using the experience to understand the world of today’s teens by seeing it through their eyes. There is a chapter later in the book devoted to assessing your child’s MySpace involvement, and strategies to use.

Overall, the book is well written and well documented, promoting strategies that are recommended by experts for dealing with teens and MySpace. The book overall also has an alarmist tone, and uses very frank language. For the clueless parent (including the one(s) thinking, “Not MY teen!”), this is probably a good thing. But it may not be the book for every parent. If you want a full picture of the teen world and teens on MySpace, this book should top your list. If you’d rather not know all the gory details, but still want to know how to approach MySpace, consider something like MySpace Unraveled, by Larry Magid and Anne Collier (reviewed here).

Back to the beginning quote: he’s right. I have two teens on MySpace, and for them it isn’t a big deal. It’s their world. I also have a MySpace account, which I set up over a year ago to find out what it was all about. They, and their friends, seemed to think it was awesome that I was in MySpace.

October 29-31 is the Internet Librarian 2007 conference. I’ll be part of the panel on Information Literacy in the Public Library, Monday afternoon. There’s a preliminary program here.

Meanwhile, the Florida Association of Computer User Groups has their Fall Conference on October 6, in Orlando, Florida. I will be leading a roundtable discussion on blogging.

In between conferences and other fun stuff, I was persuaded to organize another Software Freedom Day locally. Last year’s event highlighted some of the disconnect between expectations and reality among the visitors. The expectation seemed to be that Linux could resurrect any machine: “Here’s my computer. It’s 18 years old, and I used to use DOS on it. Help me put Linux on it so I can use it again.” Needless to say, we were totally unprepared for that. But I have since found that there are a lot of people out there who think buying a computer should be a once in a lifetime event. Well, maybe I exaggerate, but not much! I think I’d better dust off the dinosaur distros for this year’s event, just in case.

Here’s our announcement:

• The Palm Beach County Linux User Group is proud to announce its second SoftwareFreedom Day/Installfest as part of SoftwareFreedom Day 2007, the biggest international celebration and outreach event for Software Freedom globally, with hundreds of teams from all around the world participating. This year the Palm Beach County Linux User Group will be hosting the event at the North County Regional Library, 11303 Campus Drive, in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, from 10:00 AM to 12:00 P.M. on September 15, 2007. Google Map location is here.

  As part of the SoftwareFreedom Day celebration, the Palm Beach County Linux User Group will be giving away CD’s with free and open source software for Windows and Macintosh computers, including programs for graphics editing, browsing, word processing, anti-virus, e-mail, web editing, and games. Free CD’s of the popular Ubuntu Linux operating system will be available, as well as demonstrations of Linux, and assistance installing Ubuntu on personal computers. Monitors will be provided for those bringing a CPU to install Linux on.

  Stop by for giveaways, demonstrations, and to learn about Linux, a free and open source operating system available for any type of computer.

Unlike last year, we will probably get some curious people just from those passing by, on their way into the library. I wonder how many other libraries are venues for Software Freedom Day? It seemed like a natural to me (although it wasn’t my idea), since libraries are also in the business of open access, freedom, and making materials available for free (but for a limited time!). What’s really amazing to me is the sheer numbers of places all over the globe that are doing this.

Here is an example of a handout created in OpenOffice.org Writer, using screenshots:

The post on how to do this in MSWord is here. This particular post applies to OpenOffice.org 2.0 on Windows. Although most of the handouts on the ncrlab eSnips page were done in MSWord (a few are in WordPerfect), I actually use OpenOffice.org for handouts now instead of MSWord. It’s just more portable. It’s also easier in some ways (although there are a few minor gripes I have).

Since this is Windows, get screenshots using the Print Screen key and the Paint program, as described here. Once you have the images saved, open the OpenOffice.org Writer (select “Text Document” from the options). Click on the View menu, then go to the Toolbars submenu and click on the Drawing option to make the drawing toolbar available:

The toolbar will be visible at the bottom of the page. To insert an image into the page, click on the button on the draw toolbar to insert an image from file.

Navigate through the dialog box to the picture you want to insert (in this case, the large one from the Print Screen exercise), and open it. Notice the Grahics toolbar that automatically appears docked at the top of the page. Right click on the image and click on “Picture” to get to the picture properties dialog window:

It is not necessary to change the image wrap; the default works just fine. However, if you have problems shifting the image on the page, change the image wrap to “Optimal.” The best way to resize the image is to check the box to keep the image ratio then adjust the height or width by typing in the target size or using the arrows beside the boxes to adjust the size. With the “Keep ratio” box checked, the size will stay proportional as you increase one side (either height or width). This is also an easy way to make sure similar images are the same height or width.

Click the OK button to get back to the image. Now reposition the image by clicking inside the image and dragging it to where you want it on the page:

You could also resize the image by clicking on one of the corners and dragging diagonally, but the aspect ratio will not be automatically preserved as it is when changing the size in the picture properties dialog window, so it may end up stretched in one direction or the other.

Insert the smaller image using the same steps, arranging the two images on the page beside each other. Now add a box to the larger image. Click on the box shape button on the toolbar and select the rounded rectangle from the popup display.

Click and drag across the part of the larger image that was copied to create the smaller image. An opaque box will overlay the image:

Next, remove the fill by clicking on the “color” drop down menu in the graphics menu at the top of the page, and selecting “invisible.”

Now change the line width, and color (if desired), by clicking on the related drop down options on the graphics toolbar:

Do the same for the smaller image, creating a box around the whole image, and changing the line width and color to match the box on the larger image.

Now draw lines connecting the two boxes: Click on the line tool on the Drawing toolbar at the bottom.

Now click on a corner of one of the boxes and drag the cursor to the corner of the other box, creating a line between them. Then change the line width and color, just as you did with the boxes.

Create another line between the two opposite corners, adjusting the color and width as with the first line. The final effect should look something like this:

The boxes and lines can be moved by dragging when the cursor turns into a four-way arrow over them.  If the box is snapping to a grid rather than staying precisely where you move it, hold down the Alt key while dragging.  This will override any grid restrictions.