Your Resource for Information Literacy
Announcing EasyBib’s Chrome Toolbar Extension
Really big news: we’ve added a browser extension for Google Chrome! It’s available for free download in the Chrome Web Store right now. You should go check it out.
It’s really simple to use. Just visit the store and download the extension.
Once it’s installed, you can cite anything on any website you’re browsing. Just click on the red EasyBib book in your toolbar and you’ll see a drop down menu.
If you click “Cite on EasyBib” you’ll get a pop up window that has all of the citation information formatted and filled out for you. From there you can browse to EasyBib or hit the “View Bibliography” button to see all of your citations!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOL43ggmivs&w=560&h=315]
Read MoreEasyBib’s Library Corner: Meebo’s Closing… Now What?
Emily Gover is an information literacy specialist and in-house librarian for EasyBib. Her professional interests lie in web services and design, usability, information literacy, instructional services and reference work. She continues to work part-time at the Hendrick Hudson Free Library, and has previous work experience at Berry College, Reader’s Digest and the University at Albany.
Hi, all! Sorry for skipping a post last week, things have been quite busy here at The Bib. It is a sweltering 97 degrees right now in New York, so my best tactic at keeping cool is staying in the A/C and blogging to you lovely folks.
If you haven’t heard the news, Google acquired instant messaging platform and popular virtual reference service Meebo last week for a cool $100 million. Unfortunately, along with the acquisition came a shut down of nearly all Meebo services, including the Meebo Me widget, which was a popular (and free) virtual reference option for libraries.
I frequented the virtual reference service while I was in library school. If I was buried in the basement of the library with a disorganized pile of textbooks, journal articles and notepads, the last thing I wanted to do was either 1) pack up all my stuff and scour the upper levels to find a librarian or 2) risk having my stuff stolen if I opted to dart upstairs to ask a quick question. Having the ability to just log on to the library web site, type in my question, and get an answer right away was an amazing and invaluable service for me and my classmates. While I worked at Berry College, one of the top priorities I had for our redesign of the library’s web site was to add a virtual reference widget.
It’s less than a month until Meebo’s services are shut down for good, so what other options are out there for libraries to use?
In no particular order, here are some other free and paid alternatives. As with most library services, your best option will depend on the size of your institution and the volume of virtual reference questions you receive. It’s different for everyone, but hopefully one of these will fit your needs!
| Service | Cost |
| Chatwing | Free |
| Question Point (OCLC) | Paid – Request a price quote |
| Chatango | Free |
| LibraryH3lp | Paid – View pricing |
| Plugoo | Free (still in beta) |
| Olark | Paid – View pricing |
| Zoho Chat | Free |
| LibChat (Springshare) | Will debut at ALA Annual, contact them for more information or watch a video. |
EasyBib is “Teacher Approved”
Teaching Blog Addict, the #1 teaching blog on the web, has given EasyBib its stamp of approval and recognized us as a “Teacher Approved Site.”
They are a great resource for lesson plans, advice, and all things education – so check ‘em out! You can also read their review of EasyBib here.
Read MoreEasyBib’s Library Corner: Mobile Technology in the Classroom
Emily Gover is an information literacy specialist and in-house librarian for EasyBib. Her professional interests lie in web services and design, usability, information literacy, instructional services and reference work. She continues to work part-time at the Hendrick Hudson Free Library, and has previous work experience at Berry College, Reader’s Digest and the University at Albany.
Project Tomorrow came out with a new study this week about how educators and administrators use technology in their personal and professional lives. Turns out, technology use is on the up and up! Check it out: more than half of educators polled own a smartphone, close to half of principals and administrators have tablet computers–and, surprise!–librarians are most likely to own a digital reader.
When asked, educators and administrators who are more likely to use mobile technology agree that some of the best outcomes of using mobile technology in the classroom are:
- Increasing student engagement
- Providing access to online textbooks
- Providing personalized instruction to students
- Extending learning beyond the school day
Finally, take a look at this chart, it shows important factors to consider when consuming online content compared between librarians who do and do not use digital content. Librarians who do use digital content (such as podcasts, videos, animations and electronic databases) are more likely to recommend consideration of these factors over librarians who do not.
What are some other benefits students can gain from having mobile technology in the classroom?
Sources:
Project Tomorrow report
Personalizing the Classroom Experience summary
Using the EasyBib Notebook to Teach Paraphrasing
Mary Beth Hertz is a certified Instructional Technology Specialist and K-7 Technology Teacher in Philadelphia, PA. She has presented at a number of conferences and is a blogger and avid user of social media. She is also a co-organizer of Edcamp Philly and sits on the Edcamp Foundation Board. She was also named an ISTE Emerging Leader in 2010. She is passionate about making school meaningful and about all things edtech.
One of the most common problems that teachers report when facilitating research projects with their students is that students often copy directly from websites without quoting the author or by handing in work that comes directly from a source, word for word.
It is imperative that we explicitly teach our students how to paraphrase the information they find and how to differentiate between paraphrasing and direct quotations. The Internet has made everything seem easy and free for the taking. There are so many sources out there, that knowing whether a student has plagiarized has become so difficult that teachers have to use special tools like TurnItIn to make sure that student writing is their own. There are other reasons aside from academic honesty to make sure that young people know how to synthesize ideas into their own words. As more and more information is put out on the Internet, more and more of our students are creators of this content. They are the future keepers of ideas and knowledge, so we must teach them to be responsible creators and consumers of content.
One thing I’m excited to use with my students to teach these skills is EasyBib’s Notebook. Each time my students add a new note, they have the option to directly quote the resource, paraphrase some of the information they want to use from a resource, or to write their own thoughts on the information. In the copy/paste world we live in, the Notebook allows my students to visualize the difference between copying information word-for-word and putting information in your own words. This tool will also give my students a chance to compare the three ways of thinking about the information they are reading. It will also help them digest the information by forcing them to separate the author’s ideas, their interpretation of the author’s ideas and to find the author’s words that support their own opinions.
Before introducing my students to the Notebook, however, I will need to break the process down, allowing my students to practice paraphrasing as a class and on their own. Even as an adult, paraphrasing is difficult, so I don’t expect them to ‘get it’ the first time. However, I am thrilled to have the Notebook tool to make teaching the differences between paraphrasing and taking direct quotations from the resources my students use.
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