Author Archives: Martha

Engaging students in classrooms has become increasingly complicated. Online school is even more so. The environment that provides the flexibility and accessibility of online learning also introduces distraction from the learning process. Unlike a traditional classroom, where physical presence can sometimes translate to mental presence, the digital space offers shopping and friends and constant notifications.Continue reading “Online Engagement”

The internet tells me that I am thinking of anti-intellectualism, but it isn’t that. I have recently experienced a couple of examples of ignorance in the face of expertise. Seeing individuals completely disregard others’ expertise, choosing to rely on their own opinions can be exhausting as well as enlightening. There is a cognitive bias thatContinue reading “What do you call this?”

Information literacy is the ability to access, evaluate, and use information from various sources effectively. It involves knowing how to find relevant and reliable information, critically assessing its quality and credibility, and properly attributing sources. Information literacy also entails being aware of the context and potential biases of information, understanding ethical considerations when using it,Continue reading “Information literacy”

My thoughts are that faculty members play a crucial role in promoting and sharing information literacy practices, even as they share professional practices. Research is a fundamental aspect of higher education, and information literacy skills are crucial for conducting effective research. Faculty members can teach students how to formulate research questions, access relevant resources, criticallyContinue reading “The point of this”

Does the definition of information matter in the long run? I think, yes. When we are discussing information in a classroom setting, we aren’t much interested in the noise factor that interested Claude Shannon. We are interested in all the information that gets shared, whether it be classified as noise or not. We aren’t interestedContinue reading “Do definitions even matter?”

Marcia Bates (2006) borrows from Susantha Goonatilake (1991) in defining information. For my purposes, the important part of the definition is that of neural-cultural information. This refers to that information that has been generated or transmitted through our nervous systems — not limited to humans, but we have more enacted, or reproduced, information from humans.Continue reading “Neural Cultural Information”

Information has been defined widely by such disparate scholars as Claude Shannon, Norbert Wiener and Urban Dictionary’s agilman (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=information). No single definition of information is useful or practical without context. One cannot examine a phenomenon without having clear definitions of the underlying concepts. In the case of my own current research, the definitions of informationContinue reading “Information: a working definition”

Thanks to Daisy the Great, I have the perfect description of what working on a phd is like. Nobody I know in person is particularly interested in what I do. I mean, I can explain it, and people say “oh that’s interesting” but it rarely comes up and I don’t talk about my work inContinue reading “My self and my stuff and my thoughts”

Summer off and I confess I got nothing done. My adhd has been overwhelming, despite medication. I have too many irons and too many fires and I don’t organize myself as well as one might expect, given that I am a librarian. I am back in school with an instructor who has TWO PhDs. Goodness.Continue reading “Back at it”

I have been reading a lot about writing, largely out of fear. I have a lot of writing to do in the next few years and I feel like I don’t have a handle on my habits yet. I just finished Air & Light & Time & Space by Helen Sword and my biggest take-awayContinue reading “better reader/better writer”