Citation Management

I have been using Zotero, off and on, for several years now. I looked at EndNote Web briefly, and it seems to be fairly similar in what it can do. The fact that I do not use it regularly for my own work suggests that I have not yet seen it to be that useful, for reasons I'll get back to later. I have found it most useful when I am teaching research methods courses to my history students.

The good: Many students really like it to collect the documentation on the sources they find. I like that I can create a group library and thereby keep track of their research progress (to an extent, anyway). I have done two courses that focused on local history, and we have created group libraries, arranged topically, of locally available sources on Chautauqua County history. Another professor in my department, working with one of the librarians, created a Zotero library of local history sources on campus, to which classes such as mine can add. Thus, the campus will have a database of local history sources. Finally, Zotero is relatively easy to use, and I love the option of being able to easily import Web pages, article links, etc.; many of these have a little icon that you can click on to automatically add it to your library. You can get a plug-in for Word that enables it to create notes and bibliographies for documents. I love that the library is both online and easily accessible at the bottom of your browser screen; I believe they have made it accessible on other browsers now, although it used to be just Firefox.

The bad: Zotero can be a bit clunky to use, and unless one uses it regularly, it is easy to forget the basics. The navigation isn't as intuitive as I'd like. One of the biggest shortcomings isn't really the fault of Zotero, but leads to problems when my students use it construct their notes and bibliography. The beauty of the program is one can just import the citation to one's document. But, as I tell my students, it is a computer and what gets put in is what will come out. So if you pull a citation from JStor and the title of the article is in all caps, that is how it will show up in the bibliography. And I will then mark it down and tell them they need to correct their citations! So I have to remind them constantly that they are responsible for cleaning up their citations. One issue that annoys me is that you cannot just "move" citations from library to library. Yes, you can move a citation, but it stays in the original spot and is just copied to the new library. So you now have it on your computer twice. And if you decide to just delete it from one of those, it deletes the citation entirely from all your libraries. So I find it difficult to organize well.

Bottom line: Despite its shortcomings, I find it most useful as a tool to assist my students when they are learning to collect, organize, and properly cite their sources. Because of its shortcomings, I do not find it particularly useful for collecting and organizing my own research sources. That said, I do find it useful as a place to collect articles and other materials that I encounter on the Internet. I can save these on Zotero and go back to check them out later. I will continue to use it sporadically for my own research, but I will also continue to use it regularly for my history research courses.

Here is a link to a group library my students made last semester in the history senior honors seminar on local history: HIST 499 Local History Zotero Library Fall 2012.

Presentation Tools

So I chose this category today since I was short on time and have already used Prezi many times. But I did investigate a couple of the other online presentation tools suggested here. SlideRocket is described as PowerPoint on steroids, and I looked at a couple of the presentations there, which did look pretty much like gussied up Power Points. I also checked out the Design Guide for Rockstars, which suggested that one could make a presentation that would look much more creative and less PowerPoint-esque, but also that it might take some time and talent to do so.

The other tool I looked at here was Glogster, which sounded intriguing as a potential venue for student presentations. The video seemed geared at K-12 teachers, however, which was less interesting to me. The problem I found with Glogster was that its site was confusing. I went to the Glogpedia at the EDU Glogster site in order to look at some examples, but found there that one had to have a paid license to view any of them. I could not find a way to see an example of a Glogster. On the regular Glogster site I could find examples, however, but they were rather different. Bottom line is, the concept of a digital poster is cool, but I would like to find more out about this before jumping in and opening an account, and this seems difficult from the website. Therefore, I probably will not pursue this one.

This brings me to Prezi, which I have been using for about a year and a half now. I like Prezi a lot, as I find it more dynamic than PowerPoint, and I have been converting my course PowerPoints to Prezis. I will admit that I am not the most adventurous or creative of Prezi users; my creativity tends to vary in direct proportion to the time I have to spend on the project. But I love how easily one can integrate videos, music, and images, and how easy it is to convert PowerPoints. I find Prezi frustrating at times; it changes quite frequently, which can be confusing. Just when you figure it out, they change it. But I will say that most of the changes have been for the better, and have made it easier to use. I have even given four workshops introducing Prezi on my campus.  I have also shown my students how to use it in a couple of classes, and some students have used it to create class presentations. So this is definitely an online presentation tool that I recommend enthusiastically. There is a bit of a learning curve; it takes some time and effort to learn it well, as with most of these Web 2.0 tools. I consider myself to be still in the learning mode, but am considering actually paying for the upgraded license so I can have the desktop version. Here is a link to a Prezi I created last semester for my course, Industrial America 1890-1920: 'Women and Progressive Reform".

week 1

After hearing the 7.5 habits, I would have to say that the one that is probably the most difficult for me is to view problems as challenges (#3). I tend to have a low tolerance for frustration, and the more frustrated I get, the stupider I tend to get. This, of course, is not good in most situations, but is particularly not a good trait when trying to learn new technology! So I am going to try to work on this. I did manage to learn Prezi, even if I still get frustrated a bit with it from time to time, so I know I can get through the learning curve for new technologies if sufficiently motivated. For some of them, I think I will be; for others, not so much.

As for the one that I find easiest, I guess I would say accepting responsibility for my learning (#2) (although perhaps blaming technology when I get frustrated is not a good example of that!). I like to learn new things of various kinds, whether it is learning about other societies and cultures (through both travel and reading) or learning new technologies to use in my teaching and research. I think that anyone who goes through the years of school required to get a Ph.D. is pretty much someone who accepts responsibility for learning.

Actually, in terms of hardest things, I would say that this blog will probably be one of the most difficult things for me to do. Not just the technology (with which I've already encountered frustrations, such as where do you find the "settings-basic" tab to change the privacy/permissions??), but with the very concept of blogging. I have never been one to keep a journal or diary. I do keep a travel journal on trips, but it isn't very reflective. So this kind of sharing will be rather difficult for me. But hey, I guess I have accomplished the first step anyway.