As part of the College's Digital Strategy, all staff and students are being encouraged to use GSuite including Google Classroom.
To help facilitate this, our Learning Technologies Manager will be holding drop-ins in the LRC over the next few months for staff and students so they can find out how to access the various tools and understand how it works.
In the LRC we are already beginning to explore how we might use it to engage with students.
In March these sessions will be on:
Tuesday 19th March 12:00 -13:00
Thursday 21st March 13:00-14:00
Thursday 28th March 13:00-14:00
Keep an eye on posters for sessions delivered in April, May and June.
There is a lot of content on Infozone including how to login to GSuite using your PRC login.
Google Classroom
See the Google Classroom video tutorials playlist here if you are a lecturer.
Below is a concise beginner video for lecturers which I found easy to understand :
If you are a student you can get a quick introduction from the video below.
Tuesday 5th February is Safer Internet Day - a day which focuses on being safe online. This year the Safer Internet Centre's theme is "together for a better internet". The idea behind this year's theme is that we can all choose to make a difference when we use the internet and communicate on the web just as we can as we interact with people in our physical environment.
The Centre offers 5 tips for how we can choose to behave and make the internet a better place:
Choose to ask for consent
Choose to be supportive and positive
Choose to be in control
Choose to find out more
Choose to talk about it
To find out more about what these mean follow the 5 tips link above. You'll also find lots more relevant information about e-safety and this year's campaign.
SID TV 2019 has also launched a YouTube video presented by young people about Consent Online.
The video is also available with subtitles and British Sign Language here.
Welcome back to College and we hope you enjoyed the festive break and are all set to work hard in 2019. Last week LRC staff manned a stand at the College's Staff Development Day event - Carousel of Learning - and spoke to a number of staff about the sessions and resources we offer. If you are a member of staff and missed this, feel free to come and talk to us if you want more information.
New for 2019 - LRC Lunchtime Drop-Ins
This term the LRC librarians will be running short workshops/ drop-ins at lunchtime on Thursdays and Fridays in the LRC (Pod C). Thursday slots are 12.15-12.45pm and Friday slots are 1.15-1.45pm
Pod in the LRC
Photo: Peterborough Regional College
The themes of these will be:
Beyond Google - using Google Scholar and searching Google more effectively.
Using LRC Online Resources - introduction to e-books, online journal articles, newspapers and other interactive learning materials.
Referencing and Plagiarism - find out what plagiarism is and how to reference.
Box of Broadcasts - find out how to record, view and search for TV and radio programmes, create playlists and clips.
Information searching skills - how to search effectively and how to know good websites from bad.
Each session will run twice - once each half of the term. Please see posters in the LRC and around the college. The first one is next week - 17th January 2019.
We can only take a maximum of 5-6 students at a time (but if more of you want to attend it may be better that we come to your tutorial/ class if your lecturer is happy).
Drop-ins will have a planned structure but we don't need to keep strictly to this and we can use the time to address questions students have. If you have your own laptop you may wish to bring this with you but this isn't essential. (The LRC has laptops for use but these are in high demand so don't rely on this).
We look forward to meeting you at these sessions over the coming weeks. Any queries, please ask at the LRC desk.
Next Wednesday we are holding a Fantastic Beasts event to mark the release of the second film the Crimes of Grindelwald. Various curriculm areas are joining us. The hospitality section are making and selling biscuits, the Raptor Foundation are bringing owls and the animal care section are showcasing some of their insects and reptiles. The youth centre are holding a craft stall and we will have a tombola to raise money for Wood Green Animal Shelter.
We are also giving everyone the opportunity to enter our pet photography competition (open for entries now - send your photos to the LRC) or even win a prize for dressing up in fancy dress for the day!
Fantastic Beasts resources and activities for you to try (with some Google tips) -
To get you in the mood, we've put together some activities and online resources with a Fantastic Beasts theme. Some will help you learn how to find things on the internet, some will help you learn, some will make you think about the websites you view and some are just fun.
Use Google maps to find out where the place Grindlewald is (slightly different spelling to the film character).
Find a trailer of the Crimes of Grindelwald on Internet Movie Database. Just put the keywords - (fantastic beasts crimes Grindelwald) - in to your search. You don't need to use the "of" as this will be ignored anyway. IMDB can also tell you who is in the film and by clicking on their name you can see what else they have been in. Who plays Leta Lestrange and in what other films/ tv dramas will you see her? Was she in the first film?
Find out when Fantastic Beasts Crimes of Grindelwald is on at the cinema by typing movie: crimes grindelwald in to the search box in Google. It will usually default to your nearest location but if you want to know when it is on in Norwich for examples type movie: crimes grindelwald norwich. You can use this for any film and location.
Find out how to make baked nifflers:
Read the BBC's article Can exotic animals make good pets? How many licensed tigers were there in the UK in 2016? Why might you think twice about using this web article in an assignment?
The RSPCA has advice about keeping exotic pets. Do you think keeping exotic pets such as snakes and reptiles is a good idea? Discuss with your friends the pros and cons or why not ask some of the animal care students at the event?
A large number of us use Google as the search engine of choice, but is it really the best way to search for information for your academic work?
Google searches for information using algorithms - a set of automated rules which are applied as it trawls for keywords you've put in the search box. Google does not index everything and there is a lot of good information in the hidden web (not to be confused with the dark web!) which will never find it's way in to Google results. The hidden web includes contents of specific databases and collections held by organisations which haven't made these searchable by Google.
The problem is that Google does not exist first and foremost to bring back the information you require. It exists to make money in advertising revenue and so your top links are likely to be sponsored links (whether they are relevant or not). It will often put the most popular results first and you may not want the most popular - you want the most relevant.
Google tracks your use - either by your login or IP address and remembers what you searched for and this will influence what results are brought back in future. Google will assume you want information from the country in which you are searching and in the language in which you typed. It tries to mould it's results to you and so two people can get totally different results from the same search.
That said, its academic arm Google Scholar is a useful tool for students for finding articles and papers, but again does not give access to everything. Also, full text access will still often only be available with your University login.
For more information, see the relevant chapter in Phil Bradley's book Expert Internet Searching. available in the LRC.
Use Advanced search to be more specific about your search. You will find this hidden in the Settings menu.
Use Google Scholar if you want to search academic resources. You can set it just to search just for sources provided by ARU, for example, but you will need to log in to the ARU Digital library first to read the resources. You may want to try turning off the settings too to see everything else that is indexed.
Put words in speech marks to keep them as a phrase "University of Peterborough", "health and safety" "prime minister". Google tends to look for words next to each other first anyway, but using speech marks is standard for phrase searching in most databases.
Save typing by using an asterisk (*) to indicate missing letters. Paint* will search for paint, paints, painting, paintings, painter, painters.
Type the most important search word first in the search box.
If you just want to search for sites from a particular country type site:.uk (before your keywords), for example, for UK sites. If you just want results from UK government sites, for example, use site:.gov.uk before your search term(s).
This week we heard the news that cosmologist and scientist Stephen Hawking died at the age of 76. He worked as a Professor at Cambridge University and became famous for his research in to cosmology - especially black holes. His book A Brief History of Time became a bestseller.
Black hole CC0 https://pixabay.com/en/black-hole-nebula-stars-space-2483571/
The BBC have put together a Stephen Hawking quiz if you want to test your knowledge of the famous scientist.
In October 2017, Cambridge University put Hawking's PhD thesis online for the first time and the demand to read it crashed the system. It was read two million times.
They are valid academic sources of information and can be used as sources of background reading and research for dissertations and assignments.
They are published sources of information with copyright restrictions and must be cited and referenced when used as part of your academic work. ARU has instructions on how to do this using the Harvard system on their website.
Theses will have reading lists and bibliographies like books and journals which may lead you to other sources/ authors you can read.
Looking through recent theses in your field may give you an idea of the sorts of issues currently being researched. It may help you pinpoint what you want to choose for your research topic or give you background for a job interview.
Some research written up in theses may also be summarised in academic journals so you may want to search the author (or the Professor who supervised the research) in a journal database too to see if you can find more context or read a summary.
Where are they stored? How do I find them?
Most universities have their own repository - usually online. ARU's for example is here. These online databases/ websites give open access to a University's research. Stephen Hawking's PhD thesis is on Apollo - the name Cambridge University have given their online repository.
However, you can be forgiven for thinking that trawling through every University's online repository one by one - especially if you don't know which University to look for - is not ideal. These online resources make this easier.
EThoS (Electronic Theses Online System) is the British Library's online repository for over 475,000 doctoral theses awarded by universities across the UK. Most are available in digital format but details of how to get a copy is given if the digital copy isn't available.
NDLTD (Networked Digital Library or Theses and Dissertations) offers access to theses mainly from America and Canada but there are some from other countries.
On life...
❝One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don't throw it away❞ - Interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer, June 2010
This week the LRC had a stand at the College's second Be Healthy Stay Safe Be Green this year. This time we went green with planters and piggy banks made out of old plastic bottles. Thank you to everyone who donated these and the seeds we planted.
LRC's Be Healthy Stay Safe Be Green stand Photo: Peterborough Regional College
We also had a tree of encouragement. On the leaves were written some words of encouragement. Students were asked to take one from the tree and replace with a leaf of their own (with their encouraging words). This proved a popular idea with students.
Some of the words left on the tree at the end were:
Spring is just around the corner.
You need to be in the darkness to see the stars
If everything goes not right, go left!
Never give up!
Get a goal in life and never let it go until you have achieved it.
Today is a good day to smile.
Keep trying your best.
Always stay positive, fight the demons.
Trusting Health Information on the Internet
BBC's Trust Me I'm a Doctor recently did some features on using the internet to find health information and whether we should trust health apps. The links are here if you want to find out more.
This week (6th) was Safer Internet Day, providing a focus for young people especially on saying safe online. The official campaign this year promotes the use of social media to build others up, not to tear them down. It is not enough just to stop cyber-bullying, but we should also be looking to use social media in a positive way. We can all make a positive difference.
The slogan this year is "Create, connect and share respect: a better internet starts with you".
The website has some short videos including a rap.
For 14-18 years olds, the theme particularly is showing empathy. This is putting yourself in someone else's shoes and showing them understanding.
See the video below (there are also signed versions available).
One teenager, Trisha Prabhu, gave a TEDtalk a few years ago called Rethink before you Type where she explains how she sees the problem and proposes a solution.
In the LRC we are always keen to encourage students (and staff) to be careful when using the internet for finding information. We want everyone to look critically at the information they find before deciding whether it can be used as a source for an assignment.
Advertising and celebrity endorsements
Be aware of websites - especially company websites - which are selling something. If hairdressing and beauty students are looking for information on the human skin, for example, they may find plenty of websites from companies selling skin products which also have pages explaining how the skin works. Much of this information may be correct and they may have consulted with dermatologists but they will probably have paid them to give information that helps sell their product (and perhaps leave out other information), for example. We would recommend using our Primal anatomy online resource, for example, as an alternative.
With the royal engagement this week, some magazines are talking about Meghan Markle the brand and what products she uses. Companies search for high profile people to say they use their products as this can make a lot of difference. Do you look at a celebrity social media account, for example, and decide a product must be good if favourite celebrity uses it?This is called influencer marketing and can be very subtle. Companies can even dress adverts up as news stories. See the South Park video below for a humorous take on this.
However, Celebrity endorsements do not mean that the products are necessarily the best and the Advertising Standards Authority have ruled that it is now illegal for a celebrity to endorse a product without indicating this in any posts they make on social media.
Listen to a BBC podcast here about why you cannot always trust adverts online.
How do I know if what I read online is an advert?
All celebrity social media accounts (twitter, vlogs, blogs etc) must now by law indicate whether any content is a result of a commercial relationship - i.e. the celebrity is being paid to endorse a product by the company which makes it (i.e. there is a commercial relationship). You will also notice that Google indicates where it's results (usually first in the list) are adverts - so you know they have been paid to put these results first rather than that they are necessarily most relevant to your search. So, think twice where there is #ad or #adfeature in an online post or website and avoid using the content in an assignment. Smilarly you might also notice the phrases "sponsored content" or "ad or promotion". Avoid this content and instead look for information from recognised organisations (charities, government departments, authorities, associations) or academic institutions. Look for the About link to find out about the organisation/ person behind the website.
The Advertising Standards Authority have more information on this on their website.
Have a look at their advice on identifying when something is an advert.
If you are a marketing student, you may like to read about the Oreo lick race case which led to this standard being introduced or even better read the article through our Infotrac resource.
Police are becoming increasingly concerned that people are
setting up fake social media accounts and using them to talk to children and
young people inappropriately (i.e. for grooming, extortion, etc). This is particularly happening through increasingly popular social media apps such as Musical.ly
The following podcast (particularly the first section) also goes into more details and is useful for anyone studying or involved with safeguarding children or young people.
The companies which own these social media platforms are
under increasing pressure to do more to stop this sort of activity (along with
other content linked to criminal activity), but the best thing to do is to be
on your guard and always do what you can to check who is contacting you.
Public domain image of social media apps from www.pixabay.com
How can I know whether a social media account is genuine?
Facebook and Twitter use a blue badge to verify accounts
belonging to celebrities. Facebook also use a gray badge for organisations.
However, these accounts are often targets for hacking too so be very suspicious
if one of them messages you directly (most will not).
To find a genuine account, you could go to the official
website for that artist, for example, and from there you should be able to see
links to their twitter feed or Instagram account.
New guidelines by the Crown Prosecution Service.
New guidelines (as reported in the Daily Telegraph) are being prepared which could make creating
fake social media accounts a criminal offence where these are used for revenge
or to cause harassment, for example. Therefore, everyone needs to be aware of
their behaviour online.
Is what you are planning to publish online harmful to
someone else (whether you think they deserve it or not)?
Would you like the same done to you? - and how would it make
you feel?
The College does not tolerate bullying of any kind and students experiencing
anything like this can speak to a Safeguarding Officer, their tutor or indeed any member of staff about this if it is happening to them.
Easter is one of those times of the year when people like to
bake. It can be very relaxing and you know which ingredients have gone into your
creations.
CC0 Photo from www.pixabay.com
Finding trustworthy recipes which work and have UK measurements
If you want to learn how to make some Easter cakes and bakes, how do
you know which recipes to trust?
Instead of just searching using Google which will bring up
all sorts of websites, try these tips:
Search for a famous chef’s website and then search for a
recipe (e.g. Nigella, Jamie Oliver)
Most supermarket websites have recipe databases.
Well-known magazines often have recipe sections where the recipes have been tried and tested (e.g. BBC
Good Food, Good Housekeeping).
Brands of ingredients (eg Stork, Allinsons, Whitworths,
Philadelphia – other brands available) often provide a collection of recipes to
promote their products.
Some food items have associations or boards which support
those who work within the industry but also help promote the products to
the public. E.g www.seafish.org supports
the fishing industry but also has its own recipe site for fish http://www.seafish.org/eating-seafood/fish-is-the-dish
Instead of searching online, why not use a book. We have a collection of recipe books to support our Hospitality students in Library+ which anyone in College can borrow.
Limiting Google results to UK sites only
One problem with recipe sites is that if you find an
American site, the measurements are in cups which is not useful for those of us in
the UK. How do you make sure when you search for a recipe in Google, you only get UK results?
You need to put in your search site:.uk and this will restrict the search to UK sites.
So, in Google you might write “Easter biscuits” recipes site:.uk
(I have put speech marks round Easter biscuits to keep this
as a phrase). Have a try!
To finish, here is a video recipe for Hot Cross Buns from
Mary Berry (which because it is hers, we know we can trust it).
Although it’s the holidays next week, exams are nearly upon
us and so it is a good time to start planning your revision.
Library+ subscribes to Which magazine and they have put
together a guide for creating such a timetable and have pulled together tips
from other students which might help you.
Some of you might like the idea of creating your own flash cards
and revision activities and you can use a web resource like Study Stack to create these – whether you
are student wanting to make your revision more enjoyable or a tutor wanting a
way to help your students revise. Just the process of creating these activities will help you memorise your subject.
There are some
existing flashcards on Study Stack which you might find useful but beware as none of these are
checked by anyone for accuracy so you want to be sure they are correct before
using them. Once you have your flashcards , your flashcards can be converted into other activities (eg
hangman, crossword). There a few
tutorials on YouTube but they do not appear to be from the providers of Study Stack
themselves so you might want to bear this in mind.
Library+ subscribes to a couple of databases which hold lots of useful information for Early Years and Child Care students particularly but may also be useful for Health and Social Care students.
These resources are accessible from our Electronic Resources page under the Library+ section of Moodle. Both can be used inside and outside College. If prompted, enter your network login name and password.
Childlink
This focuses on legislation, policies and practices regarding children and young people. There are links to new government legislation (e.g. Children and Social Work Bill), research, papers ( e.g. Bounce back from bullying), news (e.g "Schools must do more on mental health") and statistics (e.g. youth custody data). There are also links to trustworthy videos (e.g. How to put your child to sleep properly or What can we do about child abuse? - see below for the NSPCC video).
There is also a range of practice guides on issues such as Nursery Food and Common Childhood Illnesses. Have a look and see what you can find!
You can access Childlink on your tablet if you have one and there is a Childlink app for your mobile if this is how you wish to access it.
Nursery World
We pay a lot of money to give you online access to back issues of Nursery World so do please use it. Nursery World is very practical and relevant to people working with young children (I've just found an article on dressing up, for example) with ideas that you can use in your work placement as well as use in your assignments. There is health advice, information about special needs, equality and diversity and ideas for play, to name a few.
You can search for what you are interested in using the search box in the top right hand corner or browse through past issues one by one.
Nursery World - available to view in College
If you want any help using these, please come and ask in Library+. We can also come to your lesson and give you a quick demo or training session - tutors just need to arrange this with us.
Yesterday was National No Smoking Day. Several courses include looking at smoking as a topic in their courses and many use websites. I am often asked by students how to tell which websites can be trusted so I thought I’d use this topic as an example.
Smoking and tobacco websites
So…. if you were doing a project on smoking and tobacco,
which of the following websites would you trust and use as a good source of
information for your assignment? Not all of these are ideal.
How to decide which smoking websites to trust and which can I use in my assignments?
I often ask students if they had a choice between using the
NHS site or the Nicorette site, for example, which would they use?
Most would reply the NHS site and when asked why, would say that Nicorette site want to sell their own products. Therefore they won't give an unbiased or objective view of how to give up smoking.
Therefore, I would probably not use this site, even though some of the information may
be correct.
www.givingupsmoking.co.uk is another example where author of the website (which is not very obvious) is promoting e-cigarettes rather than giving a balanced view on smoking and
giving up.
Public domain photo
http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=126056&picture=cigarette-butts
Web extensions
Did you know that .co and .com sites can be set up by anyone. That doesn't mean they can't be trusted but there are no checks. You know
you can trust .nhs sites. They are
British and must be from an NHS institution. Other trustworthy website
extensions are .gov (as in Office
Of National Statistics), .org (as
in British Heart Foundation) and .ac (a
school, college or University like PRC) as these extensions can only be registered to
genuine government departments, charities and organisations or academic
institutions.
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is never a good option for your college work,
because anyone can write Wikipedia articles and therefore you cannot tell if
the information is trustworthy.
Journal sites
British Medical Journal is a professional journal with
articles written for and by GPs, consultants and other medically trained staff. The content is checked and only qualified people
contribute. This site can be trusted – but you might have problems understanding
it!
Quitting smoking projects - use the About section
There are lots of different sites for projects promoting
giving up smoking and you will notice that a lot of them have a NHS logo on
them. This would suggest that the site is approved by the NHS or that they have
been working in partnership with them. They can probably be trusted. Read the About section of any website to see who the author of the website is.
With so many good quality sites available, why would you bother with
those which may not be so trustworthy or objective? For College work I would concentrate on organisations like charities, the NHS and government websites. PRC Library+also have an e-book on Issues Online about smoking and tobacco - accessible from our Moodle pages.
Whatever you use, remember to put the details of the website in your reference list at the end of your work.
The issue of fake news is still very much in the news. BBC Newsround have released a video this week on how to spot fake news which we thought you would find useful. The tips they give are relevant for assessing any information you may find on the internet.
As it's catch up week we thought you might like to have a go at learning a different skill - just for fun - or perhaps you are a catering student and will find these ideas for napkin folding useful. It looks like origami with a napkin, but it could be something simple to master to impress your family and friends. The video is on YouTube, created by 5-minute crafts.
On Tuesday it was Safer Internet Day.
In Library+ we are keen to make students aware of the risks of talking to people they don't know online.
Kayleigh's love story
Last year, Leicestershire police produced a video called Kayleigh's love story which they have taken round to schools and other youth settings. It documents a sever case of what can happen when young people are groomed online and it was made with the support of Kayleigh's family so that other young people can be made aware how serious it can be getting to know someone you have never met online.
This video would have a 15 certificate.
The UK Safer Internet Centre is focussing on sharing images online too and has prepared a quiz to help you understand what you should do when you receive images and video and to encourage everyone to think before they share images of other people.
Tomorrow (27th January) is Holocaust Memorial Day and Google have been in the news recently for returning high ranking results on its search engine which promote the view that the Holocaust didn’t happen when searching for whether the Holocaust really happened.
This should be a concern, not only to the majority who accept that the Holocaust did exist (and that genocides still continue today), but also to everyone who relies heavily on using Google to search for information (and yes, librarians use Google too!).
If you think that there is an office of people at Google sitting behind their search engine, trawling the internet to find the best information they can on what you are searching for, I am going to shatter that illusion for you now. Google returns results for you using algorithms – numerous mathematical instructions that tell computers how to go and find the best information for you based largely on what keywords you’ve used before.
Google also relies on advertising income to exist and so will prioritise websites which have paid to be ranked higher. For those of you studying marketing, you will know that there is a whole art behind designing and labeling your website so it gets mentioned higher up in the Google rankings.
Google has responded to the criticism (and the results to this query now seem to have been changed), and you may argue that it isn’t Google’s job to censor information. As a student if you have to argue the case for whether the Holocaust happened or not you will need to be able to read both arguments whatever your view and make a case. However what this highlights is that internet search engines are not infallible. You need to use your critical thinking skills to assess which results are best for you and which you can trust (more on this in a future blogpost). Of course, you could always ask a librarian!
Auschwitz concentration camp. Public domain photo from www.pixabay.com
Holocaust information on the Internet
For some useful resources on the Holocaust, try some of these below!
The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust has all sorts of information on their website including a list of resources if you want to find out more about the Holocaust and other genocides (Rwanda, Cambodia), some of which are happening today (e.g Dafur). This year the theme is “How can life go on?” which has its own microsite. If you like poetry, you might like to read their featured poem Birdsong.
You can read real life stories from survivors as well as an “easy read” story from Berge Kanikanian who has learning disabilities and how he wanted to find out more about what the Nazis did to people with disabilities. Read this here.
