I frequently use Google Books and Google Scholar for my work and studies. I have found them to be a great resource, almost like having a library with you.
The books and articles you find vary in their viewing availability. For example, some offer a preview of certain chapters while others actually offer a full view of the book. There are loads of topics and you can even create your own 'library' to find the books you want quickly. You can save them under 'reviewed', 'favorites', 'reading now', 'to read' and 'read'.
I, who still beleive in the (so called) old-fashioned book as being essential, found this site to be the best of both worlds - where students can still be digital whilst at the same time reading a book as well.
I feel this is one of the best initiatives on the internet.
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I agree they are very useful as they provide you with a good overview of the material and structure of the book. Furthermore you may use them to identify additional reading material for students, or else check out books to be used as text books in class, or suggest books to be bought for the library.
ReplyDeleteAnother e-book/articles/papers search engine I personally use is the following:
http://openpdf.com/
It is good for finding online books or articles etc. that at are in .pdf file format. It is not as extensive as Google Books in certain areas, however, you generally get access to the whole document as I usually have limited access to texts accessed through Google Books.
I agree with Desiree that these sites are two of the best initiatives on the internet. Google scholar and similar sites (e.g., Citeseer for Computer and Information Science topics) are essential for researchers.
ReplyDeleteI think that this concept of online libraries goes hand-in-hand with eLearning. Especially for higher-education courses, it makes sense that course coordinators subscribe to journals/papers related to the course to make them available to their students. For example, when doing my masters (by research) I worked mostly from home, and when I needed to access papers, I used the University’s VPN to access their subscription for IEEE papers.
I too have used Google scholar extensively in some of my work. Information is found abundantly on the net (especially through search engines), and whilst I cannot discredit this, I also believe that obtaining information for your research through normal sites has 2 main disadvantages. First, you do not have guarantee of information integrity, and second, I think it looks better in your research work when you reference books and papers instead of ordinary sites.
ReplyDeleteI cannot also not mention the disappointment when a paper seems to fit exactly what you want to find and then you realize that only its abstract is free! I also want to pose a question..I have used Google Scholar in the field of ICT, and always found what I wanted. Is it this strong in other fields as well..such as languages?
I think that such sites are a form of 'blended' media, that is, they are in the cross-over stage between traditional and digital media.
ReplyDeleteAs we are currently seeing the birth of electronic gadgets such as Amazon's Kindle, and Apple's iPad, that with a simple click of a button you can download an entire e-book, that is what the future of books will be like. We are already seeing magazines going digital (such as theCodetv e-zine) and newspapers going online, the advantages are numerous. Quick and available referencing upon request is a definite plus, rather than having to go to the nearest news kiosk or bookstore to get hold of the information you need. Also it would hugely benefit the environment. But what will happen to printing presses?
I still do believe that the tactile feel of books in your hands is a quality that is irreplaceable by such gadgets, but I don't mind the quick availability of e-books as well.
I think that in the future students will make use only of e-books to submit their assignments. Will it make life easier for the the teacher?
Yes these systems are very helpful for research, and personally I keep a collection of pdfs for my personal research. Whenever I need to learn a new topic or read a fun book, I still buy a printed copy. Personally I find that a printed book gives a better experience than a digital one.
ReplyDeleteI look forward for video in print such as the following: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjJylBfwI9k
I agree that Google Books, Google Scholar and sites such as http://openpdf.com/ are very helpful. I remember back at university when a book was out of stock, or even worse out of print, it used to get very frustrating. I also remember wanting to borrow books from the library, but these were simply always on loan. Therefore having unlimited access to books and journals help to minimize such stressful situations. Another advantage of having books and articles available online, is that these will be available anywhere and anytime and one can avoid carrying loads of books back and forth. Debates on violation of copyright laws have recently taken place however, so this could mean that use of such sites would be against payment in the near future. However, I suppose that many students and lecturers would still be willing to pay a nominal fee in order to have access to such online libraries.
ReplyDeleteI as a teacher and a student use Google Books very often. There are various reasons why I make use of Google books. Whenever I want to do research I usually go through a Google Book before actually borrowing the book from the library. The search engine in Google Books is very efficient which helps me a lot in finding the relevant chapters. Furthermore, before buying a particular book, I make a search on Google Books, go through the selected book and if it is interesting and relevant to my needs I will buy it.
ReplyDeleteI am surely aware that most of our students are taking advantage of this especially when full-text versions are available. Students are using Google Books to supplement their library research. What I fear most here is that students might abandon libraries. However, those people who love books will not abandon libraries.
Another advantage of using electronic books is searching. Sometimes searching by just using the table of contents or the index is not sufficient or convenient enough. With electronic books you get much more flexibility in this regard.
ReplyDeleteToday's smart mobile devices are offering applications that support reading electronic books. Applications such as Kindle (from Amazon, mentioned above), eReader, Reader and GoodReader make it fun an convenient to read books while having nothing else to do. This certainly boosts our time management. Stanza is another such cool application for iPhone/iPad with an ample choice of free books. One can go through pages by dragging the fingers across the sides of the page as if turning pages on a physical book.
What a relief to hear of someone who still likes books in a hard copy. I am in my fifties and part of my studying was through distance learning. The world of technology was a hazard to me until such time I tried to comprehend what is going on around me. In 2003 when I was reading an MA I was still sending my assignments by post but corresponded with my tutors through e mail. I now realise what a difference it would have made if tutorials were given through a blog or moodle, instead of leaving my kids to travel for weekend workshops away from home.
ReplyDeleteHowever e learning entails reading and as an early years educator I try to instil the love of reading in young children. Listening to stories even when a baby is still in the womb makes a child a good listener, reading pictures, reading big books, story sacks, puppetry, story boards, picture stories using lap tops and others, all contribute to promoting a love for reading.
E learning is the future. but in the early years let us all work to promote the importance of reading. Most of our students at MCAST use the internet to research, however they just cut and paste material which at times does not even relate to questions in assignment. The main reason is that they do not read, because they were not motivated to read when they were young.
Reading is knowledge, so let us hope that students in kinder, primary and secondary gain a love for books so they will continue their studies and make good use of e learning.
Well I also agree that Google Books and other e-books or e-papers are useful both for teachers and students. However, one should add that these are helpful only if they are utilised correctly and through full referencing.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately I had cases where students just copied and pasted whole chunks of text from Google books and passing it as their own work. Obviously plagiarism is not part of the learning process. Students don’t have a clue of the material that they are presenting plus it is a waste of time for the teacher to find plagiarised text.
I am in complete agreement with Josette when it comes to instilling the love of reading in young children. One of the biggest stumbling blocks my sixteen to eighteen year old students face is putting pen to paper (or using a word processor) and expressing their thoughts. They simply and literally translate Maltese into English and the result is obviously either illegible or grammatically incomprehensible. As the subjects I teach are for the most part theoretical it is most frustrating when I know that they do know the answers to the tasks I give them but they are unable to express them in a clear manner. In my opinion this is the consequence of their lack of reading. I feel that this must start in the very early years, possibly even from toddler hood. Obviously, parents and educators must work hand in hand to encourage the love of books in the little ones.
ReplyDeleteUsing the internet, e-books, e-learning and so on should be the second step in the learning process. Only when the students have learnt how to read, understand and analyse what they are reading can they internalize it and make full use of all the information found on the net. This would eliminate the ‘cut and paste’ which is unrelated to the task being set.
The use of Google Books and such, is a fantastic opportunity for research and other reading. It saves time and money. I remember when I was little, going around Valletta with my mum to find a couple of books which I had not yet read, only to go home and read them in a couple of hours. (It was quite frustrating for my mum!) Nowadays, these sites offer an invaluable opportunity to review whole books quickly from the comfort of our home or office. This is certainly the way forward in our hectic lifestyle.
I like Desiree's post - Google books and Google scholar are very good ideas indeed - just like any other Google idea apparently! I believe that the majority of our students do not use such tools. I have noticed this trait in the majority of cases after correcting assignments and finding copy-pasted chunks for the umpteenth time.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that students forget that lecturers can use Google search too - to check out pieces of text which bulge out from the paper due to the perfect English they are written in - often in sharp contrast with other paragraphs in which spelling and grammatical mistakes are rampant. Perhaps the reason for this is twofold: it could be that they are not aware of such tools or because they seemingly do not care about seeking further information other than the first couple of websites that are presented in the Google search they perform.
I do not want to sound pessimistic. I believe we should highlight the problems we face in order to be able to tackle them better, with a strong view towards solving them. I believe we should have a constant drive to educate students in this regard and that tools such as Google books stand to help us educate our students and stand to help our students extend their learning experience both during the course of studies and also after they finish formal education.
We all agree that our students at MCAST do not read and that we need to instil the love of books in the early years. In my opinion another reason why students do not read is that they are not confident in the English Language.
ReplyDeleteAfter all these years of studying English at School, students do not pass the METSEC English language/literature exam. The NMC includes English as an additional language from Kindergarten classes yet students are not all successful in this language. While we meet others, who have passed their exam in English, and yet are not confident in speaking English. This is very evident when our students give presentations.
We need to design programmes to help students practice this language I am sure e learning would be an asset. I do understand that we have our native language however the subjects taught in schools are mostly in English so we need to work hard to promote good use of this language in schools. Moreover some students are not exposed to the English Language at home, so we have a responsibility to give them exposure.
It is not too late for our students at MCAST however we do focus mostly on assignments so I do agree that before selecting a course, students who are not proficient in the English Language and basic skills should follow a foundation course. How can students read a Diploma when they have not gained proficiency in the basic skills?
Like Josette, I also read my post-graduate course through distance learning and finding the way to communicate online was not easy. They used the Blackboard system. The benefit of this was that any suggestions passed on to the other students by the tutors were open for everyone to see. In this manner students had the opportunity to share their problems. On the other hand, I must say that when working on my thesis, it was very frustrating at times. It is difficult when you cannot print and show your work to the tutor and discuss with him face-to-face. I must say that it was a big challenge.
ReplyDeleteHowever, this experience thought me a lot. Having no time for ourselves, and wanting anything by just a click of a button, I think that students and teachers can benefit a lot from these sites. When I was studying, I didn't really make use of such websites because I used to go to the library more often and I used to receive the notes and books that I had to follow for every module but nowadays I find these sites as very useful because I don't have the time to spend hours at the library and I can search for these books at any time of the day.
I also recommend such sites to the students. It is very evident that students don't search for further information beyond lecture notes. As Suzanne said, this is very clear when reading their assignments. Therefore such sites might give them the opportunity to search from the comfort of their home.
One can find different online resources for all sectors. Site like Google Scholar and Safari are essential for material development. Though subscription is costly i think that in the long run it is still worth it since books are constantly being updated.
ReplyDeleteNow that MCAST is offering the Degree program to student, the college should subscribe to such repositories. Also the student should have access to different journal repositories such as ACM, IEEE and SpringerLink which will help them for their literature review.
What Josette is saying in her second post about the poor level of English is true. During their last year of the National Diploma or Higher National Diploma in Electrical & Electronics Engineering students have to work on a project and write a dissertation.
ReplyDeleteBefore students submit a hard-bound copy lecturers go through their dissertations to correct them. Some of the students manage to produce a very good project but then find it difficult to write the dissertation. In most cases besides cheking the contents of the dissertation we end up correcting their english. This shouldn't be the case especially since in Malta students are exposed to the English language at school for at least 11 years.
I find Google Books excellent to find a book that is relevant for you before buying it. Sometimes authors argue against Google books because of copyright. Despite Google taking measures to provide full text of only works in public domain, and providing only a searchable summary online for books still under copyright protection, publishers maintain that Google has no right to copy full text of books with copyrights and save them into its own database.
ReplyDeleteI think that this database will continue to grow since this online library will help you to find that book needed at the comfort of your home instead of going around book sellers.
I perfectly agree that Google Books represents the best of both worlds because it successfully integrated the physical book to the benefits of internet searching. I tend to refer to Google Books especially to search for information. Online searching is much easier. I also use Google Book to discover new books. Furthermore, before I purchase new and expensive books, I find myself searching for the book on Google Books in order to review it. It's the next best alternative to holding the book or going through the pages in a bookstore and I'd rather review the book myself than trust comments that people leave on Amazon.com.
ReplyDelete@Audrey
Thanks for the links that you have been providing throughout - I have been checking all of them.
One cannot deny that the internet has made searching for information so much easier. You simply need to ‘google’ anything you want to read about and in a matter of seconds you have an infinite number of articles to choose from. The good thing about online articles is that they have current data while books tend to become outdated quite quickly. I also find many of the google applications including google scholar very effective and use them whenever I need to find specific information. What is good about them is that the information found is much more reliable especially if the articles are from renowned journals. In fact I think that any educational institution should be subscribed to major journal repositories especially if we want our students to locate reliable sources of information. With regards to google books I only started to use this application recently and find it useful especially when I need to search for very specific terms or want to have a look at certain books. However at the end I still prefer to have the book in hand rather than reading it online. This probably has to do also with the fact that I am used to reading bound books rather than reading online which I find very tiring. Using and reading bound books as Josette said is crucial and extremely important for our students not only as they need to learn to use books in order to research but also to improve their English language.
ReplyDeleteFinally I wanted to add that for the scientific community a good research tool that I have found useful during both my undergraduate and graduate studies is www.scirus.com. I hope some of you find it useful.
Mildred