Molder of dreams

If there's one video every teacher should see it's Molder of Dreams.

The video features Guy Doud, who was selected National Teacher of the Year in 1986, speaking before an audience telling his life story and how teachers have touched his life and molded him to become the person and teacher that he is.

His parents were alchoholics. In his grade school days his classmates picked on him because he was obese. The farthest his grandfather took him for a trip was to a zoo just a couple of miles from where they live. He was picked last for kickball even if he had a mean kick. He almost quit school in Grade 6 when he met a teacher who made a great impact on him.

This best describes the message of the video which I lifted from the back of the cassette box (emphasis mine): The encouraging and discouraging messages Guy received about himself taught him that we all mold one another's dreams. We all hold each others' fragile hopes in our hands. We all touch others' hearts. Indeed, we are more than the subjects we teach, we are molders of dreams.

To purchase a copy of the video and/or paperback click here.

Produced and directed by Stephen Stiles
c1993, Focus on the Family Films
Running time: approximately 94 minutes

I'm headed for geekdom

Take this fun quiz from Newsweek to find out your geekiness.

Although I'm headed for geekdom, I still have a loooong way to go.

Free Movie Maker workshop for kids

Jollibee in partnership with Informatics Megamall will be holding a series of free workshops for Jollibee Kids Club members. These will be held starting tomorrow, March 25, April 1, and April 8 at different Jollibee branches inside Megamall.

Microsoft Movie Maker is a free Windows application that enables users to import movies from digital cameras to computers. With Microsoft Movie Maker, users can edit their home movies and incorporate text, music, and graphical elements and then save them on a CD.

This would be a great chance for kids to learn something new this summer and keep them busy with for the rest of the break.

Behind the stacks

I was at a government office yesterday to cover an event and since I was an hour and a half early, I decided to drop by the library and have a look around.

The moment I entered I saw the librarian sitting behind the counter in front of her computer. I greeted her with a smile and asked for permission if I can hang around and told her I was early for the event. She just gave me nod and went back to her computer. I purposely did not introduce myself that I was a librarian, too. There was another library staff, whom I assume to be a clerk, at the far side of the counter pruning the edges of catalog cards.

There were no newspapers around so I just went to the other end of the library where the periodicals were. I scanned the titles on display and took out those that interested me. While I was skimming over the magazines, I heard male voices behind the stacks, which was a restricted area. I thought what a happy bunch those guys were and wondered what they were doing. So I walked a bit pretending to scan the books that were locked behind glass panes (yes, I was amused no end to see these in an office that is supposed to be development-oriented). And lo and behold, the guys who I thought were hapily working behind the stacks were actually playing chess! At 1:30 in the afternoon! Is that what they get paid for? And yes, the librarian was pretty much aware of what was going on.

I went back to my reading and suddenly recalled calling this same library several months ago to ask for assistance on a module I was doing. The guy I spoke to was not really very helpful at all and so I thought maybe he was also busy playing chess then as the guys I saw. What is disheartening is that this is not an isolated case. I know of a big government library whose employees engage in card games when their boss is not around.

Could this be a reflection of the entire bureaucracy? I can only shake my head in disbelief.

Addressing campus plagiarism

Here's a link to a story discussing how some academic institutions in the US are addressing plagiarism in their schools. I still vividly recall an experience I had when I taught English five years ago. There was this male freshman student who submitted a very good book report in my writing class and I praised his work in front of the class. He gave me his best smile, stood up, thanked me, and blurted out with pride that he got the review from the Internet. I was pretty much disappointed with his admission but was glad he did it. As a result of his honesty, I deducted a lot of points from the original grade I gave him.

In my graduate research on information literacy assessment conducted in 2003, I asked my respondents, who were freshmen college students, if they knew what plagiarism was and whether it's all right to cut and paste the contents of a web site and pass them as their own. 94.7% knew what plagiarism was and 76.4% said it was not all right to cut and paste. With these results I should be happy that our students have the moral values the story above was referring to but the reality is quite the opposite.

During one of our strategic planning sessions at work, we in the Instructions Committee were discussing the skills our students need to improve on while in school. One of the skills identified was critical thinking skills. It was at this point that I raised the issue of plagiarism which the faculty members in my committee, most of whom have encountered reading plagiarized papers, agreed should be addressed. Although nothing concrete has come out of the discussion as we are stil in the process of finalizing our plans, we are at a consensus that faculty members should address plagiarism the moment they see it and confront the student immediately.

To penalize our students caught plagiarizing would be out of the question as penalties for other infractions like being caught smoking in uniform, cutting classes, etc., have not proven to be a deterrent to our students. Encouraging the faculty to orient their students on the ethical and legal use of information will not only be practical but it will also be a good start towards spreading the value of respect for intellectual property and developing critical thinking skills in our students.

Ebooks as equalizers?

Fellow Manila Bulletin columnist Jerry Liao has this to say about ebooks in his Having Fun with I.T. column last Monday: Not only ebooks are cheaper (actually most are FREE), it gives everyone an equal chance to read books that can only be bought by the rich before.

While I agree that ebooks are cheaper and most are free, I beg to disagree with his second premise that ebooks give everyone a chance to read books. If there is such an equalizer, it's the public libraries where everyone from all walks of life can walk in and read just about anything that's available. With ebooks, a person needs to have a computer and Internet access before being able to access one and these entails money and when one barely has enough to make both ends meet how can one have an access to an ebook? Stepping into a public library, on the other hand, will not cost anybody a cent unless one has to take a ride to get to the library and the choices of reading materials vary greatly than what is available on the Internet. Although admittedly some public libraries need plenty of room for improvements, there are a number whose collections and services show a lot of promise.

If you liked 'The Da Vinci Code'...

If you liked Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code like I did and Angels and Demons, too, here's a list of titles in the religious/historical thriller genre Brown popularized that we can add to our reading list and recommend for purchase. This is the part I like being a librarian - getting to read the books I want without spending a cent.

I've also been closely following the progress of the copyright infringement case two authors, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, who wrote the non-fiction book Holy Blood, Holy Grail, filed against Brown. The two authors alleged that Brown copied some materials from Holy Blood, Holy Grail and used in The Da Vinci Code. Read the update here.

For all its worth, I liked The Da Vinci Code because is was well researched. Reading the book is like taking a crash course in art and church history that would have been otherwise boring had I been sitting in a Humanities class. Honestly, I don't remember anything from my Humanities class back in college. It didn't help that my professor was named after a famous Renaissance painter. Another thing I like about the book is that one of its characters include a librarian who played a great role in helping Robert Langdon unlock a clue, which I couldn't say the same of Harry Potter where Rowling portrayed a stereotype librarian shushing the trio of Hermione, Harry and Ron.

EARCOS conference in the Philippines

Almost simultaneous with the CONSAL XIII on the last week of March is the conference of the East Asian Regional Council on Overseas Schools which will also be held at Edsa Shangri-la Hotel on March 30-April 1 with a preconference workshop on March 29.

There will be a preconference workshop for librarians and teachers entitled 'Guided inquiry: a framework for learning through the school library' that will be presented by Ross Todd, associate professor in the School of Communication, Information, and Library Studies Rutgers University. A description of the workshop and a short biography of Mr. Todd is available here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to view the details. Preconference registration fee is $65.00. Click here to download the registration form for non-members.

Thank you to Mam Lou David for extending the invitation.

Seminar on ICT for libraries

The Association of Special Libraries of the Philippines (ASLP) will be holding a 2-day seminar on ICT for Libraries: Trends, Security, Ethics on 26-27 April 2006 at the Kimberly Hotel in Ermita, Manila. Read the complete details at the ASLP's website.

I will be the resource person on ICT Concepts and Trends. Other speakers will include Art Samaniego, my editor in Technews at Manila Bulletin who will discuss security issues in libraries and Clair Ching who will expound on free and open source software for libraries.

Thanks to Arnold Zafra for building the website.

The Digital Universe: a new online encyclopedia

Check out this story from Technology Review on a new, free online encyclopedia that will rival Wikipedia and Google.

Explore the Digital Universe and see for yourself what's in store. This is one resource that's worthy of looking forward to.

A bout with boredom

The novelty of my position as AV lilbrarian is wearing off. I've been hit with the boredom bug. There really is some truth to the story I linked to in a pervious post and I'm currently recovering.

There is more to AV librarianship than just accepting and approving reservations for rooms and equipment and processing and cataloging AV materials. The core of AV/media center librarianship is providing consultation services to faculty and guidance services to students. But sadly, I have been stuck with the clerical functions of the job for the past several weeks and had very few moments when my expert advise was sought. So when one is stuck with the routines of a job, boredom sets in.

Our section is a busy one particularly in between periods because students come for their reservations and borrow equipment for their next class. The rest of the day is spent waiting for students and faculty to come with their questions and we've seen better days. I also spend time processing AV materials but unlike books, I have a very limited acquisition so I tend to finish technical work very fast. And though I love watching movies, it's a totally different experience when I'm watching a video that I'm evaluating for content so I can assign a subject to it especially when a movie or documentary can be used in a lot of context.

But over the past few days, I noticed I screwed up some of the reservations, which thanks to my guardian angels (and I'm not kidding) who saw me through each day of my boredom, were fixed without much trouble. Even my technicians can attest to this.

I have not fully recovered but I'm finding ways to make my work more interesting.


Help build the Church of the Risen Christ at Smokey Mountain, Tondo, the first environment-friendly and wired church in the world. For donations call (0632) 2562336.