Books for next course

My next course, Research Strategies, requires three textbooks. If you have used these books, have an opinion, or a favorite textbook source, please leave a comment. As a grad student and a parent of a college freshman, we check out all sources for textbooks from used bookstores, online textbook rental sites, Google books, and college book swap sites because the college bookstores are overpriced. If you have a favorite textbook site or source, please share it as a comment.

Research Strategies for a Digital Age
Tensen, Bonnie L.
Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing; 3 Edition - June 9, 2009

The Craft of Research
Booth, Wayne C., Colomb, Gregory G., & Williams, Joseph M.
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 3 Edition - April 15, 2008

And of course the infamous APA Manual 5th edition...but the 6th edition is available on the same day my class starts. But it is OK...Adapt, implement, and overcome...just reformat a template as required by the standards.

Google Alerts

Google Alerts - Creating Google Alerts was something we did during the computer scholarship workshops with high school students. Creating Google Alerts made them self aware of their web presence, whether they put it out there or another source was responsible. Parents found themselves in mentions from newspapers and church notices.

The students also created Google Alerts about their favorite topics, homework assignments, or personal interests.

As a student, Google Alerts is a great way to receive notifications about your research topic, whether you are a K-12 student, a freshman in a F2F college, a non traditional student in a graduate course, or a lifelong learner pursuing an interest of choice. So what are Google Alerts and how does one get started?

From Google Alerts FAQ:

1. What are Google Alerts?

Google Alerts are emails automatically sent to you when there are new Google results for your search terms. You can also choose to have your alerts delivered via feed to the feedreader of your choice (e.g., Google Reader or add the feed to your iGoogle page). We currently offer alerts with results from News, Web, Blogs, Video and Groups.

2. What are the different types of alerts I can sign up for?

Google Alerts currently offers 6 variations of alerts - 'News', 'Web', 'Blogs', 'Comprehensive', 'Video' and 'Groups'.
Click this link for the rest of the Google Alert FAQs

So go ahead, create a Google Alert, learn about yourself or a query of your choice.

Do you already use Google Alerts? Leave a comment and share your Google Alert story.

Would you work or learn from you?

Colonel Garland Williams, Ph.D presented the keynote address to the Intermediate Course Class 9-09 from the Army Management Staff College. He reflected and shared with us how many keynote speakers he remembers/ed throughout his military and educational graduations.

This caused many of us to reflect on our own graduation ceremonies. Do you remember the keynote speakers or themes during any of your graduations?

So he asked, "Would you work for you?" He then took us through some key points to consider.

Time - Are you generous with your time and stingy with your people's time?

Reliability - Are you there during the good and the bad times? Are you there for the personal important events like birthday parties, graduations, funerals, etc.?

Unwavering support to your people and Underwrite honest mistakes - People don't come to work to intentionally screw up; Underwrite honest mistakes so that they can continue to grow, experiment, and learn.

Stability - Do you take good and bad news equally well? Don't shoot the messenger.

Transparency - It is OK to protect secrets from the enemy, but your vision and thoughts need to be transparent to your people. They need to be able to make decisions in accordance with (IAW) your intent when you aren't there.

Then he asked us what did the first letters of the key points spell out. TRUST

The TRUST acronym can also be used in self reflection as an educator, formal or informal. In your daily, weekly, and/or monthly reflections, remember...someone is always learning...from you, in spite of you, around you, and/or imitating you. If you haven't participated as a student in the lifelong learning process lately, take a day and participate as a student.

So would you work or learn from you?

Want to know more about CES? Transforming Leaders Through Education

The three major underpinnings of CES are Student Centered, Problem Based, Experiential, and Inquiry Learning establish the foundation of success in the Intermediate Course on how to develop a cohesive organization, while applying leadership skills to achieve results. These underpinnings are supported using Army doctrine; educational and leadership theories; small group instruction; along with a combination of behaviorist, cognitivist (information processing), and constructivist learning theories.