Connecting to Students: Launching Instant Messaging Reference at Binghamton University

Binghamton University Libraries implemented an IM reference service using the Trillian client to monitor multiple IM accounts at two distinct reference service points. This paper addresses the process and practical considerations of implementing the service including selection of the appropriate software, creation of IM accounts for each service, development of a staffing schedule, and training of reference staff. Also included is an outline of future plans for improving IM services for students and academic library users

Narrative Inquiry: Life Experiences of Elite Athletes

Elite athletes face numerous personal and professional pressures and high-stress experiences; however, there is a gap in the literature connecting identity development with these life experiences. Using narrative inquiry analysis with six emerging adult athletes competing at professional and Olympic levels, this study identified self-narratives they created from life experiences within the context of sport and analyzed when these meanings were formed. Athletes described experiences causing great psychological disturbances as a normal risk within their sport and needing to regulate or compartmentalize their emotions to get through those experiences. Participants discussed various roles they play within their team but lacked identifying roles outside of sport context. Results from these interviews suggest potential psychological benefits from participating in humanitarian activities. Following a humanitarian intervention, athletes were able to identify characteristics within themselves that could be labeled as performance-based identity attributes. Additionally, athletes described how volunteerism gave them an opportunity to satisfy their individual needs for purpose. Findings are relevant for applied work with athletes, coaches, and parents, as well as prioritizing athlete identity work as an important research focus

Narrative Inquiry: Life Experiences of Elite Athletes

Elite athletes face numerous personal and professional pressures and high-stress experiences; however, there is a gap in the literature connecting identity development with these life experiences. Using narrative inquiry analysis with six emerging adult athletes competing at professional and Olympic levels, this study identified self-narratives they created from life experiences within the context of sport and analyzed when these meanings were formed. Athletes described experiences causing great psychological disturbances as a normal risk within their sport and needing to regulate or compartmentalize their emotions to get through those experiences. Participants discussed various roles they play within their team but lacked identifying roles outside of sport context. Results from these interviews suggest potential psychological benefits from participating in humanitarian activities. Following a humanitarian intervention, athletes were able to identify characteristics within themselves that could be labeled as performance-based identity attributes. Additionally, athletes described how volunteerism gave them an opportunity to satisfy their individual needs for purpose. Findings are relevant for applied work with athletes, coaches, and parents, as well as prioritizing athlete identity work as an important research focus

Interactive instructional technology to bring art students meaningful museum experiences

The purposes of this study are to: (1) investigate how pre-service art teachers are prepared to implement instructional technological tools for virtual museum experiences and art lesson plans; (2) determine the impact of preparing pre-service art teachers to use instructional technological deliverables to create a virtual art museum experience for the classroom; and (3) investigate the impact of using instructional technology in art teacher lesson plans and instructional delivery. I believe pre-service teachers need specific training on how they can use technology in their art classrooms. Technology is a necessary tool for teaching creatively and can enhance an art curriculum if used correctly. My action research study includes having pre-service art education undergraduates experience existing virtual museum tours, create new virtual museum tours, and other interactive technologies to be used with their future museum experiences for their students and in their art education classrooms. I used a combination of technologies to present the methodology to these pre-service art teachers in the art education department at James Madison University. The students interacted with the technology learning objects, learn how to create them, and then actually created and shared their own learning objects. These pre-service teachers will have the potential to use the interactive museum experiences and be able to design an art curriculum that will give their students eye-opening, practical experiences

A study of effective evaluation models and practices for technology supported physical learning spaces (JELS)

The aim of the JELS project was to identify and review the tools, methods and frameworks used to evaluate technology supported or enhanced physical learning spaces. A key objective was to develop the sector knowledgebase on innovation and emerging practice in the evaluation of learning spaces, identifying innovative methods and approaches beyond traditional post-occupancy evaluations and surveys that have dominated this area to date. The intention was that the frameworks and guidelines discovered or developed from this study could inform all stages of the process of implementing a technology supported physical learning space. The study was primarily targeted at the UK HE sector and the FE sector where appropriate, and ran from September 2008 to March 2009

Utility of accelerometers to measure physical activity in children attending an obesity treatment intervention

Objectives. To investigate the use of accelerometers to monitor change in physical activity in a childhood obesity treatment intervention. Methods. 28 children aged 7–13 taking part in “Families for Health” were asked to wear an accelerometer (Actigraph) for 7-days, and complete an accompanying activity diary, at baseline, 3-months and 9-months. Interviews with 12 parents asked about research measurements. Results. Over 90% of children provided 4 days of accelerometer data, and around half of children provided 7 days. Adequately completed diaries were collected from 60% of children. Children partake in a wide range of physical activity which uniaxial monitors may undermonitor (cycling, nonmotorised scootering) or overmonitor (trampolining). Two different cutoffs (4 METS or 3200 counts⋅min-1) for minutes spent in moderate and vigorous physical activity (MVPA) yielded very different results, although reached the same conclusion regarding a lack of change in MVPA after the intervention. Some children were unwilling to wear accelerometers at school and during sport because they felt they put them at risk of stigma and bullying. Conclusion. Accelerometers are acceptable to a majority of children, although their use at school is problematic for some, but they may underestimate children's physical activity

Connecting to Students: Launching Instant Messaging Reference at Binghamton University

Binghamton University Libraries implemented an IM reference service using the Trillian client to monitor multiple IM accounts at two distinct reference service points. This paper addresses the process and practical considerations of implementing the service including selection of the appropriate software, creation of IM accounts for each service, development of a staffing schedule, and training of reference staff. Also included is an outline of future plans for improving IM services for students and academic library users

Connecting to Students: Launching Instant Messaging Reference at Binghamton University.

Binghamton University Libraries implemented an IM reference service using the Trillian client to monitor multiple IM accounts at two distinct reference service points. This paper addresses the process and practical considerations of implementing the service including selection of the appropriate software, creation of IM accounts for each service, development of a staffing schedule, and training of reference staff. Also included is an outline of future plans for improving IM services for students and academic library users

Medieval Stained Glass and the Victorian Restorer

The recovery of the ‘true principles’ of stained glass as an integral part of the Gothic Revival of the nineteenth century grew out of a complex relationship between restoration, reinvention, and startling creativity. The tensions between craft, commerce, art, and scholarship were quick to surface in Victorian debates about restoration, and the descriptions of earlier nineteenth-century restoration practices found in the relevant literature in the years from c. 1900 onwards, much of it derogatory, imply that there was a homogeneous approach to stained glass restoration that could be described as both ‘Victorian’ and destructive. Infamous restorations, such as the Betton and Evans work at Winchester College, have been compared (unfavourably) to the projects in which pioneering stained glass scholar Charles Winston exerted an ‘enlightened’ influence. This article considers to what extent, and why, medieval stained glass required restoration by the Victorians, and to what extent they rescued rather than diminished an endangered heritage. It discusses the surprising variety of approaches adopted across the period, and to what extent these principles and approaches have shaped and influenced modern practice. It will also suggest that by the turn of the twentieth century the proponents of stained glass and its restoration, predominantly artists, were beginning to lose touch with an increasingly science-based understanding of the underlying causes of stained glass deterioration, factors that are also now undermining the survival of our nineteenth-century stained glass inheritance. In many late twentieth-century restorations of ancient stained glass, the work of Victorian restorers was ruthlessly stripped away, usually with little, if any, documentation. A proper understanding of the significance and impact of this complex history is essential if we are to conserve historic stained glass responsibly and ethically, a challenge that now extends to the conservation and protection of the works of the Gothic Revival as well