Information Nation: Education and Careers in the Emerging Information Professions by Jeffrey M. Stanton,Indira R. Guzman,and Kathryn R. Stam

The Future Voices in Public Services column is a forum for students in graduate library and information science programs to discuss key issues they see in academic library public services, to envision what they feel librarians in public service have to offer to academia, to tell us of their visions for the profession, or to tell us of research that is going on in library schools. We hope to provide fresh perspectives from those entering our field, in both the United States and other countries. Interested faculty of graduate library and information science programs, who would like their students' ideas represented in these pages, are invited to contact Nancy H. Dewald at nxd7@psu.edu.

Marissa K. Mason is an MSIS student specializing in archives and records management at the University at Albany's Department of Information Studies. In this essay, she discusses the opportunities and challenges of using various social media for promotional outreach of archives and special collections.

The University at Albany's Department of Information Studies, part of the College of Computing and Information, offers a broad-based Master of Science in Information Science degree accredited by the American Library Association. The program has concentrations in library and information services, archives and records administration, school library media, information management and policy, and information systems and technology. Students learn how information is created, organized, represented, stored, accessed, retrieved, managed and used. In addition, they investigate the uses and impacts of information and technology on individuals, organizations and society, including formal and informal communities, libraries, government, and business. A required internship course helps ensure that the program's graduates are ready to enter the world of information professionals. For more information, see http://www.albany.edu/informationstudies/index.php

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Authentic,dialogical knowledge construction: a blended and mobile teacher education programme

Background: Knowledge construction and technology have been identified as critical for an understanding of the future of teacher education. Knowledge is discovered, applied and created collaboratively from authentic starting points. Today’s new mobile and blended learning environments create increased opportunities for such processes, including learner-centred approaches, authenticity and dialogical knowledge construction. However, teaching still requires appropriate learning design and structuring. The presented study explored, and was designed and implemented, using the ‘Dialogical Authentic Netlearning Activity’ (DIANA) pedagogical model, which is seen as one of the learning designing models for existing digital, open and mobile learning environments.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify the challenges and opportunities inherent in the adoption of the DIANA model and to examine student-teachers’ reflections concerning authentic and dialogical knowledge construction. The focus is on the learning process.

Sample: Participants were 63 student-teachers who were following the study module ‘Networks in Vocational Education’ at the School of Professional Teacher Education, in Hämeenlinna, Finland.

Design and methods: This qualitative study uses a deductive content analysis to discern relationships between the data and the existing theory. The data for this study were drawn from an online questionnaire and participants’ self-reflective accounts.

Findings: The results indicate that achieving deep-oriented learning through dialogical actions is the most challenging part of using the DIANA model. Some of the students had difficulty understanding the concept of ‘authenticity’.

Conclusions: The findings of this study suggest enhancing learner-centred scaffolding and guidance, particularly at the outset of the learning process. In addition, methods that develop dialogical skills and competences ought to be integrated into teacher education as extensively as possible, in order to make collaborative work and problem-solving genuinely dialogical and equal.     

A theoretical framework for research into environmental education

The essential question in environmental education is the individual's relationship to his environment, including both that part of his environment which is natural and that part which is man-made. The nature of this relationship is manifested in the way in which the individual acts with regard to his environment and by what choices and decisions he makes in order to come to terms with it. The crucial factors in these decisions are his values, which at the same time represent his cognitive, socio-emotional and ethical development. As an interdisciplinary subject, environmental education draws attention to the technique of examining matters from a variety of viewpoints. Since the consequences of man's decisions regarding his environment are apparent both in the sphere of human life and in the world of nature, these decisions involve ecological and economic, social, political, aesthetic and ethical considerations. Environmental education contains both cognitive and affective aspects, the association between which is examined on the basis of the theoretical premises established in this paper.

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Zusammenfassung Die wesentliche Fragestellung in der Umwelterziehung betrifft die Beziehung des Einzelnen zu seiner Umwelt sowohl zur natürlichen als auch zur von Menschen geschaffenen. Die Art dieser Beziehung zeigt sich in der Handlungsweise des Einzelnen im Hinblick auf seine Umwelt und in den von ihm gewählten Wegen und gefällten Entscheidungen, die ihm ein angemessenes Verhalten ermöglichen. Die ausschlaggebenden Faktoren für diese Entscheidungen sind seine Werte, die gleichzeitig seiner kognitiven, sozio-emotionalen und ethischen Entwicklung entsprechen. Als interdisziplinärer Lernbereich weist die Umwelterziehung auf das Verfahren hin, Umweltfragen von einer Vielzahl von Standpunkten aus zu betrachten. Da die Konsequenzen aus den Entscheidungen der Menschen in Bezug auf ihre Umwelt sowohl im Bereich menschlichen Lebens als auch in der Welt der Natur sichtbar sind, schließen diese Entscheidungen ökologische und ökonomische, soziale, politische, ästhetische und ethische Überlegungen ein. Umwelterziehung enthält ebenso kognitive wie affektive Aspekte, deren Zusammenhang auf der Basis theoretischer Prämissen, die in diesem Artikel begründet werden, überprüft wird.

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Résumé La question essentielle dans le domaine de l'éducation relative à l'environnement porte sur la relation de l'individu avec son environment qui comprend à la fois la partie naturelle de cet environnement et celle provenant de la civilisation. La nature de cette relation se révèle dans la façon dont l'individu agit avec son environnement ainsi que dans les choix qu'il fait et les décisions qu'il prend pour s'accorder avec. Les facteurs décisifs pour ces décisions sont ses valeurs qui représentent en même temps son développement cognitif, socio-émotionnel et éthique. En tant que matière interdisciplinaire, l'éducation relative à l'environnement attire l'attention sur la façon d'examiner les différentes questions en partant d'une quantité de points de vue. Puisque les conséquences des décisions de l'homme concernant son environnement sont visibles dans la sphère de la vie humaine comme dans le monde de la nature, ces décisions impliquent des considérations écologiques, économiques, sociales, politiques, esthétiques et éthiques. L'éducation relative à l'environnement comprend des aspects cognitifs et affectifs dont le rapport est examiné sur la base des prémisses théoriques présentées dans cet article.