The Learning Commons is now featured on your favorite websites: Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter! You can keep up with all the latest news, updates, and events- anywhere, anytime. So don’t be shy, become a Facebook friend of the Learning Commons, surf our Youtube channel, and subsrcibe to our Twitter updates.
And now for your consideration, I present to you the disturbing footage which documents the disappearance of an LWTC student who discovered the mystery of the missing journals.
Scott McCloud, who has written extensively on visual literacy and comic books, has been recently featured in a TED talk, Scott McCloud: Understanding Comics, and gives a visually stimulating overview of comic books in terms of structure, plot, and highlights the comic book as a contemporary form of visual communication.
Scott McCloud: Understanding Comics is broken down into five parts:
McCloud examines the intersection between science and art through an examination of the visual language of comics such as sequence, space, time, and patterns. A history of comics traced from prehistoric times and leading up to the online environment is included and looks at objects and works of art one would not ordinarily put on the spectrum of comic book history.
Students and faculty interested in comic books (we have many titles in our book collection), interactive/multimedia design, computer science, art, or those who have always felt at home reading or collecting comic books will really love this TED discussion.
If this video sparks your interest you can check out Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (available in the Library) to learn more. You might also be interested in some of the other books we have on comics and cartoons, which are also available for check out in the Library.
Did you know you can receive updates and keep up-to-date on the latest information simply by subscribing to an RSS feed? You might be scratching your head and thinking, “What is an RSS feed?”
The acronym RSS has had varying definitions over time, but currently it stands for Really Simple Syndication and is an incredible way for students to become information-savvy professionals in their chosen profession. RSS feeds are featured on news websites, blogs, organization websites, and even on our own Learning Commons website — located right down there underneath all of the links in the Community Resources column — hello there little orange fella!
If you click on the link Subscribe to our feed via RSS you will be taken to a page that offers you the option of adding our news feed to your chosen RSS reader.
Now you might be scratching your head again and asking yourself, “How do I find an RSS reader?” Well, you could go out on the web and search for an RSS reader, but did you know that if you have a Gmail account you can access the Google Reader feature? Other email clients such as Yahoo! and Hotmail/Live support adding RSS feeds to your personalized pages (for example My Yahoo!) so you can receive constant updates on news bits, updated blog postings, and online periodical content. If you have other friends or peers who subscribe to the same reader you can share links with one another, which could be useful for keeping current on a collaborative group project.
Again, you might be scratching your head at this point and asking yourself, “Why should I subscribe to RSS feeds?” The answer is very simple: to stay current. Many people use RSS feeds to keep current on news items (for example subscribing to topical RSS feeds of The Seattle Times), but even better than finding out about what’s going on in the world before the evening news you can subscribe to RSS feeds through some of the journals in our research databases. For instance, in ProQuest you can create a RSS feed for a particular search you have completed in this database, but you can also subscribe to RSS feeds for specific journals. This will help keep you current in your profession, identify trends, and make you a valuable asset to your peers and potential employers. Besides, what’s more impressive than a conversation that starts, “Did anyone read that article in this month’s edition of Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services . . . ?”
So, start the New Year off to a great start and make a goal to subscribe to ten different RSS feeds. This can only help you in your work during the quarter and also keeps you current.
Welcome to Winter 2009!
The eLearning team at LWTC has a lot on the agenda to accomplish this quarter. We’d like to start by introducing you to the new website! http://elearning.lwtclearningcommons.com/ gives you access to information for Online, WAOL, and Hybrid courses.
The site also includes information for paying for books, what distance and elearning involves, and how to participate.
Today is the first day of the quarter and we would like to welcome you back to a new quarter and a new year.
You may not have a big workload on the first day, but we wanted to invite you to come and check out some of our board games — we have Scrabble, Uno, Monopoly, and Checkers. If you aren’t interested in board games you might be interested in checking out one of our DVDs located on the rotating wood spinner on the second floor of the Library.
Also, keep in mind that our circulating books check out for the entire quarter, so if you see a book you would like to spend some extra time with then go ahead and bring it down to the Circulation & Information Desk so you can have it for the next 13 weeks.
Keep your eye on this space! This is where we are going to be posting lots of fascinating information on Library services, new tools and resources, and interesting pictures.
If you have questions or concerns feel free to contact one of the Librarians — we’re here to help!