Three years ago we integrated online notecards into the NoodleBib citation software. Since we didn’t know how (or if) teachers and students would use it, we designed it to be as simple and flexible as possible. Since then, the notecards feature has been “discovered” and today is being used in thousands of schools with great success. Virtually all schools that originally subscribed only to the citation software are now also using the notecards.

Over the last two years, we’ve visited classrooms to observe and interact with students using NoodleBib’s notecards for research projects. Our observations and the feedback that we’ve received from these early adopters (and from many other users) has been invaluable. They are the backbone for the changes to the notecards feature that we’ll release this summer.

Over the next few months you will be getting more detailed information, but we couldn’t resist giving you a sneak peek now. Click the thumbnail below to see our first published screenshot of the new online notecard interface (if you are using IE, you’ll probably want to disable automatic image resizing, to view the screenshot without distortion).

Note: A stand-alone version of the notecards tool is pictured here. The version integrated into NoodleBib will look similar.

The new software models how a student might pile up and play with the organization of real notecards on a physical table top. A student can:

• Stack notecards by dragging one on top of another;
• Mouse-over notecards or stacks to view a quick summary of their contents;
• Label notecards not only with text-based tags, but also with visual symbols and colors for various tasks and reminders (e.g., “Important,” “Need help,” etc.);
• Navigate around a virtual “tabletop” that is larger than the monitor’s screen size using a map (see bird’s eye view in the bottom-left hand corner of the screenshot in which each dot represents a notecard);
• Search notecards by any keyword, tag, or source, then manipulate the search results efficiently (e.g., search for all of the notecards tagged “habitat” and stack them with one click);
• View and edit within the popular current interface of NoodleBib notecards (old notecards will migrate automatically to the new interface);
• Create an outline, then slide notecards onto topics or subtopics in the outline (the software keeps track of what has been already used);
• Print and save the final outline filled with content as a single word-processed document.
• Read teachers comments and questions directly on the notecards just as easily as they see comments on citations now.

NoodleTools was down for about an hour this morning. We’re investigating the cause, but it is running smoothly now and the problem seems to have been an isolated incident. We received a mind-boggling number of e-mails and voicemails reporting the issue =) Since this happened before work hours, we couldn’t update the NoodleTools.info site to explain the situation, so apologies for any inconvenience this caused.

The 7th edition of the MLA Handbook will be published this April (pre-order now). NoodleBib will be incorporating these changes as part of a July 2009 update. The 3rd edition of the MLA Style Manual came out in 2008, and based on our discussions with the editors, the changes in the Style Manual will for the most part be mirrored in the new edition of the MLA Handbook. However, we have chosen not to make changes until July for the following reasons:

1. Changes in the middle of the school year would be confusing for students (and teachers).
2. Some types of citations (like mailing lists, forums, and blog entries) are not addressed in the MLA Style Manual.
3. There may be minor differences between the Style Manual and the Handbook, since they are targeted to different audiences. Based on our thorough analysis of the changes in the new Style Manual, we’ve submitted feedback to MLA about some potential improvements/clarifications that could be made in the Handbook. We’ll see what comes of that (they’ve listened to us before).

NoodleTools will be offline for maintenance on 1/2/2009 between 10 PM and 12 AM CST.

Please note that our telephone support number has changed to (650) 561-4071.

Debbie authored an article titled “Guiding the Gifted to Honest Work” in the most recent issue of the Duke Gifted Letter (Vol. 9 / Issue 1 / Fall 2008).

Students will tell you that plagiarism is everywhere and, perhaps, even irrelevant. To make their case, they point to recent examples of high-profile authors, politicians, musicians and even clergy who have used the work of others without acknowledgment. Although the penalties have sometimes been severe, students assert that these cases prove that intellectual property and copyright are unworkable and outmoded. Read more…

Debbie will be giving a keynote and conducting one session at the Ventura County Office of Education tomorrow, October 3rd. Then its on to Portland on Thursday, October 9th for the OASL/WLMA Conference, where she’ll be doing one of the extended sessions (9 am – 12 pm).

Who Knows What …and How Do I Know it?
Students make judgments about authority in their everyday lives, but don’t necessarily transfer this to evaluating online sources. We’ll look at the relationship between trust, expertise and authority in the real world, the academic world and in the new permeable Web where learners expect to create information and construct knowledge, not just consume it.

Beyond Cut-and-Paste: No More Cat and Mouse, Revisited
You’ve been telling your students not to cut-and-paste, but are you teaching the specific skills they need to avoid plagiarism? Do your students (and do you?) know the difference between paraphrasing and summarizing? Do they know how and when to quote a source directly? Do they recognize common knowledge? Do they understand how to develop their own opinions and voice? Constructivist, student-centered teaching ideas and documentation strategies for your information literacy curriculum.

The user’s guide has been updated to reflect the addition of Chicago/Turabian formatting and some features that have been added over the past few months (see previous blog entries). The corresponding knowledge base articles will be updated over the next week as well.

Also, with the latest statistics now indicating that Google’s Chrome is getting some significant usage, we spent some time testing NoodleBib under that browser. That went very well, and we’re pleased to announce that we will be supporting Google Chrome as a browser option effective immediately.

I’d like to provide a quick update on our plans for supporting the changes introduced in the MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing (3rd ed.). Based on what we have learned from MLA, we have decided not to make any updates in NoodleBib yet to support the new formatting. MLA has specifically recommended that “undergraduate and high school students should continue to follow guidelines in the sixth edition of the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers until the seventh edition is released in spring 2009.”

We are pleased to (officially) announce that Chicago/Turabian bibliography-notes formatting will be available in NoodleBib starting September 1st. All subscribing users will automatically have access to the new formatting option, and it will also be available as part of the free NoodleBib Express tool (which allows you to create individual citations).

There are two “bibles” of Chicago style — Turabian’s A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (7th ed.) and The Chicago Manual of Style (15th ed.). There are a few differences between the two guides (most significantly, the noticeable lack of coverage of online sources in the Chicago Manual of Style). We decided to stick with Turabian’s Manual for Writers (which is written more with a student in mind) as our “primary” guide for the new feature. In the same way, we use the MLA Handbook as our primary guide for MLA formatting (written for secondary school and college students), rather than the MLA Style Manual (written for graduate students and scholarly authors).

We look forward to working with you all again this school year!