User:David J. Patterson
The account of this former contributor was not re-activated after the server upgrade of March 2022.
Having read and written a bit (nothing published: just a paper for a class I took in library school) about the history of encyclopedias, I'm thrilled to be on the ground floor of Citizendium. I hope to do more thinking about the history of encyclopedias next year, when I plan to take a history of education course. I do a lot of thinking these days about how to present the many issues related to "credibility" to my students. I love encyclopedias; I love to encourage students to use them. Lots of students at Cañada, similar to my situation when I was an undergraduate, do not know about discipline-specific encyclopedias (e.g., our library recently bought a two volume encyclopedia of religion and science). When they discover the usefulness of these encyclopedias, which are more detailed than general encyclopedias but still stick to giving readers overviews of a topic, they are delighted. I liken the encyclopedia articles to the framing pieces of a jigsaw puzzle--it's a great starting point for learning about a topic.
My education: Public school all the way! Capuchino High School in San Bruno, California, then 2 years at a community college, College of San Mateo followed by two years at UC Berkeley, where I got a B.A. in English. Then one additional year at UCB in the School of Education training to be a highschool English teacher. I taught elementary and secondary school in a number of areas: English, multiple subjects (general elementary school), music, drama, and a lot of ESL teaching to children, teens and adults. I served in the Peace Corps in the Philippines as an English teacher trainer, lived six years in Budapest, Hungary, where I taught at the American International School of Budapest. I have taught all over the San Francisco Bay Area, including 3 years in the Hillsborough public schools. I have also taught for one year in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
In Tuscaloosa, I went to library school at the University of Alabama, where I earned a Master's Degree in 2003. I worked as an intern librarian at Stanford University, and then I was lucky enough to get a great job at a great college--Cañada College, in Redwood City, California, where I have worked since December, 2003. There, I assist students in doing research, teach classes on research, and am very interested in learning communities, which involve students signing up for two or more linked classes (e.g., reading and library studies) at the same time in order to encourage deeper engagement in learning. I'm also the webmaster of Cañada College Library's website: www.canadacollege.edu/library
I am enrolled in a doctoral program at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Education, where I'm in the second semester of the Language, Literacy, Society and Culture program. In this program I'm currently reading and thinking a lot about the use of encyclopedias and Wikipedia in community college student research. I am gay, and live with my partner in Mill Valley, California. A member of Grace Cathedral, an Episcopal church in San Francisco, I play the piano a bit and love to sing in choirs.