Webinar Reflection

Webinar Performed

My group wondered what there is to be learned about users' copyright in social media. My original interest was in proper attribution when sharing through a social service, but the topic morphed into "protecting your own copyright on social media services." It turns out that when the product is you, what you put into the service becomes part of the service. We discovered, when we put our three independently-researched sections together, that our webinar was in danger of being repetitive; in the case of social media, the terms of service you sign grant that service a license to proliferate anything you post and use it in any way they might see fit in relation to the service. I think we did a decent job catching this and differentiating the focus of our sections, but in the future, structural planning should take place once more information has been collected.

We did our best to hold attention and encourage a bit of involvement with some token questions and chat interaction. Our slides weren't spectacular, though; we had more than a handful that were simply text, and even some screen grabs of more blocks of text. It took seeing a few webinars to realize that the general presentation worry of flipping through slides too quickly might not be so applicable here; when your audience is staring at a screen and not you, your animation can come through in what you show them. In my section, I used a bubble metaphor in my descriptions that would have made a nice visual, and been a break from all the text.

We learned a trick from one of the first groups presenting that was very handy toward the end; rather than wait for a long, silent stretch for someone to think of a question, we made up "write-in" questions to help us casually wrap up our takeaways.

Webinars Attended

I learned about enticing boys into the library, supporting school communities affected by budget cuts, reaching patrons outside of social media, and creative commons licenses. All were very interesting and informative, and I enjoyed the casual classroom effect I felt during the presentations.

I found that some groups didn't quite realize that visual appeal is important in holding the audience's attention; some slides had more text than those of my own group, and I found myself quickly finding other things to look at after realizing that each slide lasted for a few minutes of talking. Others did a wonderful job of finding interesting and relevant visuals to show me, which I appreciated.

I found myself wishing for subtitles in some cases. It's difficult to understand some of the heavier accents in our class; I'm wondering if not being able to see the speaker has an impact on my ability to identify their words?

Overall, it seems that there are some subtleties that my original assessment of "webinars are just long-distance one-shot workshops" glossed over. I realize that I learned about a few of these issues when discussing distributed computer-assisted cooperation last semester. People interact differently through screens; I wonder how different these webinars would have been if we hadn't spent a semester of class together?

Week 13 Reading: Professional Development on the Job

Our final bout of readings told tales of teachers and library employees learning important skills beyond graduation. This has a history of being accomplished at conferences and courses outside of professionals' paid hours, costing them plenty of extra money and time beyond an already-full work week.

Teachers in Wyoming enjoy a forward-thinking program that allows them to develop new techniques for teaching during contract hours. The program is run by teachers and perpetuated by teachers, and there are monetary incentives for mastering new abilities. There is strength in this program because of the ability for learners to see the skills they are hoping to acquire in action in others' classes, and because teachers are able to see improvement in their own students as they come to master a technique in their own classroom.

Blowers and Reed describe a two-part program for keeping library staff on the up-and-up of modern technology. Reed's core competencies in four tiers utilizes in-person workshops with library staff to teach them the basics necessary to keep working through routine technical issues at work. Blowers takes the education on through to web 2.0 technologies with a more relaxed, fun approach through blogging in "Learning 2.0." Those working through the weekly lessons have the option of completing bonus tasks and get the nice incentive of an MP3 player if they complete/learn all 23 "things" covered throughout the course.

Our own Prof. Fontichiaro effected an overhaul of Blowers' Learning 2.0 in order to introduce her own school's teachers to web 2.0. Her aim was to re-engineer the tasks for elementary teachers, incorporating appropriate services and ways in which her students could incorporate their new skills into their own classrooms. Kristein noted that some teachers were interested in taking a second stab at her course during a slower time of the year, or during a semester when they felt more refreshed (as opposed to beginning in the middle of the schol year).

I found that the first article sounded overwhelming to me, but perhaps this is because I have not been training to be a teacher. The second two readings presented a much more interesting concept to me; while I found none of the "things" or "explorations" beyond my own knowledge or capability, it was very good to see plans laid out for houw to teach the knowledge to others en masse. I have some experience showing others how to do this or that through my student job as a consultant, but long-term lesson plans are still new territory to me.

Week 12 Class: Following people, professionally

After what felt like a cacophonous struggle to sort out my custom Twitter list last week, I was grateful to discover that I was not completely alone in my sentiments when we discussed the exercise in class this week. Prof. Fontichiaro revealed that the exercise had first been assigned four years ago; fewer students had had previous experience with the service, and the service itself - the features, the networks, and the content of tweets in general - looked different in important ways. Many students in this class had accounts before the exercise, but the content of the new lists we created wasn't as simple and clear as the lists of four years ago might have been.

As I noticed before, there's the issue of the single stream of tweets from an account; not all topics from a fellow in the profession will be professional, as one might prefer as a follower. Some students mentioned that they had, for this reason, created a second account for their professional tweets. Perhaps I shall do the same if I ever enter a point of more frequent tweeting in the future.

Another thing that became apparent was the significance of Twitter's API; Twitter's native web interface is quite limited, something that several developers for both web and mobile have made apparent through the capabilities of their own products. I noticed that lists do not show retweets, but this is only true of the native web interface; Chris, with whom I reflected about the exercise, was not aware of the issue at all because such a shortcoming was not the case for her through her mobile app. Prof. Fontichiaro also showed how her web service of choice allows her to wrangle multiple accounts, subjects, and lists at a time, something impossible through the native site.

The discussion moved on to PLNs: Personal Learning Networks. These are the professionals and peers you follow or otherwise connect with in order to keep abreast of current issues and developments in your chosen career path. Ideally, you might be able to gain advice or feedback from a few of them on your own projects and ideas. This concept falls in line with the networking mindset, something I still need to work on; I tend to pay more attention to concepts and ideas, and it takes me longer to remember the names that might be prominent in relation to them. During the Twitter exercise, though, I did stumble across Dan Cohen, the executive director of the Digital Public Library of America, and I recognized his name and institution when it launched officially on Thursday. Methinks I need to work on building and cultivating a PLN on my own time without the requirements and deadlines of a class assignment in order to get the best benefit.

Week 12: Twittersphere Librarian Aggregation

Oh Twitter. What a concept. I've had an account for a while, but I'm not sure I ever exemplified the ideal user as envisioned by the site's creators or administrators. I follow mostly friends, not too many accounts for groups or institutions, and I hardly ever follow those I haven't met.

I collected 26 accounts for my "liblist" information-focussed Twitter list. I spent so much time staring at users' quick self-descriptions; without opening the full page for each one, I judged whether or not I would find them relevant or useful. It was fascinating seeing the extent of enthusiastic librarians and archivists defining themselves as such in their profiles, but here was where the shallow nature of Twitter starts to lose me.

Not shallow in an intellectual sense, but shallow in terms of stratification and organization of subject. In a full blog, if the author chooses to post both professional and personal material, it can be sorted with tags or contextualized. With Twitter, I can inspect the account of someone who includes digital libraries in their introductory list of interests and find more about their coffee habit or disjointed, context-less commentary than library-related content or insight.

When I viewed my list, I discovered that Twitter lists don't show retweets. This serves to throw the mix of the stream of tweets even further out of balance; not only do some users tweet at a much higher rate than others, but some make liberal use of the retweet button, creating a discrepancy in the feed I viewed before adding the account to my list and that account's overall presence in my liblist.

Griping aside, collecting this list helped me to gain a sense of the Twitter library-minded presence/community. There are many librarians, archivists, and information/data enthusiasts writing, reading, and sharing tweets about current topics and life's little things. The topics seemed consistent with those touched on in the full blog review assignment, though tweeters can fire off more article links with minimal commentary.

With the required number of accounts to follow set so high, I feel somewhat at a loss to come up with truly coherent conclusions. The range of subject material, rate of original posting, shifting frequencies of posting, and the sheer amount of information available for me to read in just a dozen posts in my list makes the scope of the medium so wide that I almost can't dig in. I like the idea of tweets on their own, but attempting to take in many in a stream does indeed fit the metaphor of attempting to focus on individual birds tweeting in the forest; if I do manage to focus on one at a time, it is at the expense of my attention on the others. Following others is easy, but the cacophony of contribution is not for everyone or everything, and it might even take a trained reader to sort it all out at all.

Week 10 class: Webinars, webinars

Appropriately, we were to experience an introduction to webinars through both in-class participation in and admin screen observation of Professor Fontichiaro's demo-presentation. This didn't quite pan out; we waited patiently for a large part of the class period (during which we merely observed and interacted in the usual analog fashion) for an email invitation to the session which never came. We eventually achieved session attendance after the right link was posted on CTools, but those emails never arrived. After experiencing a similar silence from Blackboard Collaborate when signing up for the free trials we need for our upcoming webinar assignment using umich.edu addresses, we are reminded that technology still affords collaborators some odd and unexpected complications.

Aside from the common-sense considerations (watch your time allotment, make your slides nice, a video of your face talking is probably not worth it), the importance of facilitating participation was reiterated a few times. With a webinar, participants might be tempted to let their attention stray; keep viewers involved with polls and question-answering in order for both host and audience to get the most out of the session.

We closed with a discussion about embedded librarians, and pondered why most of the class has never visited ours during her open office hours. It turns out that we library school students feel pretty capable of finding information and understanding library resources on our own. It seems to me that the readings gave us all a pretty good idea of how she has great potential in our community, but we all feel too busy or self-sufficient to put effort into integrating her ourselves.

Week 10: Embedded Librarians and Webinars

As if "the dreaded one-shot workshop" wasn't enough, we're now moving on to the webinar. As far as I can tell, the webinar is a one-shot workshop, but distributed across locations and technologies, though it seems that more interaction is encouraged. I guess the webinar is meant to be more of a class than a presentation, but the teaching element was, I felt, just as appropriate in our fact-to-face sessions.

We read two articles from Public Service Quarterly about embedded librarians, who are assigned to exclusively to specific departments within academic institutions. According to Matos, Motley, and Mayer, the traditional model is placed (physically) into a department and meant to support the faculty and students in a variety of library-related ways, whereas the second model is a sort of distance-liaison, that department's sole point of library contact via a collection of communication modes (2010). The case study for the traditionally embedded librarian felt that her physical proximity to students and faculty allowed her to connect with and enrich her department (music) in ways that would have never been possible otherwise. The connected liaison case study librarian accounted the ways in which technology and different lines of communication had helped him to field questions, maintain a collection, and provide distance education for his business and economics department. It seems that face-to-face interaction with one's user base affords more complex relationships within one's department, but it is undeniable that technologies such as those developed for webinars allow librarians to reach today's users that may not be willing or able to visit a physical library or office.

We also read a chapter from How People Learn on effective teaching. The main points were that an effective teacher possesses knowledge both of the subjet area and the ways in which her students learn. Examples in history, math, and science emphasized the differences in effective teaching strategies between subjects, but what stayed consistent between all were the importance of subject principles and context within a student's own concept model, the greater concept map of the subject field, and life outside the classroom. Effective teachers understand how to engage students by eliciting and building on questions and held concepts from the beginning of the course. The takeaway for a librarian, who doesn't have a semester or year to build a lesson plan, might be the importance of gaining an understanding of a patron's current knowledge of a subject, and of communication in determining how to provide the best help in response to a question or in a workshop (or webinar).

Week 9: One-shot workshops

Our one-shot workshops this week were quite varied in form. Each of the four teams in my group prepared a different combination of presentation and reflection to teach us about something interesting.

My group decided to spend a bit more time on the Pew Study brought up in class a few weeks ago about people's aspirations and expectations for public libraries. We spent a brief intro period going over some significant points (vocally), and then we handed out a copy of the study's executive summary for each team to review in more detail. After 5 minutes, we asked the teams to discuss how they felt the findings might apply to their chosen career path, followed by a group-wide discussion facilitated by us. Participants were able to pull out some points they found surprising, though we had some difficulty eliciting responses with connections to future careers outside of public libraries. Much of our survey responses pointed out that the review and discussion times were too short, or that even the executive summary was too much information to digest in so little time. Overall, I think we tried to fit too many components into such a short amount of time; we could have easily approached this study the same way we did with the book club, with much more reflection/discussion time, and time for each participant to peruse the study itself before we met.

We received a library-centered introduction to paper preservation in the form of a Presi presentation. This workshop was very well structured, and the handout was a simple note-taking sheet with 3 section headings and plenty of lines for writing. It was very evenly-paced and informative; my only recommendation was that the various web resources shown in the Prezi visual be provided on the handout, so that audience members wouldn't have to worry about frantically copying things down.

We learned the procedure for ordering printed work from the University's Espresso Book Machine via a PowerPoint presentation. Our handout was a printout of the slides, six to a page. While I learned of capabilities I had not considered for this service I have never used, the annotated screen-shot step-through was a bit hard to follow. Rather than explain options available on the screen for each step, it might have been more coherent for us to have received an overview of the possibilities for each step, followed by a live demonstration with a narration that referred to the information we had previously reviewed.

Finally, we were introduced to CIPA, the Child Internet Protection Act. The presenters handed out and reviewed (vocally) a well-laid out report that combined the act itself, the ALA Code of Ethics, and some relevant developments from recent years regarding the act's application in certain libraries. We then turned the handout sheet over, and were invited to consider the two case scenarios we read and to discuss how well we thought they followed CIPA and/or the Code of Ethics. It was a very interesting discussion, and the timing was great.

Overall, one-shot workshops are a lot trickier than book clubs. There are a lot more possibilities for structure, and the amount of time you have to work with matters a great deal in achieving an appropriate pace. It is important to put yourself in the participant's place and consider how you might fare as an audience member: What would you want provided? How well could you keep up? Is this the best medium or method for explanation or demonstration?

Week 8 Class: Workshops and Ethics

We spent the first part of class discussing how to run a good workshop, starting out with brainstorming what makes a bad workshop. Most of the answers were typical (boring presentation, inappropriate length), but the topic of icebreakers ended up receiving quite a lot of attention. Turns out it can be tricky  business asking groups of strangers to reveal even small bits of personal information, and those activities that elicit no real information from participants merely serve to try the patience. The best bet is to find an activity or tidbit to be shared that is relevant to the workshop topic at hand. Another potentially underthought section of the workshop is the orientation; you need to bring your participants around to roughly the same page on the situation/material, and make sure that you plant means of group management (e.g. cards for forming pairs and groups) at the beginning of the session. Be conscious, as when helping a patron one-on-one, of your participants' capabilities and potential comfort zones and accomodate them accordingly to minimize confusion and derailment.

Once we got through an outline/overview of workshop structure, we participated in a library ethics workshop by addressing two stories about recent developments for the Toronto Public Library. After assessing the ALA code of ethics in class, we read both stories in small groups and voiced how we felt the code could be applied to each in turn in a class discussion. First was the story about the library placing ads on the backs of due date slips; the ads will be managed by an agency, but the library has laid down some stipulations about ads aimed at children, and will receive income from the ads. The second, about linking the catalogue with an online retailer, seemed at first to be simply a convenience. Both instances seemed to be questionable on the sixth principle of the code, but feelings were quite diverse about the degree to which either situation offended or violated the code. Even when prompted to prefer one over the other, different answers were voiced, with varying reasoning for both sides. I felt that many would have been perhaps a bit closer to an agreement if we had known more details about each situation, including the unknowable: how would each play out on a case-by-case basis? Even in hypothetical form, calling ethically charged decisions remains difficult and time-consuming.

Week 8 Readings: Ethics in Helping

This week's readings tackle the difficult area of ethics at the reference desk. Perhaps the small number of pieces (only the ALA Code of Ethics and an 8-page piece by Mark Lenker) could be taken as an indicator of the difficulty and lack of authority about the topic. There are a few journals and plenty of articles dedicated to the subject of librarian and information ethics, but many are address situations and events much larger than the case-by-case struggles of assisting individuals at the reference desk or on the floor.

Libraries are particularly ripe for ethical dilemmas because of the potential power of information and the stance many libraries take towards its freedom and the privacy of their patrons. Librarians, in assisting others, have personal convictions to pit against professional duties that are more explicit and, sometimes, radical than other institutions. In his article, Lenker uses the example of a "more or less clean-cut young man of high school age" asking for information on marijuana cultivation as a question that sets the reference librarian asked to a lot of internal consideration. Should he attempt to learn more about the use to which this information would be put? If he does this, how will this effect his actions? His personal convictions stand, here, at odds with his library's approach to information freedom and patron help, but should he give in to the needs of the patron and his professional obligations or hold some integrity, thereby forcing his own standards onto another? What of the consequences of his actions?

Lenker stresses, toward the end of his article, that we should not resort to oversimplification (e.g. "the REAL question is" this one facet of the larger problem). Easier said than done; as I read through his case study, I found myself thinking "how long is the patron willing to stand there while you debate these difficult points in your head?" Ethics are subjective, complicated and difficult, and only extensive experience can possibly make the decisions easier for each of us individually.

Week 7 Class: Book Club

Our book club session was a predictably pleasant time. It was nice to get others' thoughts about the pieces, to see the different opinions and interpretations everyone brought to the discussion. My group went first, and it did seem to take everyone a bit of time to warm up to both asking and responding to questions. We had a difficult time keeping the discussion in the order we had attempted to arrange in our questions; from our feedback surveys, we determined that not everyone was on the same page of background information, and we were perhaps a bit too worried about overtaking the discussion. Still, we did get some good cerebral activity going.

It was easier being a participant, of course. It turns out that my interpretation of the Virginia Woolf piece was maybe too influenced by my preconception of her work; the other participants found it to be a pleasantly un-depressing surprise. Of the mislaid street piece, we were asked if we would do as the main character did and move onto the street (and keep the secret) that his job would demand he report. To my surprise, most replies showed a lot of caution, wary of eventual repercussions. Our discussion of the Queen's Tarts was fun indeed. I wasn't aware of the actual Alice in Wonderland connection, and, while we did talk a bit about the content, the discussion ended up addressing the place of classics like this in children's literature, and the trend of telling parts of the story and side stories through illustration with no explicit text narration.

Last thought: this was very much a librarian book club. Not all book clubs will be so full of well-read, enthusiastic members on the up-and-up about the nuances of literature's place and connections in society. Not to say that book clubs aren't formed of interested individuals with plenty of knowledge, just that the discussion would have been a bit different if the members had been more diverse in occupation, age, or experience.

Week 7 Readings: 4 Pieces for our Book Club Assignment

This week we will be holding quick book club sessions in smaller groups. Below are my initial responses to the four pieces for my group (the Clubs Group).

The Crime

Victor Hugo

"How could you burn the library! Such a noble institution! Knowledge is what raises you up, empowers you, the true measure of a society's progress!" Hugo invokes the names of several literary and philosophical greats, and lays out the path books and knowledge can inspire from ignorance and prejudice to enlightenment and liberty. As the culprit has no access to such benefits ("I cannot read"), the poem can be seen as a reminder of the importance of information literacy (and literacy in general), and a sort of grounding for those who might get too caught up in a particular cause or pursuit.

A Haunted House

Virginia Woolf

This reading is a lot harder to grasp than the others. The author describes a ghostly couple searching for  an unnamed Treasure, but at the same time she forgets what she herself goes looking for within the house. Knowing what I do about the author, my interpretation is of an attempt to describe the difficulty of finding that certain something in life, especially for those with depression. The ghostly couple has come back to find it; they know what's important now that they've passed, and even they have a tough time nailing it down.

The Street That Got Mislaid

Patrick Waddington

Marc Girondin is a lowly clerk whose specialty is the streets of Montreal. He seems to be perfectly happy at work amid the officious workings of bureaucracy, especially with the contrast of the inhospitability he faces from his landlady and neighbors. Until one day, when he finds a lost card detailing a street he's never heard of. He sets out to inspect, and ends up hearing the story of the street forgotten by the city from one of the longtime residents. Without taxes, inspections, or unwanted visitors, it's turned into a haven from the rest of the city, lost in time. As he hears of the content little community, Marc realizes that perhaps the authority of bureaucracy isn't a uniformly benign factor. Perhaps I'm too cynical; I found this piece a bit like an adult fairy tale. Plenty of people would be happy to find a tax-free little close-knit neighborhood in the middle of a city. And the turn Marc makes from celebrating the power of bureaucracy to advocating slipping under its radar is quick and painless; then again, not every decision need be difficult.

The Queen of Hearts

Randolph Caldecott

Very short poem about the titular Queen and her tarts; she makes them, the Knave (Jack) steals them, the King finds out and beats him, and the Knave brings them back, seemingly having learned his lesson. I've seen this poem before, but the illustrations for this particular publication are what lend the little story a more robust feel. The simplest interpretation of the poem is as a moral against petty theft, but the illustrations lend an interesting glimpse of the life of royalty/aristocracy (in the garden, archery practice, dancing), and a little extra of the cat who tattles on the Knave to the fat kitchen servant.

Week 6 Class: Running a good book club/discussion

The consensus seems to be that a good book club discussion should not aim for a verdict or consensus. The discussion facilitators should read deeply, annotating the piece, developing and asking questions to which they do not have definitive answers. Conversation should not stray too far from the reading assignment, but participants are encouraged to tie in related experiences and examples that promote relation and understanding. Facilitators have several types of inquiry from which to develop questions, but if the discussion seems to be perpetuating in the proper direction, there is no reason to cut it short in order to reach an imagines question/topic quota.

We had our own discussion of the assigned piece, "In the 21-st Century, Let's Ban (Paper) Books" by Marc Prensky; the class contributed discussion questions and Prof. Fonticharo guided the conversation. The piece is very provocative for those in our field, which made for many points of questioning. After just a little bit of discussion from our submitted questions, though, our mediator did a bit of "bird walking" (leading the discussion instead of taking more of a supportive role) in order to introduce the nature of the author into the group's consideration. While discussion leaders should refrain from lending too firm a hand to the helm, the work of the author outside of the piece on which we were focusing was of relevant consideration, and allowed for further discussion on the topic in a slightly larger scope. I will remember to learn about the author as another point of context in future readings.

Week 6 Readings: Book Clubs and Socratic Seminars

Two of this weeks articles, Dempsey and Hoffert, are happy to report that book clubs have been revitalized! All it took was a departure from the traditional "pick a book and read it, then we'll discuss it at the library" structure. Groups now hold discussions with readers having read different pieces with a common subject or theme, or they might not all be at the same point in a book (some events don't require that attendees have even started the book at all), and the reading material can be more adjusted to readers' interests; more contemporary, not just classics or Oprah list items. Readers can talk at locations and times that fit their schedules, sometimes online and outside of the library itself. While Dempsey focuses on fitting book groups to modern lives, Hoffert seeks means of mixing things up, including varied media in discussion, video- and teleconferencing, publisher-offered extras such as podcasts, and sneaking nonfiction into discussion sections.

Tredway and Metzger both write about the intellectually transformative powers of the Socratic seminar, in which students discuss a reading with minimal instructor influence. Metzger went well beyond Tredway's introductory information to describe developed methods for analysis, as she used the seminar to instill both critical analysis skills and metacognitive abilities in her high school students. The strength of the Socratic seminar lies in its group discussion focus and open-endedness, wherein participants are not expected to touch on all points of a rubric, and the emphasis on participation, as the outer, non-speaking 'ring' of participants are included through their role as recorders and summarizers of the inner group's free-range commentary. Overall, the approach aims to get students to really interpret a reading instead of having the "right" answers spoken at them by a lecturer.

As a freshman at UMich back in 2006, I misguidedly took three, maybe four first year seminars, which were nothing but constant discussion. They weren't actually Socratic, but the instructors still urged us to get a bit tangental and encouraged all thoughts on the readings, be they traditional or not.Come to think about it, my 400-level English lit class involved a lot of free-range discussion, too. But the prof still outlined the important concepts we were all supposed to get, and there were definitely "right" and "wrong" concepts when it came time to write papers. Would the class have helped us to develop better critical skills if we had had fewer guidelines, less structure from the prof? It certainly would have taken more time to get through the material. And what would true Socratic form have lent to my other seminars? Is it advantageous to have the two separate rings in the discussion? Is it enough to take the instructor down from the lecture podium to the participant's chair, or is it important to assign certain members to observe the critical discussion? I find that my own metacognition begins as soon as I am reminded of it, but the Socratic form would have me study others' methods of cognition and analysis and apply them to myself asynchronously. Perhaps the method is good for beginning students, but the separation seems cumbersome with a group experienced enough in reflection.

Week 5 Class

This week we picked up our post-McGonigal discussion about videogames and how gamers/gamer culture may or may not have some sort of grand potential for transfer into "the real world." While there are initiatives with noble effects (EyeConnect, donation-score matching), it's fairly difficult to find a positive transfer from games as a whole into non-game territory. Not that there aren't games with good transfer value out there, but the challenge remains for intentionally educational games to successfully combine good play with a good lesson. The gaming community is often seen as people who like to have fun, but we discussed the darker (and dimmer) aspects, too, like the contribution many games make to the desensitizing of younger generations, and the misogyny lurking on console and MMORPG networks. Penny Arcade linked Fat, Ugly or Slutty the other day, which has gathered a sizable amount of evidence for the case that not all gamers are shy hero-wannabes in need of an achievable chance to help the world.

Of our discussion-consolidation of our librarian blogger samplers, most findings were unsurprising. What did stick in my mind was the last question, "is blogging on the way out?" One of my bloggers, Andy Wentworth of Agnostic, Maybe, recently blogged about why he blogs (so meta!), but I didn't realize it might be part of a possible trending decline. How long have blogs been a "thing?" I'm not sure I'd mourn their passing, but would we really be losing blogs? or just the trend; their validity and popularity? And what am I doing blogging, here, anyway? I'd rather contribute to an open class discussion, even on a forum or wiki, than write entries every week, which people read because it is expected of them.

Bonus Library Blogger Entry

I had a hard time picking out just four bloggers for this post; as one professor recently put it, I'm still working on finding a particular direction within this field of information. Because of this, I didn't have an area of specialization in mind to pick two from for this assignment, so I just kept my spread distributed across at least three of the list categories we were provided.

The Bloggers

librarian.net

Jessamyn West, a Vermont library technologist and Metafilter community manager, addresses the issues that most interest me; digital libraries, public knowledge projects, and hip/relevant information/knowledge technologies. She's secured her spot as a well-known blogger over years of addressing the future of information technology and freedom of speech and expression since 1999. I was particularly drawn in by her attitude of interest and enthusiasm for open access and her post about SI's own Michael Barera and his Wikipedian in Residence job.

Agnostic, Maybe

New Jersey public librarian Andy Wentworth is a mover and a shaker, the man behind Sweater Vest Sunday and the facebook groups for “People for a Library Themed Ben & Jerry’s Flavor” and Save the NJ Libraries. His posts typically address library-related current events and posts, such as books banned or removed from circulation, ebooks and licenses, and a librarian-petticoat-ruffling article that made the internet rounds.

The Annoyed Librarian

This anonymous blogger for Library Journal brings a humorously blunt, realistic/practical voice to the greater library discussion table, addressing perhaps a wider range of current library events and articles than that of Andy Wentworth. She's addressed the "bookless library" trend, an article about librarians' "soft skills," censorship/books removed from circulation, and ALA politics. Her writing voice is critical and sometimes abrasive, but I appreciate the informed discussion.

Free Range Librarian

K.G. Schneider, University Librarian at Holy Names University in Oakland, CA, is a librarian, writer, and beer-brewing hobbyist with a preference for the mor modern, technological aspects of the library. Her posts are long and very thoughtful; she usually writes about her own life and whatever issues she has been musing about, be they more current library events or more overall library theory. Particularly of interest to me were her posts about "Rediscovered Management Lessons" and a mixed bag that covered the importance of the ALA and the changing focus in library spaces, where I appreciated her level, experienced voice on the subjects.

The Trends

The ALA (Politics)

The Association is a very public forum and indicator of library issues, so it's no surprise that each blog mentioned it at least once. On the more personal-experience end, K.G. Schneider has a recap of her attendance the Midwinter conference, but there are many more posts that address library-politics, the current issues of the more official libraryland. K.G. Schneider supports ALA committees as useful, if sometimes frustrating. Jessamyn West posts about larger advocacy events (national Library Week and Banned Books Week) and articles/talks that the ALA promotes that are relevant to digital libraries and information freedom. Andy Wentworth seems to uphold the Association as an authority, a useful vehicle for advocacy, while the Annoyed Librarian turns her skeptic's eye on Wentworth's Sweater Vest awareness movement.

Technology

Annoyed and Wentworth address eBooks and a recent announcement about an Apple-store-like bookless library, but Schneider and West get more into devices and services; Kindles, MOOCs, the cloud, and iPad apps.

Open/Free Information/Libraries/Access

Wentworth and Annoyed have twin posts about censorship, almost all have a Banned Books Week post, and Jessamyn West has several posts about open libraries and Public Domain.

Library Currency

Librarians like to worry about being librarians. K.G. has posted about the aging idea of cataloguing and a patron's comment about the dated appearance of her library. Jessamyn has posted about new library lob postings and articles questioning the necessity of libraries. Annoyed Librarian posts "Librarians: Evolving or Extinct?" and calls that Apple-store-like bookless library a "passing fad." And Andy Wentworth's main cause seems to be library awareness, giving me the impression that the institutions are on the "endangered" list and in need of volunteer activism.

Week 5 readings: Transfer

Chapter 3 of How We Learn provided a thorough analysis of important components and considerations. Transfer is important both at the acquisition and application ends of learning; teachers need to keep background and example contexts in mind when introducing new concepts and assessing understanding. True understanding, not just acquisition and recitation, is necessary for successful transfer, and it takes both time and motivation. The authors advocate active encouragement of transfer skills and highlight the applicability of metacognition to the situation of transfer.

The shorter Wiggins and McTighe article took the position that transferability is an important factor in holding students' attention. The authors outlined a couple of lesson plans that included a hook question/activity and emphasized the possibility of drawing in learners through the presentation of situations in which they would need to acquire the concepts of the unit in order to achieve understanding and rational answers. These plans showed how to construct a progression through meaning-making, concept acquisition, and successful transfer.

As always, it was interesting to read these more school-oriented approaches. But librarians don't get so many opportunities to teach people over an extended period of time, so what can I take from these pieces? First, it's important to consider transfer from existing schemata when assisting someone or leading a program; a few of the examples in the book chapter reminded me how easy it is to take the small things one might use as examples as "universal," for granted. Perhaps more generally, and most specific to me, is the basic fact that understanding takes time (as I am impatient), and that individuals will be able to transfer with differing levels of prompting. When teaching a class, guiding a patron, or explaining a concept in answer to a question, it is important to remember that some people will need more explicit explanation of transferability than I might need myself.

Week 4 class: Feedback, Design of Surveys, and Touching on Transfer

After watching McGonigal's TED talk about transferring gaming strengths onto reality-based activities, we took a survey and analyzed its makeup, including what types of questions were asked, in what order, and what purposes they would serve in evaluation and revising of a program or session. I recalled SI 500 last year, when we had to gather information and were challenged to write questions that would get us the truest information, but I found that this exercise, both taking the sample survey and then analyzing the example questions, did give me a better idea of how to write an effective survey. The discussion included structure for keeping participants engaged and questions for gauging approach and attitude of the answerer, things I hadn't thought about before.

The TED talk itself was interesting, too. I took the Videogames and Learning course as an undergraduate a few years ago and it was interesting to see the traits that McGonigal highlighted for transfer to real world situations. Where the education course covered the abilities that can be learned and strengthened through videogames, whether through purposeful design or by virtue of the medium itself, McGonigal drew out traits developed by "gamers," those who have devoted a significant amount of time to videogames, that can be applied to problems on a grander (epic) scale. I pointed out in class that I had recently read a line somewhere about a "trend of gamification," although at the time I saw a sort of difference between the gamification of, say, customer loyalty versus development of "green" habits. Now, though, I see that McGonigal's speech merely approached the situation from an academic and socio-structural angle instead of a marketing one. It was good, though, to see examples of successful transfer of gaming tendencies onto the grand, constructive projects she has launched.

Week 4 readings: Learning Environments and Formative Feedback

From the book How People Learn came the concept of learning environments. Turns out the insight I had last week - about how the concept/method of learning has changed over time - was spot on, and that education used to be more about a standard set of knowledge than the ability to interpret and solve novel cases. The institution of schools has been changing, but methods, cultural factors, and concepts all develop in asynchronous ways. Students today are shaped by an environment that must be student, knowledge, assessment, and community centered; stipulations for an education that is appropriate for each individual in his or her own situation. I found much of this text intuitive, to the point where I wondered just how progressive my own grade school educators and parents were. What really did stick in my mind was the mention of Japanese classrooms, where students can expect to share with the class how they came to an incorrect answer (and, instead the existence of a derogatory or negative stigma, classmates should instead appreciate the value in studying how the wrong answer was found), and Inuit culture, where talkative students run the risk of being seen as less than bright.

The Sadler piece laid out the nuances of feedback, how summative is not the same as formative assessment and what criteria and best practices for critique and advice should be used for a truly dynamic student-educator/mentor relationship. Basically, while we can consider marks and grades a form of feedback, they can't inform our learning process very well; the answer is to foster more of an instructor-student dialogue, preferably during the course of work instead of at the end of or after an assignment or course.

Both readings this week were highly school-centric, but what can be carried over into library service, is the importance of cultivating the proper atmosphere/environment, as much as possible, for patrons and being attentive and engaged with patrons we assist or teach. It is especially effective to cultivate a rapport with those who need involved instructions.

Week 3 class: Info Lit and the Academic Research Process

I really enjoyed discussing the different information literacy pieces we collected ourselves for reading this week. My small group noted how difficult it is to attempt a general definition of information literacy; people in different areas of work or study with different capabilities and different goals will have different needs. A good approach to info lit education would be to approach from an area of interest to the user/student, and teach so that they understand the principles that they will be able to apply to other areas and situations. Out of the class discussion we seemed to come up with an agreement that, while libraries are a great place to promote information literacy, librarians still have to hurdle the uncertainty of the term and face the difficulty of finding a beginning point to build from.

And what sort of people do we see coming to us? Especially in academic libraries, people seek librarians' help when they are at a lower, more stressed point in their assignments or research cycle. We need to be conscious of patrons' places in Kuhlthau's Information Search Process cycle, to try to be understanding, BUT also to realize why trying to educate students and patrons before they have sufficient motivation to learn/absorb our lessons may not be effective. It might be a better tiing to give a librarian talk to a class when they're most likely to be starting to feel the pressure on a research project (try to find that point between "feeling the pressure" and "panic and high stress."

Week 3 readings: Information Literacy

Our instructions are to choose three articles for discussion from our area of specialization, but, as I am still working that particular detail out, I had less of a restriction on my search. The articles I ended up with reflect my developing interest in Wikipedia and learning beyond (just) the library.

The complete information literacy? Unforgetting the creation and organization of information
Isto Huvila, Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, Vol. 43, No. 4 (December 2011), pp. 237-245

This article made the point that much of the discourse surrounding the subject of information literacy focuses on the finding and evaluation of information, but ignores the information users create and organize. Much in the way that traditional literacy involves writing and not just reading, so should information literacy education realize that information, as it is created by humans as well as for humans, should be created with findability and evaluation in mind. The author points out that Flickr, as an example, provides the necessary tools, but that retrieving information from that system is only met with an acceptable degree of success due to the sheer volume of content available. Wikipedia is an example of the encouraging effects of a community that provides the power of example and incentive. Huvila lists four preliminary observations toward effective information creation and organization: mindfulness of the user (potentially through community), simple tools, personal benefit, and exalting attribution and conservative information creation practice.

Information Literacy as a Sociotechnical Practice
Kimmo Tuominen, Reijo Savolainen, and Sanna Talja, The Library Quarterly , Vol. 75, No. 3 (July 2005), pp. 329-345
Information literacy is a good cause, but it is important to take into account the nuances of its name (including the stigmas attached to the term "literacy") and the challenges of applying the concept to a truly generalized goal. People can, for example, claim information literacy in the context of one field, but be completely lost in the information of a different field or context. The authors advise IL teachers to strive for a comprehensive understanding of the materials, technologies, social and cultural settings, and the extant skills and competencies of those they hope to assist.

Information literacy barriers: language use and social structure

Peyina Lin, Library Hi Tech, Vol. 28, No. 4 (2010), pp. 548-568

Citing 12 months of dissertation research at two suburban high schools, Lin expands on the aversions some people have to the use of the term "information literacy",  the effect it can have on their drive to improve their literacy, and the library's unique role to encourage students in working towards such a goal.

As of yet, I have not figured out a comprehensive, enlightened way to synthesize all three articles, but I look forward to adding their ideas to our class discussion tomorrow.

Week 2 class: User diversity and effective screencast tutorials

We began this class session by going over the conditions a librarian on the floor or in programming needs to consider when assessing the users she helps or educates. We might forget that norms we are used to may be glaringly strange to new patrons, and that experts will approach information and learning in a different fashion than novices. These are the sorts of things to keep in mind when creating lesson plans and screencasts, the process for which we also went over in class. We reviewed the ADDIE process from the readings; yet another iteration of the design and implementation process.

We spent a good amount of time reviewing and evaluating Google Reader tutorials, in order to gain an understanding of what makes a good screencast. Various students noted the way that the following influenced their judgement of the videos:

• pacing: time spent explaining, moving between screens
• narration: extraneous information, personality
• information content: comprehensive?
• time: attention span dictates less than 5 minutes

I observed that some reactions to video judgement were more about personal preference than I would have expected. Of the screencasts I've seen from our own assignment, too, I've already noticed that some students have already repeated the offenses we listed during this activity, proving that these tutorials are no less of a challenge than a short presentation to the class.

Week 2 readings: Developing Instructional Sessions

This week's readings reiterated (for the umpteenth time) the ubiquity of the practical experience we gained from 501; we will need to assess situations, work harmoniously in groups, and produce plans that will ideally improve our clients' information-related interactions. The first pages of the One-Shot Workshop reading, particularly, stressed the importance of structure and forethought in the design process through the acronym ADDIE:

Analysis: The Yelinek et. al. and Johnston articles both cited use of surveys to gather information from users to obtain background information in order to form an idea of what needs to be done, what goals need to be met. But I've spent enough time at SI to know that surveys are only one way to gather information; surveys were likely used in those two cases due to the internet-based and/or long-distance nature of the systems they were assessing. Interviews with clients and future students and discussions with coworkers/staff members with relevant experience and subject knowledge should be favored, time/money permitting, especially if the project is to produce an in-person workshop instead of a digital tutorial.

Design: First the content and then the delivery methods are to be decided. The Johnston article covered content by chunking information into modules, a step into which I could fondly tie some of what I learned in Information Architecture. The One-Shot Workshop reading spoke of teaching methods, but our focus this week is actually on screencasts; Yelinek et. al. and Johnston used Adobe Captivate, and the Griffis piece gave an overview of free screen capture tools with their features and shortcomings, mentioning what can be gained through commercial products (Captivate and Camtasia).

Development: The actual building of the session. Materials have to be created and compiled and the structure set. The design step should keep this step in mind; the screen capture tools selected should include the functionality the design process plans for.

Implementation and Evaluation: After two design process courses last semester, I am well aware of the need to test and reflect, test and reflect when designing anything. In fact, as it is a cycle, evaluation of the implementation run right back into analysis in the interest of improvement. What do we need? More surveys!

I had a few comments on the One-Shot Workshop section about groups, a subject many SIers feel strongly about. First, the concept of developing a group of more than four people, let along being able to choose the members based on well-known abilities and dispositions, is an odd one to me. How many people should it take to develop a 50-minute workshop? I can understand getting input from a dozen people over enough time, but having more than a few people assigned to such a project feels like overkill. Maybe I simply don't understand the magnitude of such a project.

Week 1 Class

It was nice to go over the concepts from the readings in class and be able to gain perspective on my own thoughts through what others had to say. I feel that I still have a ways to go in grasping the possible incarnations of different types of libraries (public, academic) and the services that can be offered toward education, information access, and foundation of community.

It seems that those ALA core competencies might be considered an ideal, aspirational blueprint for those graduating from accredited schools, not so much the CV sheet employers should expect when hiring new grads. Some sections can only be fully realized after an extended period of practice, and others may be easily avoidable for students who simply have no interest; my discussion groupmates and I agreed that, while we can understand the importance, none of us felt particularly enthusiastic about fundraising. Perhaps we'll be lucky enough to have employees and coworkers willing and capable of covering those duties in our future jobs...

We spent a good deal of time talking about ways of being more active in providing information and knowledge to the library's community. More and more, the librarian seems to be moving from The Original Search Engine toward the educator general; instead of teaching a room full of kids around the same age and (supposedly) education level across all subjects, librarians have single and groups of patrons with knowledge and skill levels across a broad spectrum needing instruction on, yes, information retrieval, but also potentially any subject. Kristen told us about the library that held a butchering demonstration, and there seems to be a movement, at least locally, to incorporate Maker Space into libraries. After visiting the All Hands Active maker space on Saturday for SI Service Day, I can see how well social learning and community tools fit in with the community and continued learning aspects of the library. Not that public librarians should expect to be well-versed in 3D printing, but it's a wonderful example of dedication to learning beyond school at any level.

All of this looks amazing for public and school libraries, but I'm not sure I can envision such programs being prevalent in academic libraries. But is this even necessary? I can see their future in electronic information systems and continued physical information, but how much will these institutions' service structures be changing in the foreseeable future?

Week 1 (Readings)

As I read through the ALA's Core Competencies, I found myself thinking that the whole thing seems like a tall order. Of course, I was able to come up with ideas and knowledge I have studied or at least touched on in my courses for the eight groupings, and I thought of SI courses that I have taken or read about as I read through the individual competencies. But what, I think, trips me up is the sort of "comprehensive vagueness" which, while I understand as necessary for the brevity and lasting validity of the document, causes me to quickly lose my mental grasp of what abilities I should expect myself and others to amass before graduation.

Something I found interesting; I am aware that the MSI program as a whole is ALA accredited, which means that I could have continued my former trajectory toward a concentration in human-computer interaction and been able to fulfill a job posting's ALA-accredited program graduation requirement despite being decidedly lacking in many of the competencies listed.

The textbook readings were helpful in my discovery of the differences in archives versus libraries: the emphasis on direct human interaction and guidance. Two of my courses last semester were focused on human behavior, but these were design courses, so it was interesting to see what concepts were brought up again and what aspects of active education I could see building upon some of the more basic principles of perception and performance. I specifically recall learning about the decision-making patterns of experts in a reading for my cognate course, Cognitive Ergonomics, in the context of designing systems that provide these leaders with the appropriate information to make those decisions both soundly and quickly. From an education perspective, we can use our knowledge of experts' mental organization and action patterns in order to facilitate an appropriate information base and structure in the minds of future experts; building internal instead of external thought and decision support.

Reflecting on the need for education reform from broad-but-shallow subject coverage to more directed structuring of a basis for recognizing and understanding recurring, influential concepts is a good way to consider useful ways to guide users and patrons through information outside of schools, or perhaps to organize displays or materials. The thought is daunting, at the moment, from my viewpoint as a new libraries convert, but I am excited to see what direction we will take from here.