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.
After our discussion about embedded librarians, I did decide to visit Shevon during her office hours with help finding resources for a paper I'm writing in a Comm cognate. (Happily, she is also the Comm subject specialist.) You might be right that library students feel pretty capable of locating resources on our own. When I had to find resources in a subject that was less familiar to me, though, I was glad to have someone to help, someone who knew which resources would be the best place to start for that subject.
ReplyDeleteI too am intrigued with the fact that the thing we diligently promote is something we ourselves pass off as not being beneficial. I wonder if the 'I'm studying librarianship so I already know where to find everything I need' isn't a bit of a cop out for what you point out Mandy, as being too busy, or I might add - as being too busy for something with such a low return on investment. I liken it to a therapist refusing to go see another therapist because they already know the the issues and how to resolve them. Perhaps an unfair comparison, you be the judge.
ReplyDeleteAh, I'm inclined to agree. I wasn't trying to justify the behavior I described, but merely to explain how it seems to have developed.
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