Week 2

The reading for this week emphasized various methods of instruction including online tutorials and screenshots. I must admit I am a bit old fashioned in way of technology, therefore, am not always a fan. Unfortunately, I cannot ignore the growing trend, thus, I must suck it up and and deal with it.  First, I will summarize briefly the readings for this week (plus a few comments of my own) and then I will discuss our last class.
One-Shot Workshop
This piece illustrates the importance of starting with a foundation to build a successful workshop. (In my opinion, this concept is important in every context). This chapter specifically discusses the Instructional System Design or ISD called ADDIE. The process of ADDIE is broken down below.
Process:
Analysis: This is the background work. What are the needs of the person or organization?
Design: This is where one would develop the context of the workshop and ways to see if the objectives are met.
Develop: At this stage, the material is made into workable lesson plans.
Implementation: Next, the workshop is gone through, revised, then implemented.
Evaluation: Finally, the workshop is evaluated and possibly reworked.

While this process may seem time-consuming (and I think it does) it is necessary because for these reasons:

Long-term use
Plug and play content
Stakeholder input
Consistency
Training for new instructors
Development for existing instructors
Quality

Additionally, the author states that there are 4 mains ways to design a workshop: by yourself, with a sounding board, with a partner or as part of a team.

Yelinek
Yelinek’s article reminded me of the steps we took in 501 to develop solutions to our organizations problems—what where the problems, conducting surveys and interviews, etc.

Online tutorials, such as the one in Yeline’s article, can be useful if a person has a specific question and can visit one of the individual modules; therefore, they did not have to waste their time on the ones where they already knew the answer to. They can ineffective if the user does not already know how to use certain components of the software. For instance, in Yelinek’s article not all the users knew how to pause, replay, or stop a movie once it started playing. A user must know some basic computer skills to use an online tutorial.

The purpose behind this project was to create a tutorial for distance-education students so they could navigate through the school’s curriculum faster and more efficiently. The articles describes the few problems group encountered once they implemented the tutorial and how they fixed the. In addition, they described that their online tutorial was separated into different modules that way a student could visit all of them or only the ones that pertained to their problems.
Johnston
Johnston talks about online learning and the effectiveness in developing information literacy skills.  She specifically mentions the outcome of the case study that deals with social welfare students.

Johnston mentions that“some studies indicate that students prefer this electronic medium for library instruction” (208).  I, on the other hand do not.  I do not feel a student may always received the information they need and a student cannot ask a specific question to an online tutorial.  I must admit, there are a few cases where a tutorial may suffice if it is for a simple enough concept.

In the end, the studies shows that most students had a positive experience using the online tutorial. According to the research, the tutorial was an effective way to develop information literacy skills. 

Griffis

This last and short article talks about the pros and cons of certain online screen capturing tools such as Winks, SlideShare, and Trailfire.  Compared to the other articles, I did not find this article as significant.  Perhaps because it was so short; however, I did find it informative because information I might use in the future. 

Class

I must admit, the first day of class and its scope was somewhat different than what I expected.  I find that this class will focus on the educational aspect or rather the teaching aspect of being a librarian. While I am surprised, it is a pleasant one.  My background of History, Business, and Women's Studies did not prepare me to teach--at all.  I never really thought of a librarian as a teaching (unless they are in a school), however, after some discussion I now understand. I am excited for knowledge I am to learn.

Having said that, there are a few things that I am dragging my feet at that we did in class. We produced a podcast about the core competences for our career path. I have never done a podcast before and to be honest I am not a fan. Part of it is my resistance of technology and the other part is that I do not like to listen to myself. Instead of sound like a professional I think I sound like a little girl. It is nice to know, though, how to make one. I know I'll use it in the future.

I do not have much else to say about class because we spend most of the time discussing what to expect, syllabus, etc and I already feel like this blog is too long.