Week 3

For this week I chose an article about information literacy, one on transliteracy, and one that ties the concepts together.  Originally, I wanted to do all articles on transliteracy, unfortunately, the term is so new that not many articles have been written about it.  The word is especially new in the library world and doesn’t even really exist in the archive world.  Spell check doesn’t even recognize it!

Introducing Transliteracy: What does it mean in academic libraries?

By Tom Ipri

From: College & Research Libraries News 71 no 10 532-3, 567 N 2010

This short article was one of the few I found on the subject transliteracy.  Because it is a fairly new term it still has a working definition rather than a concrete one.  It’s so new that not many library professionals understand or even know about the term.  Ipri explains that transliteracy is the relationship between people and technology specifically the social technologies. It’s about expanding how people communicate across various media—facebook, chat, instant message, etc.  This is a difficult concept for academic libraries to understand because it originally developed outside the library field, however, it is an important one.

Our Information Literacy Heritage: From Evolution to Revolution

By Cory Laverty

From Feliciter; 2009, Vol. 55 Issue 3, p88-91

This next article, Our Information Literacy Heritage: From Evolution to Revolution, develops the idea that information literacy has evolved over the years since the introduction of technologies such as the internet.  As Laverty explains that the most widely used definition, "To be information literate, a

person must be able to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information" (ALA, p. 1) was constructed in  1989.  That was before everyone had a computer and the internet was a common thing; therefore, the definition may not encompass all aspects of information literacy. Since students used tools such as Google, YouTube, and Facebook the definition continues to evolve.  As Laverty concludes “…paper captures something of where we are now, but not where we need to go.”

 Millennial Students' Mental Models of Search: Implications for Academic Librarians and Database Developers

By Lucy Holman

From: The Journal of Academic Librarianship Volume 37, Issue 1, January 201, pages 19-27

The final article ties the concepts of information literacy with the concepts of transliteracy.  While this article doesn’t specifically come out and use the term transliteracy it states problems that deal with it.  Students, now, use different modes to acquire information—it doesn’t not all come from a single source.  The article talked about the different ways library students collect their information—Google, library databases, online encyclopedias, online data bases, etc.  While Holman goes into detail about mental models (She defines it as “A mental model is an internal cognitive representation of a tool or system that helps one master it”) of search mechanisms that isn’t my main focus of the paper.  I wasn’t interested in specific numbers of how students searched and their problems with spelling in searching.  I wanted to know how this all connected to transliteracy and informational literacy.  As Holman writes, “Academic librarians who teach information literacy will face the need to reexamine how college students today search for and retrieve information and rethink the way they teach younger students search strategies and resource evaluation.”  Based on all the definitions discussed above I come to the conclusion that because we live in a world of transliteracy the way librarians teach information literacy needs to change.

In our last class we looked at Youtube and the screencast of good and bad videos.  As a class we came to conclusions what we liked and didn’t like about a few select videos.  I found this part of the class extremely helpful as I prepare for our screencast assignment.  I’ve never made one before and I was pretty nervous, however, after going over the pros and cons of each youtube video I had a better idea of what to do.  For example, my screencast should have an ending, not much background noise, good volume, etc.  Plus, I am glad that Kristin recommended a specific tool because I wouldn’t have had any idea what to use.  I am finding that Jing is pretty easy to use, however, unless required to I probably won’t make screencast in the future.

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.

Chapter 1 and 2 Readings

I am a person of few words who does not like to ramble on about things so I like to get straight to the point.

I was a little confused about the concepts between Teacher A, B, and C and I really couldn't tell much difference between B and C.  I know a lot over other students blogged about their experiences in those teaching methods during K-12, however, for me that was 10 years ago and I could not recall the methods my teachers used.  It seems most people use methods were they want you to memorize the information and remember it for test, but according to this book that isn't the most efficient method.  According to this book a person should know more than just facts and memorizing data to become experts.  Patterns and chunks seem to be the key.

Part of me has to wonder while it's important for us to know how to become better learners why must be all think like experts?  I think we (society) tries to hard to be perfect and fix everything by making people be "the best they can be," yet, isn't it our imperfections that make us unique. I know, a little off topic but at the same time this textbook makes me consider these thoughts.  It is a relieve to know that there isn't one perfect way of learning/teaching--too much pressure.