LinkedIn... a great video!

LinkedIn is my new favorite site for a variety of reasons. I enjoy reconnecting with former colleagues, finding out about the types of skills necessary for various professional positions, and learning about employers. It is also a great tool to put yourself out there on the Internet in a controlled and monitored way.

Students who are job hunting in the IT field should know about LinkedIn. There are a wide variety of job postings, especially for IT consultant positions. When showing students this networking resource, it is especially important to teach students how to create and maintain a professional online persona and good online habits so that they do not miss out on job opportunities.

Web 2.0 - Ideas for instructors of information literacy

Wednesday I attended a Web 2.0 Roundtable hosted by the North Carolina Chapter of the Special Libraries Association. As I looked around the room at all of the possible stations, each featuring some mix of Web 2.0 tools, I found myself asking, "Why did I come?" I already knew about each of the tools at each of the tables. I have my del.icio.us bookmarks tagged and bundled, I'm already a Facebook and LinkedIn junkie, and my RSS feedreader is already jammed full. I even wrote my Master's thesis on how special librarians were using Web 2.0 tools to market their libraries. I went into the roundtable sessions thinking, "Well if nothing else, at least I get a little break from the normal routine and I get to see my former colleagues and friends."

Although I already knew how to use the tools, I was pleasantly surprised in many cases to hear some good sharing of ideas. I was glad that people were focusing less on the tools themselves, but how they might be of use and save time. I also found it useful to consider how these various tools might be combined into mash-ups.

After attending the session and reflecting on it, I decided to take a different view point. I already knew a lot about how to make use of these tools from a librarian's perspective, and many of them I use personally. Instead of looking at the Web 2.0 tools as a librarian, I decided to consider how I might use them as an Instructor of Information Literacy. In my experience working with students at my current position, as well as in my previous academic library experience, many students have no concept of what a periodical is, nor why they should think about using one in their assignment. They are very familiar with surfing the Web for information, and believe Wikipedia is an excellent place to find evidence for a research paper. So how can Web 2.0 help me to teach students about information literacy?

First, I started by thinking about my objectives and other considerations:
1. I want students to be able to evaluate the information they find based on certain criteria.
2. I want students to be able to work collaboratively and learn actively.
3. I want to be able to update students with the latest news and helpful tidbits of information.
4. I want students to be able to communicate with me.
5. I want to be able to somehow evaluate or assess what students are learning.
6. I want students to have access to multiple ways of learning the same thing.

I think all of these considerations lend well to various elements of the Web 2.0 line of thinking.

One of the first ideas I had was to create my own information literacy blog directed at students. A blog would be a great place to let students know about new library resources, helpful hints for searching, and other general topics of interest. Because blogs are useful for timely topics, they may be especially useful as a resource for current student assignments. By using RSS feeds, students could keep current w/the latest posts. It would be even better to have a feed post a few lines of the most recent postings to the main library website.

Teaching students about the value of creating an online profile can also be done using Web 2.0 tools. Many students already have MySpace and Facebook profiles, but they often don't know how it can be used against them. Prospective employers are increasingly looking at this information when making hiring decisions. It is important to teach students about networking sites, such as LinkedIn and Facebook, as well as the importance of privacy settings and establishing a professional persona online. Though this isn't the typical version of information literacy, teaching students about these topics does allow them to understand how information is used and displayed.

Other sites, like Flickr and del.icio.us also have really great instructional advantages. Flickr could be used to create online tutorials or tours in the form of slideshows, show students images that depict the differences between scholarly and popular journals, or give students visuals of important reference materials, such as the MLA handbook, so that when they enter the library, they know what to look for. By placing Flickr slideshows on a library instruction page, students don't need to look any further than the site they are already familiar with. Del.icio.us is also useful in its ability to tag, categorize and bundle important links. An instructor could create a del.icio.us site specifically for a class, or import the most recent links into an already established site.

Google Docs are great collaborative Web 2.0 tools that allow a user to post a document that can be edited collaboratively. This is great for group work, especially in an instructional situation. By creating a Google Docs account, students can all log on to complete group work in class. They can then share their work on a projection screen with the class. Especially when learning about citation styles, it is handy to have students type out and format their Works Cited pages, or share in-text citations in their actual papers and assignments.

That's all I've got for now, but I know there are a lot more ideas out there. Feel free to comment with your own!

Challenges of Integrating "Information Literacy" into the College Curriculum

Most undergraduate and technical schools require students complete a course in undergraduate writing, composition, or some other form of the typical English 101. These types of classes are extremely important in building students’ confidence and skills in writing and “researching.” By “researching” I don’t mean that students are actually performing original research; instead, I mean the more general type of fact-finding and literature reviews that one performs to find out more about a particular topic.

These introductory classes seem (at least at the outset) like the perfect opportunity to introduce information literacy into the curriculum. Many undergraduate institutions have librarians who do just that – coordinate library instruction for freshman English students. In my case, I entered a situation where there was no “information literacy curriculum” already in place. My first challenge as a solo librarian at a new college is to come up with my own set of lessons and instructional handouts. Another challenge is working with instructors, who are often adjuncts with other jobs, to impress upon them the importance of truly integrating my library sessions into their courses. Even preparing lessons that fit with actual work done for class assignments is a struggle. Many of the instructors I’ve encountered seem not to mind that my lessons don’t match what they’re doing in class that day. It is frustrating to be teaching students who have not been given some sort of preliminary background on what I will be talking about that day or how it fits into the course. Of course I am more than happy to tell students why what I’m telling them is important – and I do – but without having some sort of graded class activity to make use of the skills they are learning, it is difficult to assess what is actually learned, and students have a harder time recognizing why they should pay attention.

Rather than creating stand alone one-shot library sessions, would it be better to have a short one-credit course devoted to the goal of information literacy? I think it is important that students find purpose in what I’m teaching them and have the opportunity to see how what I’m teaching fits with their class assignments, as well as their professional life in general. If information literacy had its own separate curriculum, it might become easier to teach all of those “library skills” (which translate to information seeking and evaluative skills) to students. Many students have no idea how to differentiate between the information they find on Wikipedia and what they might come across in an encyclopedia. The great majority do not know the difference between a scholarly source and one that is considered popular material. With so much information available, students can find facts and quotes to stick into their assignments just about anywhere. So unless there is a true effort to combine information literacy with the freshman-level writing courses, the one-shot sessions might reach a few motivated students, but will probably not do much good, where as a course devoted to such skills would allow for many more opportunities to consistently address these important issues. Unfortunately, many schools will not just change their curriculum to have a course devoted to library and information skills – especially technical schools that pride themselves on giving students a curriculum that is paired down to the technical skills students need to be prepared for a career. These realities bring us back to the one-shot library sessions.

So how can I make the best of my few opportunities to impart the importance of information literacy? I have come up with a couple of ideas:

1. Gain students attention. Use some device to get students interested in what you’re about to teach them. Use a striking image, a current event or scenario.

2. Always tell them why it matters…and then show them. Go beyond telling students that they will need to know how to do this for a graded assignment and show them why their potential boss might need them to know a skill. For example, if they are writing a report for a boss, ask why it might be important that they not plagiarize their colleague’s work? What might be the potential consequences?

3. Even if instructors are unwilling or unable to work with you, find out as much as you can about their course. Ask to see their syllabus, their upcoming assignments, and their textbooks. Figure out how to relate what you’re saying to what they’re already doing in class.

4. Create custom activities that are interesting, or at least require students to think, discuss, or do a task.

5. Give students a chance to practice what you’re teaching them. This goes back to active learning. Allow students to work through a problem and use the tools you’ve presented them with to figure it out.

6. Evaluate their work in some way. Find out if they really got it. Have them hand-in their class work or write their responses on the board.

7. Provide a way for students to find out more about the topic you’re teaching. Whether it is providing students with an instructional handout, links to a website, or encouraging them to contact you with questions, students should be given some idea that there is additional support available.

"7 Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education" & how it applies to me...

The article written by Arthur W. Chickering and Zelda F. Gamson highlights some important thought on good practices in education. Working in a small technical school, many of the challenges I face personally include surprisingly unmotivated students (especially considering the cost of tuition), students with little to no technological background, and diverse styles of learning, experience, age, and education levels. When considering my goal of producing information literate students, I have found it helpful to use the 7 principles outlined by Chickering and Gamson as a guide for designing effective instruction. Today, I’ve decided to take a look at the first principle: Encouraging Contact between Students and Faculty.

As the solo librarian on campus, I am the one shot students have for learning the “tenets of information literacy.” That means if the students fail to trust me, or develop some sort of relationship with me, I will have failed to give them the tools they need. In my position, I must encourage as much contact as possible with students and become a source of trusted information before I can do anything else. As students build a relationship with me, I am better able to serve them by coming in to their classrooms and teaching, as well as answering their questions at the reference desk.

In developing instruction, whether it be provided online, in instructional handouts, or in-person, it is important to remember to use every opportunity to encourage interaction. In every handout or instructional session, I give students my contact information and remind them to call, drop by or email if they need any extra help or additional instruction. A point of contact is especially important in online learning to keep students feeling connected to what they are doing.

I’ve also found that going the extra mile for a student, especially on the first point of contact, can do wonders for developing faculty-student relationships. By showing students that I care, they can immediately begin to ask questions more freely. For example, when classes first begin on our campus, students go through the very daunting process of orientation. As I mentioned earlier, many students have little to no technological background – some have never even touched a computer before. For many, just the process of logging on to a computer can be scary, frustrating and confusing.

Orientation, just like regular classroom activities, is a great opportunity for developing a relationship through teaching. In order to help ease their frustrations and nerves, I designed easy-to-read instructional handouts with Microsoft Publisher, which allow students to visually see what they need to do. Instead of just giving them the handouts and leaving it up to them, I also am sure to guide them through it personally and encourage questions. With a large group of students, this can be more difficult than it might seem. Each student might work at a very different pace. By taking the time to walk around the classroom, assess their progress and allowing extra time for students who need individual help, students gain trust in me as their librarian. After gaining trust or credibility as a source of help and information, information literacy objectives can then be addressed much more easily.