Thoughtful Technology in the Classroom

Andy and I presented at the Vermont Library Association's Special & Academic Library section on Tuesday in gorgeous Castleton, VT. We were even able to get the group into an inquiry exercise....pretty fun!

And the tuna melts at the Birdseye Diner was pretty awesome.

Fun, thoughtful technology in the classroom

View more presentations from Sarah Cohen

If you want to talk fun tech in the classroom, let me know!

Librarians as Teachers: the Question

A very close friend and colleague, Cinse Bonino, directs Champlain's Center for Instructional Practice. Essentially, it is our teaching and learning center. But Cinse is such an incredibly creative and original, it is not your run of the mill teaching and learning center.

In preparation for an all-campus retreat that is coming up, Cinse asked professors around campus to answer a series of questions about teaching for a video. She also asked the librarians to participate. As she said, we are teachers too.

Yes, we are teachers too.

At ACRL (by the way, the proceedings are now available!), I attended an excellent talk by Laura Saunders about librarians as teachers. During the talk, Laura made the point that it is not particularly revolutionary to think of librarians as teachers. Indeed! But she did point out that librarians are in need of professional development as teachers.

So, in the name of deepening our understanding of ourselves as teachers, in the name of concretizing the librarian/teacher identity, in the name of hard questions....let me pose the question Cinse posed to me.

Why do you teach?

To tell you the truth, I really had to give this some thought. This is a different question than "why are you a librarian", which I can easily answer. But, why do I teach?

That's harder.

Why do I teach?
I teach because I am curious.
I teach because I want to learn and I believe I learn by asking and helping to answer questions.
I teach because I want to do something other, something more than make money.
I teach because I like to see synapses fire.
I teach because I want to share what I know.
I teach because I want to have an impact.
I teach because I believe I can have an impact.
I teach because it teaches me.
I teach because I am good at it.

As I read those over, two thoughts come to mind: first, it's not a terribly academic answer. Rather, it is a very personal, heartfelt one. Second, it is not so much about students as it is about me. Who I am. What I am. What I enjoy. What I want.

I want to teach because I enjoy it.

I think that is an important component to the push for teaching in libraries: do we do it because we must or are expected to, or, do we do it because we love it?

That gets to the question of who we are, how we see ourselves, and ultimately, why we are essential to the academic experience (eg. why we are valuable).

So, let me put it to you....why do you teach?

Overprepared? Maybe.

As is the case for many of us, it's instruction season at the college library. For us at Champlain, that means crunch time for the Teaching Librarians. As I have mentioned in the past, Champlain's instruction program is an embedded, incremental program. What does that mean? It means that we are embedded in the Core curriculum. It means that we are seeing students in a coordinated progression every semester for the three years. This allows us to create an equally coordinated, progressive, incremental curriculum. We don't have to worry about covering everything in one shot. Rather, we can spread out what we want students to know and what the skills we want them to learn over their college career.

We're pretty lucky.

But, there are some drawbacks in paradise. One of them is that teaching is extremely coordinated. Every teaching librarian is teaching the same content, at the same time, using the same pedagogy. I am always concerned about balancing this need for consistency in the teaching with academic freedom. The last thing I want is to cramp any teacher's style. Which is why I really have to think carefully about what it means to be a teacher. Hence my post last week at ACRLog. As I said there, there are many ways to prepare yourself to teach. But can we be overprepared? Can we beat a lesson to death before we even walk into the classroom?

Here's where I am coming from. I help all the Teaching Librarians prepare for our sessions. Now, we design, create, and tweak these lessons as a team. So we all have a say every step of the way in what we want to do and how we want to do it. But, we are all very different teachers and very different people who prepare to walk into the classroom in very different ways. Some of us are more nervous than others. Some of us are more comfortable with the possibility of failure or with student apathy than others. And sometimes, I struggle with the needs, concerns, and fears of my fellow librarians, as incredible as they are, and balancing my own way of teaching. I like to keep a level of spontaneity and experimentation in my teaching. More, perhaps, than they do. But in working hard as the head of this group and as the Assistant Director and the one responsible for information literacy at the College....well, I have had to give up what works for me a bit. I have had to overprepare. I have had to anticipate many possible outcomes, problems, difficulties, and responses to our lessons. I have started to question whether the level of creativity and innovation we bring to our design is truly sustainable.

To be honest, that doesn't feel good. It's really hard for me to deal with. To surrender to.

Yet, at the same time, I find an incredible amount of reward in seeing my colleagues level of comfort increase. Today, one of my colleagues said that they feel ready, prepared. And another chimed in as we rehearsed our session that it was "pretty amazing". I beamed.

One thing I am learning is how true it is that we prepare for teaching in different ways. And what is overprepared to one person is just right for another. And not enough still for someone else. The Goldilock's syndrome. The real challenge I face, personally, is not how to maintain my enthusiasm in the classroom. That's what students just do to me. But how to support my team, as a group and as individuals. How to listen to their needs and offer them the right opportunities as well as when to push the responsibility onto them for their own classroom experience.

It's really hard. And I hope that I am doing a good job of it. I wonder how others handle these situations. How you balance these seemingly competing needs. How you grow and sustain. I wonder.

Thanks, ACRLog

As if I needed yet another feather in my cap to start off the new school year but I was asked to post about instruction on the ACRLog. I was thrilled to be invited. So, hop over there (if you don't the ACRLog already, you should!) and check out the post.

And thanks to Maura Smale and Steven Bell for the opportunity!

LILA2010: Describing the use of scholarly literature by undergraduate students

They can find it, but they don’t know what to do with it: Describing the use of scholarly literature by undergraduate students
Stephanie Rosenblatt, Cal State, Fullerton

Not just finding information, but using information.
Hurst & Leonard, 2007 “Why are papers so often lacking in solid, factual information from scholarly sources?”

Assumptions based on the assumption that if students can be convinced to use our “great” resources found through the tools of the “modern academic library”. They will then synthesize information, add it to their knowledge base, and learning occurs.
Would instruction sessions change behavior. Change in behavior indicates learning rather than just an affect.

Is library instruction even detrimental to student work? Do we put them off? It depends, I think, on what we are teaching and how we are teaching it.

Students found materials that met her requirements and even they gave information:
What’s the point of a research paper that doesn’t make connections between the research and their thinking?
Defining our idea of “Synthesis”. What does it mean? How do faculty come to understand it? How do students?
AACU Value rubrics mapped to ACRL rubrics.
Her expectations: Integrating, Developing, Emerging.
“Transforming Qualitative Information”

Action research methodology: open dialog, communication between practioners.

We are making false assumptions about what they need or what we need to teach. We cannot stop there. It’s not about finding, it’s about using. Is the lack of synthesis a problem in information literacy or is it a problem in writing: they might not know how construct the model for writing.
Activity and instruction that models the behavior. In our teaching, show how we find the connection and how to make the connection. Look at peer reviewed articles for how the connections are made in the articles.
Other activity ideas: working in small groups, look at scholarly literature, specifically at literature reviews to emphasize how to make the connections. How do we deal with wanting to cover so much so quickly?
How much do we need to teach students about interface?

Great example of thinking more broadly about library services: integration!
Concerns about stepping on faculty’s toes: is the analytic the job of the faculty? How do you affect change without insulting their teaching? Faculty that are complaining about student work are prime for this kind of collaboration.

LILAC2010: Assessing collaboration: the effect of pedagogical alignment and shared learning outcomes for information literacy instruction

Assessing collaboration: the effect of pedagogical alignment and shared learning outcomes for information literacy instruction in first year writing classes.
Sara Miller and Dr. Nancy DeJoy, Michigan State University

Currently in process.
Inquiry based learning in writing classes: if they used inquiry method in instruction, would it be more effective? Do students actually learn to find and use sources more effectively? Are the research outcomes met more with aligned pedagogies?

45,000 students
More than 35 sections.
Conducting assessment for 7 sections.
Don’t see all students-not enough “man” power.
Uses web modules.

Boyer Commission, 1998: setting a collaborative model across the institution. Differing views of understanding collaboration: it doesn’t always mean the same thing.
From Twitter: “not just in instruction but areas like research data citation as well. Collaboration: same word, different languages.” @phepbu

Careful about positioning students as “consumers of knowledge.” Example: I already wrote my paper, I just need three sources to back it up. Anti-inquiry. Rather, positioning students to contribute to knowledge base,not just take from it – that is inquiry-based learning.

Norgaard, 2004: connecting info lit & rhetoric.

Inquiry has not taken root in the US as much as in the UK but it is coming!

Students fill out worksheet during library visit. Asking students to find an opinion or background information in groups. How did you find the article?
How did you decide it was a scholarly article?
What is the article’s purpose?

Together, they develop a list of evaluative criteria and then as a group, evaluate.

Did your research practices change as a result of this session?
The rubric reflects inquiry! Recursivity, Synthesis, Source Evaluation, Relevancy.

Asking students a pre and post class survey: “When you think about doing research for an assignment, it’s primarily in what context?”
How did your search change? How is this information important to the conversation about the issue? A lot of diverse responses.

Question to think about: Do students always understand what we are asking them?
Student perceptions about what is valuable: some if “how to” but also conceptual, higher level.

In inquiry, we will position students as mediaries, particularly at Champlain. THAT HAS MEAT. THINK ABOUT THAT. Professional projects. YES. However, that is predetermining the muse. But, that offers an opportunity for thinking about the muse in professional settings and less personal settings.

Asking students what kind of writing they anticipate having to do in their majors. It’s a great question for research. What research do you anticipate having to do in your profession?

Assessment as a way to be accountable, close the feedback loop.

LILAC09: My students and other Animals”

My students and other Animals
Matthew Borg and Erica Stretton
Sheffield-Hallam

Dealing with LARGE cohorts.
Students have to understand the importance of information literacy before they can incorporate information literacy skills into their “academic mindset”.
We need to know the limitations and the strengths of the materials that we are using with students.

Tells students there are 1 trillion unique urls on the web. When you do a google search, what percentage of the web are you actually searching? Has students write their answers on post its and then put them on a continuum on the board.
Google actually indexes 4%--40 billion pages.

Their experiences with 900 business students over
One shots, computer based, practical tools for databases and library materials or materials specific to their course of study (business).
NOW, they are seeing students over three workshops, each with a different focus. Sessions without computers other than podium. NEEDED SOMETHING NEW.

Considerations of student boredom, using active learning, different learning styles.
Needed to rely on one librarian leading the session in non-digital rooms.

Asking students: How do YOU find information?
Ask students to discuss a recent information search of your own with a neighbor.
The type of info you are looking for, where you looked.
Look at the list of animals: what kind of information animal are you?
Ask students to analyze their information seeking behaviours and adapt to the changing landscape in the academic sphere.

Ask students:
How many types of business information you can think of? What have you used in the past? Report back and then share with them a list of sources. RAISE AWARENESS. Now that they are in a higher ed environment, they need to think more broadly about what is available and appropriate to their work.

Putting the research question FULLY into Business Source Complete = no results. Then explore how to deal with it. Give them a full working demo that isn’t perfect or practiced, include the bad and the good. Show them how to deal with NO results.

Find mistakes in a screen shot of a search screen. Cool exercise. Shows how complex a search can be and how to use options to make your search more useful. Awesome idea. Great addition to COR120 exercises.
One thing I’ve noticed is that there is a lot of emphasis on truncation and wild cards. Been mentioned in a number of sessions and in conversation.

Start their discussion of critical analysis with Wikipedia. Ask students what they think of Wikipedia?

What feedback they received from their sessions.
Invite staff (or faculty!) to the practice session.
GREAT IDEA. Way to get faculty involved, solicit feedback, and practice. Also helps us deal with questions about the setting the bar appropriately. We should make this a standing component of our sessions.
Kept an online diary (use Clearspace or Zoho??) for tracking feedback.

MEGO = My eyes glaze over. HA!

Creating a reference guide for students rather than taking face-to-face time for basic skills (library catalog). Perhaps this is a cultural difference—would our students really read through a workbook?

Fantastic that a librarian asked about how much paper they are using in their sessions? AWESOME!

Loved the active learning part of this session! A bunch of ideas I will take home, especially the screen shot of databases exercises and inviting faculty to practice sessions.

THINKING about information

A great friend and colleague shared this TED with me a bit ago and I only just got a chance to watch it and really think about it.


Watching this happened to coincide with my writing with a proposal my director and Champlain's Instructional Designer to LILAC 2009 (in Wales, cross your fingers for me!). The focus of our proposal, and the work I've been doing at Champlain, is asking students to think differently, creatively--if you will, about the information that they already use and will eventually need. As I read through the comment cards from this semester's teaching load (taught my last session at 8 am this morning), I am struck by how many students appreciate that opportunity. They really do seem to LIKE thinking about information in a way that is less defined and less prescribed. I don't think my job is to tell them what information or resources to use. Rather, I think our job is to help them ask them to think about or question which sources they want to use and why.

This is the thought that pounds on my mind when I read posts on ili-l about which texts to use for Info Lit course. Invariably, titles that are about Information Literacy are listed. Why would a college student want to learn about information seeking like this? Our students know a great deal about looking stuff up: it’s figuring out what to do with that “stuff” that they struggle with. Why not encourage discussion around truth, fact, reliability, trust, authority? Couldn’t we consider books like True Enough, the Big Switch, True to Life, Glut, of The Black Swan that ask students to THINK about information and articulate their experience, expectations, and frustrations with it instead of telling them what those experiences and expectations should be? By not asking them to think critically and engage in discussion about that thinking, I don’t know if we are really offering students the chance to become literate.

Which brings me back to Robinson’s lecture for a moment. In it, he asks what public education is really for? (Watch the video: the answer here is brilliantly funny and profound.) I think that’s a key question for information literacy programming as well: what is IL instruction for? If it really is to determine the extent of information needed;
access the needed information effectively and efficiently; evaluate information and its sources critically; incorporate selected information into one’s knowledge base;
use information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose; and understand the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information, and access and use information ethically and legally, I think we have to ask ourselves if the way in which we teach is conducive to that goal. What are YOU doing to teach students to think about information in that way? Are there other things we should be asking students to think about and if so, how do you encourage that? How do you encourage your students to THINK about information?

Exploring New Technology: I love Chat Ref

School started last week. I forget how different campus becomes at the start of the school year. Perhaps it's also because it really was different this year. The library didn't just feel busy but actually WAS busy. Perhaps part of that was our new website and the influx of chat ref questions. Putting chat ref front and center was a bit of a contentious issue given our severe staffing constraints but frankly, I love it. I love the ability to address needs right away, with a few well chosen words. I love the little sound Pidgin makes when we get a message. It makes me feel loved. I love how the librarians are using chat ref to ask one another questions while one of us is at the desk. It just feels like it will work. Like it is working. Admittedly, we have some concerns about how it will compete for F2F questions once classes pick up but I also feel confident that we can manage it. That it's not nearly as difficult to manage as we might have thought.

And that gets me to an overarching theme that seems to be recurring in my course, my workplace, and my personal life. Technology is not as hard as we sometimes make it out to be. I think that those of us that are immersed in technology or teach it to others are often so deeply immersed in it that we don't hear ourselves talk. Or we want to show the uninitiated how incredible a tool technology can be that we cast our technologist shadows over the new user, hoping to bring them under our wing, when in reality we make them feel...well, cloudy. Shaded. In the dark.

It's hard for someone like me, who is genuinely excited by technology and genuinely loves sharing it with others, to step back and see it in the light that many of the people who approach me see it. But I can't stress enough how important I think that is while also striking a balance with people's nervousness about technology. So many faculty members I work with think that blogging or Facebook is not for them. In truth, once we've worked with it a bit, many of them come to admit that they just didn't know how to use it and therefore inferred its lack of utility. Isn't that quite the same as students and the databases? Students don't really know how to use these more complicated interfaces so they just assume it isn't useful? Creative approaches to solving that problem has many lessons that are applicable to a less academic setting as well.

All this from just loving Chat Ref....I better get out to the Ref Desk.

Second Life is so funny...funny "odd" or funny "ha ha"?

A programming professor on our campus is writing his dissertation on Second Life so the Professional Development Committee offered a luncheon for him to introduce it to any faculty or staff member who might want to have a peek.

It's interesting to sit with a group of 25 people who are new to or haven't really heard of Second Life before: what they ask, what they find funny. Perhaps what I find most interesting is just how funny they find it. How they find the fact that there is prostitution in 2nd life funny. That "newbies" being ostracized or exploited is funny.

I wish I could say that they found it funny "odd". But it seemed to me, and I emphasize "seemed", that they found it funny "ha ha".

What exactly is it that's funny?

Is it just new? Is it the avatars that you can make into almost anything you want what causes them to laugh? That notion that their sense of physcial self can be altered or self created?

I am still new to Second Life and I am still trying to figure out what I think of it. I am still awed by it. I read a lot about it, I play in it, I try to think creatively about it. But I also spend a lot of time trying to think critically about it. And that's what I felt was missing from this presentation. It was just a show and tell and people just looked on and laughed.

Need I say that I wanted a whole lot more?

And that got me thinking about how technology is presented. What are the implications of throwing technology like this at people? Often times, people are so concerned with "keeping up" or "adapting" that I wonder if they defer their critiques and considerations of it. This is a dangerous place to be in, especially with so many technologies being introduced, one might never have the time to critically examine the place of the technology in their lives or the impact of the technology on society. There is no decision making, just complacency.

I am advocate for play. I am an advocate for experimentation. But I think there is a lot of effort to include people in something without giving them the tools to evaluate it. Second Life offers a great many opportunities to a wide variety of people with a wide variety of purposes. But there are also a number of issues it presents that warrant examination.

As the technologically literate or experienced bring people into this world, we have a responsibility to those that believe us or trust us to show them more than one side of the coin. In the academic world, as Second Life, and other technologies, take root, should libraries be working with faculty and the institution to shape the presentation of these new and exciting worlds. How do we create a culture of adaptability that emphasizes critical examination? And how do we do that without putting a damper on the thread of exploration and play?

Teaching and Learning from Wikipedia

Why is the very best part of this brief article in the Chronicle stuck at the bottom? The headline should read "Program helps explain how Wikipedia works" or something that highlights the valuable lesson that can be learned from this kind of program. But I think the important thing here is to understand both how the program works and how wikipedia works.

That this software only looks at a contributor's past history but not at the facts themselves presents an interesting discussion into what constitutes reliability. One thing I would ask students to consider if we used this program was what kind of articles are being contributed to. If a contributor has been working on controversial entries, such as the VA Tech shootings or the recent bridge collapse in Minnesota, their contributions might have been deleted or overturned due to the nature of changing information. Again, it's an opportunity to discuss those instances and the pace of information rather than prescribe. And that gets to the very crux of what makes wikipedia so wonderfully exciting: it draws on everyone's knowledge and everyone's input. But that is also what makes it so wonderfully exciting as a critical thinking exercise too! (Students roll their eyes when I say that part)

One of my favorite learning activities in information literacy sessions is to have students edit wikipedia so they can see what it really means to have an encyclopedia anyone can edit. Again, by seeing their edits immediately saved, they get a sense of how quickly information changes which I think is essential for students to contextualize as they try to make sense of what is appropriate for school v. their general curiosity.

Finally, I have started reading a great book, Wikinomics, and while I am only a bit into it, the argument that so much can be acheived socially but economically through collaboration is affirming and exhilirating. But most importantly is the case the authors' make for the necessity of collaboration. They suggest that if you don't adapt and come together, you are only showing yourself the door. They give numerous examples of this in the corporate world but I think the notion extends easily to the world of higher ed. Discussion, sharing, and working together to develop arguments, solutions and, occasionally, answers seems essential in the inner workings of institutions just as it does in the classroom, faculty lounge, or laboratory. We shouldn't just teach it, we should practice it.

Exploring New Technology 7: You Tube

You Tube, where you are encouraged to "broadcast yourself," is not all that new to me. I have been enjoying snippets of skateboarding, ballet, whatever, for a while. But it was this article in C&RL that helped me connect some dots.

As Paula Webb's article rightly points out, YouTube could radically change how we deliver information and instruction to our students. I have heard from many librarians that they would rather provide all library instruction to students via the library web page or college websites. Why? Imagine a 19 year old student putting Champlain College in as a search term in YouTube and a video on how to use the databases comes up. Perhaps that student might discard it at that moment. But perhaps they realize that the library is there the next time they have a question at 4 in the morning and they can't find an article. The chances of them going to YouTube sounds greater than their chances of going to the library homepage, if for no other reason than out of habit, no?

Or, let's look at the really creative folks out there, especially the folks at Common Craft. I've highlighted their amazing video on RSS, which I have shared with our IT folks who loved it. They also offer a great one on wikis.

Rock on Common Craft! Not only are these great explanations of technologies whose names are thrown about frequently, but they are explained in an understandable and enjoyable way. YES!

But to return to YouTube...Common Craft shows us that YouTube doesn't have to be institution specific. General information that is valuable to everyone, whether it be technology, plagiarism, citations, search techniques, readers advisery, copyright clues...it all could be valuable and useful on YouTube and reach any audience.

And let's not forget the web 2.0 applicability here: YouTube is interactive. Perhaps student interns can create something that appeals to their peers, something like this video from the Undergrad at UIUC:


Granted, it's kind of hokey but come on! Digital pics, downloading music to your Ipod, group study, open til 3 am, career services, writing center...this video is hokey but awesome and all inclusive! And when students look up UIUC on YouTube, there it is! And we can rest assured that with so many students in the video, they shared it with their friends, spreading the word to their "social network."

YouTube offers libraries an amazing opportunity to expand our message and our image beyond traditional boundaries. Even if we didn't have the time or technology to make videos of our own, including YouTube videos in our instruction and website seems like a great way to share resources and information in a way that mirrors students' use of the web. So we continue to not only do our jobs, acheive our mission, but we look cool too.

Gaming in the Library: forcing us to a new frontier

Gaming seems to surround me: I just registered for the ALA TechSource Gaming, Learning, and Libraries Symposium,
Champlain's E-gaming program is a constant source of ideas for collaboration and creation, and then today's posting on the ACRL Blog about serious gaming. This after having listened to a number of gaming professors talking this week about how to change the public and the academy's perception of gaming such that it is considered a true discipline.

But to stick with Marc Meola's question about libraries and gaming: he's right that gaming offers libraries incredible opportunities to teach skills and to learn about our own resources. But what I think is missing from his post is the empowerment gaming gives to students as they learn. I think what is missing from non-gamers understanding of the game world is that we just think of it as a "game." What could possibly keep someone playing for hours? Why are they "wasting" their time? But what I am learning is that gaming empowers players to explore whatever information is conveyed through the game in a way that interests and works for them. Different people want different things from the game. This seems to echo Henry Jenkins belief that what young people are taking from games is far more than just entertainment. They are bringing a whole different skill set to the game and extracting a new skill set from it. In many ways, its nonlinearity might be more challenging for libraries to incorporate into games where we have a IL outcomes in mind. But that same nonlinearity might be the very key to making information literacy a truly essential component to students' critical thinking mechanisms.

I agree with Meola that gaming is opening up in new ways that libraries can explore in a multitude of ways. But a large part of that is for libraries to think differently. Is it outcomes that are the preliminary focus? Or might it be more about collaborative tools in learning, and how the collaborative, interactive nature of gaming can be less "used" and more impactful in instructing our students.

Exploring New Technology Rewind: Feevy and the Beginner's Mind

The Sheck Spot now rocks a dynamic blog roll! Feevy is in the house!

Many thanks to my personal help desk (otherwise known as David Silver) who gave me some pointers. And for those of you that are thinking Feevy is your cup of tea as well, David left me some helpful hints in the comments to my original Feevy posting.

Feevy will now allow me to keep track of other bloggers out there without having to spend so much time clicking in and out of pages. Efficiency, accessability, cool looking: is this not a mantra for web 2.0?

But more seriously, working with Feevy has taught me a great deal insofar as I experienced the kind of frustration that I think is most common among users who don't spend their free time playing with technology. I really wanted it to work and found myself getting really angry when it wouldn't. Yes, it happens to us all. But putting it my problems and questions out there brought me answers. And looking away from it for a few days gave me a clearer perspective.

I can't help but think about my friend Rob Williams' comment last week about my "beginner's mind." First of all, thank you. But I think it touches on the idea that for many of us who work with technology, we find "the rest of you" difficult to understand. I know that I often find myself annoyed or frustrated with friends or loved ones who get frustrated with technology (less so with students, I think because I am in a different mental space with students than with friends or family). "Sit down and play with it, figure it out," I want to yell at them. But not every one starts there. And as a librarian and teacher, I need to bring my beginner's mind to those situations and open my mind up to how to share technology with those around me. How can I share the playfulness, the eagerness, the opportunity with others? And how can I respond in a way that is constructive to those that don't take the bait?

Synthesis: 2.0

Finally time to review some thoughts from ACRL. I think an appropriate name for conference would have been "Web 2.0 and the Academic Librarian: To Be or Not to Be." Every session I went to touched on the proliferation of social networking software and the interactivity of information: great things to think about in a variety of contexts. One thing that I appreciated most about David Silver's talk (and let me shout out to David for his enthusiasm, encouragement, and for finding my blog!) was his reminding the library community that while this is an exciting time in librarianship, technology and information, it is not intrinsically revolutionary but rather an evolution. As he calls it: AEIOU (Already Existing Information Optimally Uploaded). I love the acronym. But his point is an important one for librarians to remember: technology is changing but the effort is the same as it has always been. We are here, still, to help our users find information. But that's the easy part. The hard part is the part we are still hashing out: how do we contextualize that information and actually help our users expand their knowledge. Ah, ontologies. What is information and what is knowledge? I feel like my former professor and guru brain teaser, Allen Renear, would smile at me.

What I mean is that we can choose to use and incorporate the newest technologies, otherwise known as the technology our students use. But the hard part is then helping our students see the value of those technologies, and their limitations. For example: tag clouds. While these are incredibly interesting to look at, they seem to continue to encourage students to read for breadth and not depth. Does knowing how many times a word has been used in a speech really help a student understand the context in which it was used? Does the ability to rate websites mean that you don't have to think about the bias of the reviewer or assign your own set of values to the site? Finally, does the collaborative nature of a wiki mean that you can cast aside any efforts at accountability since what you wrote will be changed anyway?

I don't know. I am thinking about, right here and at my desk and in my living room and in my classroom. These are tough questions. These are fun questions.

The Library, to remain truly germane to our students, and to maintain its viability in the soul of education, needs to expand our role. We can't stop at showing databases. We need to help our students evaluate websites but also evaluate how they now interact with them.

ACRL reminded me how many threads there are to creating a dynamic but sustainable role for the library. And I think that some people find it intimidating. But the idea of the internet was intimidating once, and look at us now. The idea of open stacks was scary once and now closed stacks are almost extinct.

To be or not to be: that is the question. And it might not be as simple as a yes or no. But it certainly is a lot of fun to think about.

ACRL: So Much to Learn, Not Enough Time

Went to the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) conference this weekend in much-warmer-than-Vermont Baltimore. And incredible display of curiousity, innovation, and commitment on the part of academic librarians. It's hard to understand how anyone could suggest that librarians are stodgy and immovable. I was impressed again and again at the attempts by libraries across the country to improve their services using the latest technology, the efforts to understand the implications of technology on the institution and our students, and the excitement and collaboration among librarians to not just keep up but lead the way in incorporating technology with traditional methods of instruction to ensure that our students are developed and learned.

Once I have the chance to read through my notes, there will be more to come on the inspiring talk on Library 2.0 and blogging by David Silver, media studies professor at the Univ. of San Francisco, on the highly original and interesting use of gaming in the undergrad library by my friend David Ward at UIUC, and perceptions of authority in Wikipedia by Dan Ream (I forget where he's from but I will find out before I post about it).

Sound Suggestions on Wikipedia

A phenomenal piece by Cathy Davidson in the Chronicle on what the lessons we, as academics, can learn from wikipedia and the pedagogical tools it provides us as educators. I couldn't agree with Davidson more in that the academy needs to shake our tail feathers a little bit and quell their fears of new technologies. The idea of having students contribute to wikipedia is a great opportunity to increase buy-in from students in their research and their writing. It also gives them first hand experience in the publishing and editing process, and more likely than not, in the way that publishing and editing will be handled by the time many of them are ready to make contributions to their fields.

Davidson makes an interesting point in her essay regarding wikipedia as a vehicle for the common good, "the life of the intellect." In many ways, I can't help but agree that an environment that not only encourages but is based on collaboration and contribution nourishes the appetite of the mind. If you did read the "Discussion" section of any wikipedia article, you might suprised at the amount and level of the debates about small areas of the article. What a phenomenal way to illustrate the writing and research process to students!

Yet I still hesitate to agree wholly with this characterization of wikipedia. Perhaps it is the anonymity of contributors that irks me and the consequential questions of reliability, objectivity, and longevity of the entries. One thing that Davidson, and many other supporters of wikipedia are quick to point out is that if you don't like what is written, you can change it. Does that not have an Orwellian ring to it? And how can we assert that there is no continuity or steady pace to knowledge? Remember, wikipedia is claiming itself as an encyclopedia, a compendium of knowledge. Perhaps I would feel better it they called themselves a compendium of information?

Writing on Wikipedia

As most of you know, Middlebury College announced that Wikipedia, the encyclopedia anyone can edit, was forbidden as a cited reference in academic work . The sounds of the uproar still ring in my ears.

Subsequently, my college's Center for Teaching and Learning reached out to the faculty to gauge their opinion on Wikipedia with the catchy quip, "Do you think Wikipedia is wicked or "wicked" cool?" The volume of responses illustrated that this is clearly a hot but controversial topic. At our college, it made clear a divide between the technologists and the traditionalists, leaving some of us in the middle, bracing the challenges of being budding academics in the age of mass collaboration and interactive information. To my mind, however, the discussion over Wikipedia's appropriateness in academic work is most often a discussion of two, equally important, but different topics: 1. the interactivity of information best encapsulated by the collaborative and democratic nature of wikis, and 2. Whether Wikipedia is an appropriate source to be submitted for academic work,particularly as a basis for scholarly analysis.

Elaine Young, one of our faculty members and fellow blogger, in her posts on Wikipedia, brings up a number of interesting points in terms of the consumer driven nature of information. This is an exciting time to be driving down the "information superhighway" (how can I resist such a wonderfully hokey yet apt metaphor). To continue the metaphor and borrow from Volkswagon’s ad campaign, on the road of life, there are passengers and drivers. Wikipedia does offer unparalleled opportunities to engage in epistemological discourse: it asks for drivers. But I must take issue with the presupposition that posters to Wikipedia do indeed have "knowledge" in a topic area and are "experts" in different areas, essentially that they are qualified drivers. As the much heralded "Nature" article points out, Jimmy Wales (the founder of Wikipedia) is not as interested in "checking articles with experts as getting them to write the articles in the first place". While that might be a terrific teaching point for students in the need to rethink, revise, and rewrite, needn't we wonder if that is an appropriate selling point for an "encyclopedia" that purports authoritativeness?

And that gets to the heart of the matter for me. Calling something an "encyclopedia", whether collaborative, electronic, or dust-laden and multi volumed, connotes a level of authoritativeness. Students look to encyclopedias (and yes, most often Wikipedia) to gather essential information on a topic. And it is up to the authoritative community of the college and knowledge, professors and librarians, to a) point out to students the limitations in looking at issues in such a myopic way as is often done in encyclopedias and, b) to decide what we demand from our students in their research. In my classes, encyclopedic entries are starting points and are not acceptable, whether from Wikipedia or not, as a source for academic work. It's a great place to go to find out what something is and what are some key terms to apply to further research. Students should be bringing their critical thinking skills to all and any information they procure, whether for academic work or out on the road of life.

Wikipedia is an exciting project and I admit to using it often. It is a valuable resource for information and to deride it soley on its nature is to ignore the changing nature of information. But it is a question of what we are using that resource for that is of paramount importance to me as I consider how to answer questions about Wikipedia in library instruction sessions and as I consider
whether to put a disclaimer on my syllabus or my assignments.

There are a myriad of fascinating and informative articles on Wikipedia out there. I have listed a few on the side bar HOT TOPIC, and I am always looking for more.
(NOTE: most links are through Champlain affiliated databases and may not be accessible to general readers)