After the post, Fiona Bradley wrote a related one saying rather wisely that there is no way that we can learn everything in library school, and that it doesn’t matter because “librarianship is the ultimate extensible profession.” We have the skills for lifelong learning. She says in her post to go out and “make your own learning.” I love this sentiment, and it is getting easier all the time.

Education is noticeably changing. It is becoming less centralized. People with initiative can gain new skills or get a very good (though perhaps not credentialed) education for free or cheap. People who want to improve their skills can brush up or take a class any number of ways online or in person. There are a wide variety of tools available to get those skills in things like event planning or graphic design.

You can learn about entrepreneurship and innovation by watching lectures (like the one above about change and fear) from Stanford’s eCorner. You can learn how to code the fun and easy way with CodeAcademy or learn Python at the Kahn Academy. You can learn how to host a conference or basic graphic design from SkillShare.

With the vast amount of content available, instead of finding a teacher you could create a learning community on a service like Google+ and design lessons that center around shared readings and videos and host discussions via text or video chat.

Anne Murphy Paul at a Time Magazine blog says that projects like these are “ushering in a new golden age of the autodidact: the self-taught man or woman.” I tend to agree with her. Learning is not merely going to be students passively receiving knowledge from teachers. It will be a proactive pursuit for people who are curious and want knowledge that will benefit them either for personal growth or additional job skills. As librarians we are the “ultimate extensible profession.” We can learn graphic design if we want to. But are there also ways for us to help our students and users learn outside of the classroom? Can we somehow connect them with resources like those mentioned above? Can we facilitate peer to peer learning among students and community members who want to share their expertise? How can we create more opportunities for our community members to make their own learning?

For one, it utilizes technology really well. We begin by using mobile phone polling which allows students to begin thinking about their own information habits and preferences. We ask them questions about their habits and then they have to respond and ultimately explain why they chose what they did. This gets at the motivations behind why students prefer getting information from the web, or face to face from people. It also gets at the idea that in different situations you might want to consult different sources or types of information.

We then show the TED talk and have students quietly reflect on it for a couple minutes by writing down their reactions and thoughts about it. This allows them to develop coherent opinions about it, especially useful for reflective learners. Following this, we discuss as a group the video and it’s implications. Opinions and discussions have ranged widely in my different classes, but there were a lot of strong reactions (both positive and negative).

Since it’s an inquiry based session we explore a number of different questions and don’t always come to the same conclusion. In most of the sessions though, we have agreed that in order to grow as human beings we need to get outside of our comfort zones and learn about things that may challenge us or that may be outside our immediate interests. We also often come to the conclusion that Google is just a tool and that we probably shouldn’t rely only on it to make our information decisions for us. We need to be thoughtful, and take responsibility for the information we consume.

Overall it seems like students enjoy the lesson because it’s accessible and immediately relevant to their world. They may not all agree with Pariser’s points, but most of them come away with slightly shifted perspective on information; and I am guessing many of them will be more mindful of how they search and what they are getting (or not getting) when searching Google.

The lesson has a great balance of activities that appeal to all types of learners, and I think it uses tech in the classroom really successfully. And one of the cooler things is that I overheard a couple students talking before one of the sessions and one them said “my friend said that this is a really fun class.” I don’t think I’ve ever heard that before in reference to a library session, so we must be doing something right.

photo by Tulane Public Relations on Flickr

The classroom is a wonderful environment. I truly enjoy teaching students in the classroom and I loved taking classes. That is the principal place we think of where learning takes place. But the sort of learning that takes place there is facilitated. It is instructor directed and mediated. As educators though, both professors and librarians, we’re trying to help students become lifelong learners. This means gaining the ability to learn outside a classroom environment as well.

This is why the library is such a perfect place. It’s a place where students can struggle with assigned readings before class. It’s a place where they can go after class to reflect on things that were discussed, or debate the concepts with friends or classmates. It’s a place where students can work on a project or paper and focus on what they find interesting and follow research paths that speak to them. It’s a place where students can go to learn with and from one another.

If the classroom is a space dedicated to instructor facilitated learning, the library is a space dedicated to self-directed learning. The library is the place where the rubber meets the road learning-wise. It’s a place where failure happens, but also discovery. There’s a lot of trial and error, but also many insights. Students get to take concepts they learned about in class, examine them and then either reject them or build on them in the library. It’s a lab for testing out ideas or digging deeply into a subject of interest.

Sure, self-directed learning happens all sorts of places: the dorm, student unions, coffee shops. But the library purposely creates an environment where they can practice being a lifelong learner. There are quiet areas — carrels, cages, nooks — for solitary reflection and concentration. There are louder areas for students who prefer a buzz in the air in order to get work done. There are group meeting rooms and spaces for collaborative and team-based learning to take place. And there friendly experts available when students get hung up and need a little encouragement or a nudge in the right direction.

To create lifelong learners there of course need to be classrooms, but students won’t always have classes and professors to direct their learning. Ultimately they need to figure out how to learn on their own. The library is a space to facilitate that endeavor. The library is where students shape themselves into lifelong learners.

Eli Pariser: Beware online “filter bubbles”

We’re using this for the first time this year as an introduction to using Google, the information landscape and getting students to question the gaps in their information. I’m really excited for this session and discussion.

Bing Commercial 2011 – Supermarket Food Fight (Animal House)

This one is quick, funny and would be perfect for a discussion either about search engines or more specifically on keywords and how a word can be interpreted a lot of different ways.

Obama Clinton Texas Debate Plagiarism “Silly Season”& Xerox

We’ve used this video for several years in a class about plagiarism and the ethical use of information. It works really great because it is a debate and it is not completely clear if it is plagiarism or not. It effectively demonstrates that there is a lot of grey areas in plagiarism. It’s a little dated, but still gets the message across well.

Jordan Paris – Australia’s Got Talent 2011 Comedian Scandal – Today Tonight Interview: Plagiarism

This is another great example of plagiarism. Though not as grey as the other, this one better depicts the consequences of stealing others ideas and passing them off as your own original material. Depending on your lesson, this one could work well for your class.

Et Plagieringseventyr

This is one of the most well produced videos on plagiarism I have ever seen. It’s from the University of Bergen in Norway so you’ll need to turn the closed captions on, and it could be a slightly risque for some American audiences. It could be a good, fun opening to a session on plagiarism though…and there’s a musical number.

I’m always looking for new ideas and I’d love to hear what other folks like to use in their classes. What are some of your favorite videos to use in the classroom for information literacy instruction?

RefWorks

“Founded in 2001 by a team of experts in the field of bibliographic database management, RefWorks is dedicated to providing a high quality web-based research management, writing and collaboration tool for the academic, government and corporate research communities. Used daily by thousands of researchers in over 900 organizations globally, RefWorks supports hundreds of online databases and output styles covering a broad range of subject areas. RefWorks collaborates with some of the world’s most prestigious online information service providers including ProQuest, BioOne, EBSCO, Elsevier, HighWire, H.W. Wilson, ISI, OCLC, Ovid and Serial Solutions, to name a few.”

What comes to mind when you read that description? It sounds very serious and scholarly. They use words like “prestigious” and “experts.” This product seems designed for people who value quality, organization, and serious research. Now read the description of EasyBib:

EasyBib

“When we (Neal and Darshan) were in high school, we each had a huge writing assignment. We found that the most tedious part of our paper wasn’t the writing or the researching, but the bibliography itself. We had to constantly refer to our citation guides to figure out how to cite sources and where to put the periods, commas, and underlines.

Needless to say, we thought this would be a perfect application for the Web. After a few months of figuring out all the bibliography rules (Neal) and coding the site (Darshan), the first version of EasyBib launched in February 2001.

Eight years later, EasyBib is now the largest online bibliography site on the Web, visited by millions of students per month. We’ve expanded our team with some of the smartest people out there, and are going to continue building products that make life easier, faster, and better for our users.”

This description on the other hand sounds a lot less serious. This product was not created by a “team of experts.” It was created by a couple of high school kids who were annoyed with having to create a bibliography. The reason they created it is because the wanted to “make life easier, faster, and better.” That’s a great mission to have.

Looking at both of these companies they are very different, but they are trying to solve the same problem. One company sells subscriptions directly to researchers or institutions. The other company has a freemium model that allows students to create MLA citations for free, but also has paid versions with additional bells and whistles. It’s important to recognize that the way these companies solve the problem of citations appeals to different sorts of people. They both work well, but in very different ways.

My colleague Sarah, raves about RefWorks, but she is a serious researcher. And that it seems, is the market that RefWorks attracts. Faculty, grad students, researchers, anyone who is generating serious research would find RefWorks incredibly useful. Undergrads though are not serious researchers. They need to do some exploration and research, but they’re not going to be saving citations for another scholarly paper that they want to get published. They want to easily finish their bibliography with the least amount of hassle. Hence, whenever I ask what students use to do their citations in information literacy sessions, I always hear several students mention EasyBib.

In order to innovate as librarians, we must first look around and ask “what are the problems that our users need to have solved?” In this case it was the problem of citations. These problems that we identify are the opportunities for innovation. Then, we have to be careful while designing the solution and take into account our audience. Are we designing it for librarians and faculty (RefWorks)? Or are we designing it for undergraduate students (EasyBib)? EasyBib was designed by high school students. Perhaps our users should be intimately involved in the design and creation of new library services. Who knows, maybe they could even get academic credit for it…

Let me explain by way of several examples. A couple librarians from St. Michael’s College talked about a scheduling software called Acuity. They use this software to schedule research consultations with a librarian. On their library website a student clicks on a link that says “schedule a research appointment.” They are then taken to a form where they can choose a time and librarian that fits into their schedule. By filling out this form the student commits to a block of time with a reference librarian.

The opposite of this is a student who comes to the desk in between class or last minute and say they need some sources to finish their project. By not committing to taking time to research the result is haphazard and is perhaps not as successful. On the other hand, the St. Mike’s librarians said that they found the scheduled appointments to be some of the best sessions for both themselves and students. Students who commit to a block of time are able to explore their topic in depth as well as areas that they can pursue further.

The same is true for commitment in the classroom. In our information literacy sessions with first-semester first-years at Champlain College, we have them respond to poll questions using Poll Everywhere. Instead of asking them a question and wanting one or two of them to respond vocally to us, we have every one of them respond using their mobile phones. This makes them think about the choice and pick an option. After that, we ask them why they chose what they did. Because every one of them has picked something it is easier for them to explain a choice rather than make a choice in front of other people. This commitment makes them more willing to be engaged in the discussion.

It’s not always possible, but I’ve found that if you can find a way to make students commit, either at the desk or in the classroom, the results are often much better. Have you seen other examples of this?

Our presentation was about using technology in the classroom, specifically videos from YouTube and mobile polling via PollEverywhere. We have a lot of fun integrating these technologies, but we also realize they can be overused or used haphazardly.

In our information literacy sessions, we teach using the inquiry method. In designing our sessions then, we use technology as a jumping off point that allows students to start asking questions and struggling with real world situations. Technology isn’t the point of our sessions. Instead we use it in a way that sparks discussion and engagement that goes past the tech and into the minds of our students. Here are the slides from our presentation:

Professor’s give out assignments. They grade and judge students. They make students, gasp, work hard! They try to challenge their students and take them out of their comfort zones. This can be stressful for students. It can leave them feeling overwhelmed and confused. Professors are basically like the cop in every movie yelling at the suspect telling them that ” they do bad things to students like you in summer classes.”

Librarians on the other hand are not grading students. We offer a welcoming supportive environment, where students can feel free to ask without being judged. We are not going to yell at a student if they haven’t done the reading, or in our case, don’t know how to use a book or locate it in the stacks.

I often say things to students like: “yeah, this is a pretty difficult assignment, but I know some great places we can look to make it easier.” Or, “I see that your frustrated that your professor is requiring at least one book and one scholarly article, but he/she is probably trying to get you to see why each is important. Let me explain what each one is good for.” I try to create an environment of empathy and understanding where students feel safe to explore and make mistakes.

I have to admit that there are definitely times when librarians challenge students and professors usually try to create safe environments, but I often see our roles following this “good cop, bad cop” framework. We are both working towards the same goal. We are just helping students learn in different ways.

Developing for mobile devices

With the introduction of mobile devices and especially smartphones, it gives us more decisions about what we should be developing. Should we create an app? Should it be for iPhone or for Android? Or iPad? Should we create a page for feature phones? Alexander contends that with the recession and lack of resources we should not lose sight of using HTML and the web for development.

New challenges for IT on campuses

IT used to only have to support PCs or Macs. Now they have an increasing number of computing devices that are in their purview such as tablets and smartphones. Talking to the Mac guru on my campus, he told me that these days every students has probably three IP addresses (connected gaming consoles, tablets, iPod touches, laptops, netbooks, desktops, etc.). With all of these new devices there is additional strain on network resources.

Augmented reality

I really enjoy the way Alexander describes augmented reality, which too often seems simply like a novelty for people with smartphones. But he talks about it in a very different, almost poetic way: “I don’t just mean the single type that people might know of people pointing a phone at something and having digital content superimposed on it. That’s one valid type, but I mean the fact of having physical locations infested, enriched by digital content… like a second atmosphere settling onto the earth’s surface… It’s reinventing the notion of space that we inhabit.”